Christmas in Toronto

One of the reasons I moved to Ontario was so that I could explore the city of Toronto more. It is Canada's largest city and it has lots to discover but I have been awful at visiting. I'm not really sure why. I used to go into Vancouver all the time and Toronto's not that much further away. I guess I just need a reason. Anyway, Sunday evening Grace, Esther and I packed up our ice skates and headed into the city with the intention of skating at Nathan Phillips Square and then checking out Eaton Centre. We left Grace's car at a shopping mall just off the 401 and then I drove us down towards the city centre.

In typical Heidi fashion I kind of aimed the direction I needed to go and started driving. Initially I knew I was going the wrong way so I just waited until it was convenient to turn left and then drove that way for awhile. The road curved, and split and I turned once and then I was on a major road which I took until I could turn left again. I was reading street signs but I hadn't actually looked at what road I needed to be on. Sure enough, within about five minutes, our EXACT DESTINATION showed up on the left!!! Amazing! I totally just stumbled on it. Yeah me! LOL

So this was our destination. City Hall (above) which I've never been to before but it's pretty distinctive, and the ice rink at Nathan Phillips Square which is right in front of City Hall. Can you see the CN Tower peeking through the buildings?

I haven't been ice skating since I left BC. I bought skates in January when I had time before Ashley's funeral (Collingwood has a Canadian Tire. How convenient.) But last winter was too mild and I never got a chance to use them. It took a bit to get going but I was impressed with how fast I managed to move. The rink is a good size so it didn't feel like you were going in tiny circles and it wasn't very busy which was nice.

The crazy part was the weather. It was WARM. Seven degrees Celsius. You can see from this picture how wet the ice was. It makes for a pretty picture! As long as you didn't fall, the wet ice was actually kind of okay because otherwise it was really chewed up. The wet ice was smoother if that makes sense. I managed to stay upright the whole time as well which is good because otherwise I would have been soaked.

We skated for close to an hour and then changed back into boots and stashed the skates in the car. Then we walked around the outside of Eaton Centre and back through the inside. I posed with a mannequin...

Esther posed with a tree...

And we found the massive Christmas tree and 20 foot tall reindeer inside. The stores in the mall were closing by the time we go there which was fine because we weren't there to spend money anyway. Mostly it was just nice to walk around and enjoy the hustle and bustle of the city during the holidays and spend time with each other. I'm going to miss these girls an awful lot while I'm gone!