Now I've had the chance to sit back and reflect...
I enjoyed a truly wonderful trip to Toronto in May to visit schools and libraries, and to participate in the OLA Festival of Trees event. Too little time/energy to blog on the road. But here are the highlights.
The Bond Place Hotel, just around the corner from Dundas Square (the wanna-be Times Square that is quite wonderful in its garishness and lively street life) was the perfect place to be based. Despite facility renovations and an overcrowded breakfast room, the hotel had everything I needed (including a TV, with 24 channels of nothing worth watching - I get excited when I see a TV as I don't have one at home - and close enough to everything downtown a person could possibly want.
I’d originally planned to stay at a student budget hotel, but opted for a conventional accommodations so I could take advantage of door-to-door Airport Express service - I was packing around stacks of books, bookmarks and presentation materials - and in-room wi-fi.
And so on my first night I ventured out for a late dinner at Johnny Rocket’s hamburger joint in Dundas Square – authentic surroundings, loud music, ketchup served in a smiley face on my plate (the food itself hardly bears discussing).
Next day was relatively leisurely, with a visit to Forest Hill Library on Eglinton. Which meant I got to ride the subway, then walk miles along this main thoroughfare, exploring the various neighbourhoods – working class apartment buildings for a few blocks, then lovely homes on treed for a few more, funky stores – for a couple of hours before I made my presentations to about four classes of students from Oriole Drive School.
Not everyone had read my book, but the students, teachers and accompanying parents were attentive and responsive, and I got to air out my told creation story and the information I would present in one form or another for the next few days.
Next morning I ventured down to Union Square station at an ungodly hour for the bus ride out to Milton, where I was scheduled to spend the day at E.W. Foster Public School. I’d hoped for the GO train (Loved trains all my life, and rarely get to travel on anything other than Skytrain in Vancouver, which isn’t the same thing.) But the GO takes on the identity of a train only on incoming journeys into TO in the mornings and outgoing at the end of the day. As I was travelling against the traffic, it was a relaxing bus ride through the outskirts of TO and into the country.
Had a fine time at the school - and a very busy day. A keynote to almost the entire school star
I enjoyed a truly wonderful trip to Toronto in May to visit schools and libraries, and to participate in the OLA Festival of Trees event. Too little time/energy to blog on the road. But here are the highlights.
The Bond Place Hotel, just around the corner from Dundas Square (the wanna-be Times Square that is quite wonderful in its garishness and lively street life) was the perfect place to be based. Despite facility renovations and an overcrowded breakfast room, the hotel had everything I needed (including a TV, with 24 channels of nothing worth watching - I get excited when I see a TV as I don't have one at home - and close enough to everything downtown a person could possibly want.
I’d originally planned to stay at a student budget hotel, but opted for a conventional accommodations so I could take advantage of door-to-door Airport Express service - I was packing around stacks of books, bookmarks and presentation materials - and in-room wi-fi.
And so on my first night I ventured out for a late dinner at Johnny Rocket’s hamburger joint in Dundas Square – authentic surroundings, loud music, ketchup served in a smiley face on my plate (the food itself hardly bears discussing).
Next day was relatively leisurely, with a visit to Forest Hill Library on Eglinton. Which meant I got to ride the subway, then walk miles along this main thoroughfare, exploring the various neighbourhoods – working class apartment buildings for a few blocks, then lovely homes on treed for a few more, funky stores – for a couple of hours before I made my presentations to about four classes of students from Oriole Drive School.
Not everyone had read my book, but the students, teachers and accompanying parents were attentive and responsive, and I got to air out my told creation story and the information I would present in one form or another for the next few days.
Next morning I ventured down to Union Square station at an ungodly hour for the bus ride out to Milton, where I was scheduled to spend the day at E.W. Foster Public School. I’d hoped for the GO train (Loved trains all my life, and rarely get to travel on anything other than Skytrain in Vancouver, which isn’t the same thing.) But the GO takes on the identity of a train only on incoming journeys into TO in the mornings and outgoing at the end of the day. As I was travelling against the traffic, it was a relaxing bus ride through the outskirts of TO and into the country.
Had a fine time at the school - and a very busy day. A keynote to almost the entire school star
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