An Old Friend and a New Friend

We awoke to a beautiful day in the Toronto Islands. The birds were singing, the monarchs were fluttering, the turtles were sunning, and the swans were preening. I walked to the bathhouse for a shower and along the way passed the RCYC version of the Brantford Beer Bike. The Brantford Beer Bike is a local classic and could be described as a 1980's 10-speed with the curvy handles turned backwards and pointed up such that it easily carries 12 pack and you over to your buddy's place on Murray Street to drink on the front steps. The yacht club version is different, and holds only a single glass of wine, but is perfect for getting you to your rich friends' yacht faster, and you can be sure they'll have plenty of fine wine so no need to bring more than a starter glass.

RCYC operates two small and classic passenger boats to transport members and guests to and from the islands and we took the first of the day to Cherry Street, which is in the rapidly developing Portlands area of Toronto, just east of downtown. Once there we did what we do best - started walking. The area is a mix of ancient port operations - hulking and rusted machinery, lift bridges, ships, loading channels, steel cranes and towers, and piles of aggregate, but interspersed around these were modern additions such as huge outdoor concert venue, two new colourful bridges, and a newly constructed and massive green space named Biidaasige Park, which doesn't just guarantee progress towards Canada's reconciliation efforts with First Nations, but also ensures that nobody will ever be able to remember the name nor be able to pronouce it properly. I'm sure somebody will come up with clever and easy-to-remember nickname.

The park is the result of a massive $1.4 billion redevelopment effort to improve flood water management by rerouting the Don River back to its original path after a hundred years of diverting it to better allow companies to use it as a toilet for their toxic waste. But a secondary goal was to make the Portlands a beautiful place to play and live. And they are well on the way to doing this.

It is a lovely spot. Amidst the four kilometres of natural walking trails are paddling waters, an incredible playground with giant snowy owl, public art installations, and several viewpoints. The playground was full of kids and parents. And one parent acting like a kid. Me.

From here we walked a short distance to the Distillery District, putting us into Toronto proper, and we enjoyed some hot drinks as we lounged in the warm sunshine. Magnus, who moved back to Toronto earlier this week to complete his last year of college, wandered over from his residence to hang with us for a while. He is so happy to be back in Toronto and excited to get started on his final year. It's hard for me to believe he has already been at it for three years and will soon be a fully educated young Canadian looking to make his unique mark on the business world. Hopefully, the mark is not writing "DD" on Tim Horton's cup lids during the midnight shift trying to raise enough money from that and his other part time gigs to cover rent.

After a bit of shopping and exploring, we went to St. Lawrence Market for a spot of lunch (Portuguese bifinas for Magnus and Ana, a falafel meal for me), then met up with our old friend Carmen and her partner Antonio. Carmen and Ana go way back, like to the days of rocking mini-skirts and fluffy hair at the late night raves in the pursuit of big city Toronto studmuffins. Carmen also joined us in The Hague to work on a big oil company project Ana and I were on in the early 2000's and we spent a lot of time together. She is such a great friend, but despite living so close to each other, we rarely catch up.

Carmen was shocked to see the manly state and towering stature of our little boy Magnus. He stayed for a few minutes to chat then was off, leaving us to get to know Antonio. Well, Antonio is one cool dude. He's a dapper looking Italiano with a great sense of humour, a musical rhythm to his voice and stride, and a carefully manicured Van Dyck beard. Plus he wears a bitchin' hat.

We visited for several hours, first at St. Lawrence, then got wise and found a perfect patio at Duke's on Front Street and enjoyed a plate of nachos and several pints as the unbroken conversation meandered and weaved through soccer, music, family, and I can't remember what else. Then, Happy Hour arrived and I was ecstatic to see five dollar pints of PBR on the menu. I don't think Antonio knew about Pabst Blue Ribbon, but after seeing me devour a pint of the cheapest and funnest shitty lager on the planet, he had to get one of his own. We were on a roll, feeling loose and tight, and left Duke's looking for the next place to saddle up and pound some more beers when Carmen announced she had to deliver some soup to her mom. Look, I understand how important parental soup runs are, but drinking on patios in Toronto is important too. I was going to suggest that Ana and Carmen do the soup run while Antonio and I carried on the good fight, but before I could stop the train there was a flurry of huggies and kissies then they disappeared into the crowd. Fortunately, they committed to coming to Paris for a weekend sometime in the coming months, so we can pick up where we left off then.

It was 6pm and we needed a plan. Remembering that Cineplex was offering five dollar movies and five dollar popcorn this weekend (surely because of the dismal selection of movies currently playing, including the god-awful, painfully bad, stinker of a film called The Odyssey), we walked to Dundas Square and settled in to watch The End of Oak Street. And for what it was, it was pretty good. And I'm glad the dinosaur ate Ewan McGregor, he deserved it after the atrocious American accent he was trying to put on. He should just stick to Scottish flicks.

The temperature was still lovely and the city night was electric so we decided to take the long walk back to Cherry Street, thinking maybe we'd hit a pub along the way, but realized we were cutting it close to catch the last ferry back to the yacht club, so we strolled our way south, which turned into a speed walk, which morphed into a jog, then transformed into a sprint when we saw the ferry pulling up to the bridge and realized we were barely going to make it. It didn't help that there was a huge concert (an EDM/rapper guy we'd never heard of, and Drake made a surprise appearance) that night at the Portlands outdoor stage and there were hundreds of people clogging up the sidewalks.

We made the ferry, had another private ride back to the club, and walked back to SeaLight through a quiet, dark, and undisturbed island landscape, still finding it incredible that a place like this exists 1.79 kilometres away from the largest city in Canada.