Day 1 in Toronto

You know that happy place just before you wake up (sort of in between deep sleep and dozing)? Imagine that with the sound of your father in the hallway trying to find your room - at 6:40am. Dad had been up for a little over an hour and wanted to know if we wanted him to get coffees. So began the day.

After the early morning cafine intake, we showered and dressed and went to find breakfast. We were directed by the concierge towards "Cora's". Had a fantastic feed and were ready for our hop on / hop off tour of Toronto.

We had prebooked a Greyline tour, and this picked us up in front of the hotel at 9:50am. We were taken all around Toronto (North/South Loop) and saw (breifly) a number of key landmarks - Roger's Centre, CN Tower, Casa Loma, Eaton Centre, Parliament buildings, City Hall, University of Toronto, bed pan alley (street of hospitals - with litigation specialists on site), entertainment district, and many others.

We did the full loop (without hopping off) and headed for lunch at Shopsy's part way into the second loop. This place is legendary in our family from stories from Meaghan's dad about the great food - he was spot on.

We walked off lunch on our way to CN tower - currently the second tallest free standing building in the world (it used to be first - curse you Dubai!). The ride up 144 stories took only 58 seconds and the views were great. There was a glass floor on the observation deck that really brings home the height of the thing.

Wandered around for another hour or so looking at souveneirs and made our way back to base.

We went to dinner at Wayne Gretsky's restaurant - saw heaps of hockey memorabilia (sticks, jerseys, trophies, pucks). The burgers even came with his number (99) seared into the bun.

So ended day one - photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/29194431@N02/sets/72157607381414832/