the only problem with Shwarma is the 5 hours after where you just sit there , without the ability to move or even breath, typing is hard as well, how ever only 72 hours ago Shwarma seemed liked the greatest thing in the world. not the crappy shwarma , but the good one, the kind you travel for.
well , that wasn't the main thing , just a great secondary reason for us going to Toronto. On Thursday evening I finished a presentation in my summer class which was part made up and the other invented about Mianmar and Burma, a non yet visited country. it was about how you shouldn't use the name Burma in miamar ( not true!) , the presentation focused on delivery, not content. as usual I went to the little presenters room 2-3 times in the half hour before class. I was set to go first, this time i was 4th in the raffle, but I traded up to be 1st. as my visual i wrote Burma and Mianmar on the black board, lucky another student caught my spelling mistake before the presentation began. Nervous as always but I think I did OK, answer in a few days.
an hour after class we were packed and ready to go, time was 10 PM , the Snowman CD was in (thriller book) and we started the 5 hour drive. at 3:30 we crashed at a lousy clean looking but stinky motel and at 6 AM I woke up and went to the airport to pick up Amit, who had a 12 hour layover. we were zombies from the night drive an he from the night flight and in half asleep state we drove to down town Toronto for a walking tour of cabbage town. this is a very cute neighborhood named after cabbages grown in the front lawns by the Irish. Not sure how many Irish are left now, but there are no more cabbages, Instead, there is a very cute gay full area. we started our walking tour passing some closed churches and closed botanical gardens till we reached Daniel and Daniel, a bakery and started our day with some needed goodies to keep up form going full zombie. then we walked around discovering little cute signs and gratify. The tour took us to a little antique show where a man in a colorful shirt notice were were on tour (this was a printed tour, no guide) of some kind , and said he was a tour guide him self and started explaining about the area, then told us of a little ice cream place run by his boy friend. It occurred to me that Richard (that was his name) was gay. not that there is anything wrong with that but I didn't catch that, is every slim guy in a nice shirt in an antique store gay? well not sure, I could say i was tired to notice but my tour buddies knew it, once again i find my gaydar broken. a few minutes later we passed by a per shop with a huge lizard statue in front and I don't recall the exact line but a question was asked on why go in the pet store with a response "maybe they have pets there", well, its not hilarious now, but then it was funny as hell, perhaps it was the zombie state. that shop did have pets including some talking parrots and some bird food. we kept going passing small garden houses with flowers where cabbage used to be. for some reason a grave yard is an attraction on the tour, we didn't linger and moved to the animal farm across the street which had chickens, goats, horses, cows, pigs, seeps and donkeys and this is in the down town area! after that we found the hole in the wall where Richard's boy friend (who is also gay, i think) sold us Ice Cream. we kept walking and reached a new place called merryberry, this place was also recommended by Richard (perhaps we should have bought something at his store). they said since its a new place, they try hard. the place looked nice and we sat in the back patio and caught up on old times and repeated Simpsons jokes. this interesting place had some unique flavors including the mother of all burgers, that is what they called it- Portobello mushroom, strawberries, humus, goat cheese and avocado - Yes i agree, sounds horrible, but both Amit and Alla enjoyed this meatless burger very much. i really liked my chicken burger with some unique sauces. it was time to go, unfortunately and we drove in traffic to drop Amit back at the airport, short visit. after that we seriously needed to crash but we had to check in to our deluxe hostel. the problem is parking. a private parking next to the hostel, bills by the half days, if you come in at 4 pm , they charge 15$ till 6PM , it will be the same if you come at 8 am, its a day charge. we were tired but not tired enough and went to find another parking lot. found it but they wanted cash, and both of us didn't have any , we almost never use cash anymore, so we started walking looking for an ATM, found it, but forgot the card that allows withdrawals, headed back to the car, took the right card, headed back for the ATM, the password doesn't work, headed back to the car to find the password (it was stashed so well we couldn't find it ourselves), cash less, we drove to find another parking lot, this one with an hourly pay, we did and finally got to our deluxe hostel and crashed. few hours later we walked up queens street heading for Prague, I love Czech food and Toronto on a Friday night is buzzing but unfortunately the restaurant was closed how ever 3 doors down stood a crepe place. it was meant to be, this place doesn't use Nutella like most places but melted chocolate instead, mmmmmmmmmmm. we walked back on queen and enjoyed the scene till we passed a cinema and stopped to watch the avengers, very good movie but the best thing was the coke machine. not for me , i am coke free for 7 months , but my still addicted partner sampled this machine with a touch screen to choose from over 100 brands of coke, I didn't know they had so many. after this ultimate coke experience and the movie we returned to the hostel and retired for the night.
