Every January, Rainer and I go on a winter getaway to Toronto. Yes, it’s still Canada. Yes, it’s still winter. But it’s full of new people, interesting shops, great food, and it’s not the same-old same-old. My husband attends a library conference, and lately we have also been able to attend the National Soccer Coaching Conference together. In other words, our bodies may shiver a bit, but our minds get stuffed full of new ideas and new experiences. It’s a hugely important part of feeling optimistic at this time of year for me.
I have quite a bit of family in the area, and we try to stay with someone for at least part of the week as well as catching up with others over lunch or coffee. I’ve also started to meet up with Toronto knitters I’ve met online.
I met up with Ravelry friends AuntTallulah, Maigret, and Ramonafirehorse. I love how I feel completely at ease with online knitting friends when I meet them in the offline world. It’s incredible how generous and fabulous knitters turn out to be over and over again. ❤️
We saw a super-exciting Raptors game that went into overtime. They’ve won both times we’ve been there to watch, so if anyone at the team would like to arrange a stipend and house for us so we can keep attending, we’re open to that…
Bought a little yarn. And then bought more. And then went to a third shop. A fourth. A fifth. (That’s not an exaggeration. Toronto is stuffed with yarn shops – I didn’t even get to them all!) I went to: Knit-O-Matic, Ewe Knit, Purple Purl, Yarns Untangled, and Romni Wools. The best part is how different they are from each other. Every one of them has a different vibe, different set of yarns, different niche. Fabulous.
We always go to Bakka Phoenix – Canada’s oldest sci-fi and fantasy book store. We tell them what we’ve recently read and what we’re in the mood for, and they tell us a bunch of options for what’s next. This year Rainer looked up from his big pile and said, “I kinda want to get nearly all of these, ok?”
(It was ok.)
We mostly walked every where and we love it. So many, many shops and people to peer at. But I also love taking the subway. I grew up about 1500km from the nearest subway and I will probably always feel a little glimmer of delight when taking one.
And then there was the ramen. Yummmmmmmmmm! We ate it for 5 different meals at 4 different shops. We first got interested in it when we watched ‘Mind of a Chef’ from PBS and it was brought home to us that there was ramen soup beyond the 35 cent packages students live on. After walking around in the stiff winds coming off the lake and under those steely grey skies that are an Ontario winter speciality, ramen soup is a big bowl of heaven.