Toronto, Canada - Polarsteps

We mainly headed into Toronto to visit my dear friend and several-years roommate Francesca and meet her sweet kiddo for the first time. We were ready for a tough ride and for 65km to stretch out into a long day, but getting into the city was actually so completely fine. The first half of our route took us down a quiet road, gravel and hilly at the beginning but free from heavy traffic until we were in Brampton. Our travel situation is especially strange and out-of-place in a big city, and in Brampton Kini had the hilarious experience of standing in line at Tim Horton's and noticing that all the flies were landing on them, conspicuously labelling them as the stinkiest thing there. Coming into the city, the highway riding we had to do was well-structured for cycling, and we spent a stretch in a protected bike lane running down the centre of six lanes of traffic (one of many bits we captured on Kini's GoPro-- sometime, eventually, we'll get to figuring out how to deal with and share that footage). We spent the better part of a week in the city; many, many thanks to Francesca and Dave for having us, Teddy for the sweet playground hangouts and shooting hoops in the living room, Pierogi and Cricket for all the snuggles, my aunt Jen, uncle Steve, and cousin Allen for the breakfast meet-up (perfect timing!), and Casey for having us for dinner for the second time on this trip (it's wild to cross this geographically massive country and see some of the same faces more than once; the movement of people-- including ourselves-- between cities and provinces has also meant that of all the friends we've gotten to visit along the way, few of them have been in the same place where we first knew them). The last photos are from our last night in Toronto; it was Dave's birthday and we ferried to Centre Island for a picnic, and got to take in the city lights coming back. -Sara