A Week on the Twenty-Eighth Floor in Toronto #travelwithme
Hello jet-setting friends,
Last week, this West Coast girl red-eyed it to Toronto, and while my thirty-something body struggled to catch up with just a few hours of semi-conscious shuteye, I felt back in my element solo exploring a new city. A decade ago, I landed in Australia and fell in love with walking the cities and beaches on my own. When I travelled to Italy earlier this year, I missed the independence of solo travel, each second holding on to the essence of spontaneity (although don’t get me wrong, the trip to Italy was fantastic in its own right!).
Touching down in Toronto and venturing out felt like coming home to myself. I savour the moments to wander, to take a cluster of half-formed exploration ideas and see where they lead me. When I was asked whether I wanted to go to a work conference in Toronto, I knew the answer was yes, and that I would have to add a couple extra days for myself.
These extra days created experiences that made the underwhelming conference catering and long days trapped in the hotel forgivable. I crushed 44,000 steps in my first two days of exploring. I enjoyed solo brunch and sushi dates, markets with street busking blues tunes, drop-in house and Beyoncé dance classes, the latter of which involved a significant amount of hair whipping and mild whiplash symptoms during the conference (but, 100% worth it). I connected with a fellow MBA alumnus for an extra-special unofficial tour of UofT followed by Michelin Guide featured Thai food. Not only did I enjoy the view of the CN tower from my 28th-floor hotel room and multiple vantage points across Toronto, I scoped out the city and Lake Ontario from the 114th floor. Sharks swam over my head as I stood on a conveyor belt at the aquarium and I found a sense of peace watching the ‘rays glide through the water.
I also spent a morning waiting out the rain and catching up on emails and messages to my team back home from within the cult favourite, Nutbar (yes, I got my superfood fix). I hit the hotel gym three times, and sweat (and I mean SWEAT) it out in the sauna. And, of course, I made time for a little shopping and checking out a few local bars and breweries. There was even a post-conference karaoke sesh.
In terms of how I packed so much into what was also a FULL work week (Wednesday was scheduled with work 8am-8pm), all I can say is a change in routine and scene can bring forward revived energy. And of course, it helped that for eight days I was relieved of my duties as a full-time black cat wrangler :P.
Wanderlust, my friends <3