Next morning I had a pancake and went to feed the machine at the parking lot, and a while later we started our walking tour of the st Lawrence area, we passed the less then impressive Union station as the guide says but heard some interesting facts about Israeli food and where to go get it, more on that later. on our way to the market we stumbled on a dog fair, with hundred or so booths relating to dogs, dog food, dog treats, dog spray, dog clothing including outfits for the soccer euro tournament! yes for dogs, the crowd were dog owners with their dogs , literally hundreds of dogs of all types, and the were all behaved, no one barked! are they all on Ritalin? after an hour or more of staring at cute dogs we reached the market. this market has lots of market type food, fish monger, cheese monger, butcher, vegetables, the usual stuff but also lots of places serving meals, so we had no choice but to sample. the ravioli was a mistake, it was very good with a mix of tomato, pesto and Alfredo sauce, but filling , and left us little room to stuff our self with other things such as yummy feta burekas for me and pirogi and potato latkes for Alla. we spent a couple of hours in the market then walked by some gardens and passed the Toronto version of hertzel street- full of furniture stores, hell for me but hellllo for Alla. I don't know what wrong about our plastic folded table? its all the same when you cover it with a table cloth!
later took a cab to china town and did another walking tour of that area including an out of tour stop at a Chinese parlor for a foot massage. never had one before, very nice, i think i dose in the middle for a while, rejuvenated we kept walking ,stopping at herbal shops and various crafts places, by the time we reached Kensingon, a tiny street behind the main drag of China town which had nothing Chinese, it was almost all closed, this street had Tibetan, Nepalese, Jamaican, Jewish stores and other kinds, selling 2nd hand stuff and oriental wares. it was getting late and we were getting tired but not hungry so we did what we had to , and drove to the Sababa , the Israeli restaurant. this over 40 minute drive to the suburbs led us pass Me Ve Me, another Israeli restaurant that Alla likes from a previous visit and we stopped there. some years ago Me Ve Me was a trendy Israeli chain that did very well but something happened, don't recall the details, but i think the health department was involved, not certain, the chain closed, not sure if there is any relation to this place other then the name.
relation or not we were salivating, there is no similar place in Cleveland, they have some fake stuff. the Falafel was amazing, the spicy Moroccan cigars incredible, the humus was great but they had no Shwarma, so i tried a plate of humus and lamb meat on it with onion so tender (i dislike onion texture) that the texture was not noticeable. Alla tried the Israeli salad as well, rice and Shipud pargiot, so tender... I also ordered a fruit shake- orange juice base with banana and pineapple. so good. it's not that we lack good food, but we lack this food. after slowly getting up from the table we considered watching another movie, but the cinema we found had its last show and we returned to the hostel for a digestive overnight rest.
the next morning before we packed up, Alla devoured the left overs and i couldn't have a bite. we went to the harbour and took a ferry to Toronto islands, with hundreds of tronotian with us going to the lovely island beaches.
this tiny archipelago is a group of green islands, with real sandy beaches, lots of trees, disc golf courses, bike rentals and some lucky people live there. we walked for an hour or so on the trails, enjoying the green and the flowers, then rented bikes and cycled through the other half of the island. the island map had a curious area. clothes optional beach. of course there was no alternative but to check it out. I have been to one of these beaches in the past but never truly spent time in them. we went with the optional choice and kept our clothes on, many others did, but many didn't. it is quite shocking. one lady was bathing with her dog running around with nothing but her birthday suit. 2 man and a woman walking together, one mand holding hands with the woman and they are all nude. a family of 2 parents and 2 kids! all nude, the oldest is around 10 I think. we tried to enter the freezing water, but it was freezing, we barely got our knees wet, then we took our bikes and walked to the other side of the beach maintaining our state of shock. gay couples were every where but we didn't see Richard and his possibly gay partner. we used the last of our cash for the bikes (oh, we had the right password after all, just stupid ATM wasn't working well), it was now after 2 pm and still no breakfast or lunch but i was starting to get hungry, and we drove again to Me ve Me and enjoined a similar meal to the day before but this time with Shwarma, but the time it arrived I was full, ate a few bites and took the rest home.
6 hours later we arrived home to see flowers waiting (it was our 2nd 2nd wedding anniversary weekend) from Alla's mom.
next evening , I ate the left over shwarma , with the great humus we took from them and then i was lying on the couch , no ability to move, waiting for the cocooning process to begin...
cheers
photos will arrive this week
