Filed under: A, Toronto (one of a kind), Travelogue | Tags: A, Ancaster, Canada, dogs, drinking, Earth Hour, Fresh, Kensington, Ontario, party, sushi, Toronto, vegan, vegetarian, winter
My visit home was a whirlwind. Two and a bit weeks flew by so much faster than I anticipated or wanted it to.
My sweetheart of a mother took two weeks vacation to hang out with me, and I spent the majority of my time with her (and not on my thesis).
Major highlights were meeting my new dog, Ella, getting to see R and my grandma a lot, seeing S after we both took our respective exoduses from Toronto, playing our baby grand again, and seeing The Weakerthans. Of course, I was so glad to see the people (Torontonians and Ancastrians alike) whose schedules converged with mine, too.
Ancaster is a bit of a soulsuck to live in. The diversity is minimal and I fear that the people who haven’t yet moved away may be prone to live their entire lives in that monotony (n.b.: it’s what I perceive as monotony; I’m sure it’s just fine for other people and I don’t mean to come across as being offensive). People pontificate about ‘losers on welfare’ at the main gym (Phoenix Fitness – there really isn’t anything more Ancaster than that) and offend apparently nobody. There is just one pub that doesn’t bore me to tears (The Coach and Lantern) and another that I avoid at all costs (The Brassie) because it’s a perpetual high school reunion there, and it’s too much of a mixed bag for me. It still has its upsides; the beautiful Bruce Trail has terrific hiking, and the absence of homelessness and prolificness of in-ground pools should earn the town a moniker of ‘a Shangri-La for Surburbia’.
Going back to Toronto opened the floodgates of emotion for me. It felt as if I’d never left. Sushi for dinner, brunch at Grapefruit Moon, strolling through Kensington for my weird vegan ingredients (nutritional yeast flakes), drinking on a back patio in near-freezing temperatures, going to a random art gallery opening and meeting a childhood acquaintance who I last saw at our mutual friend’s bat mitzvah nearly 12 years ago. This is just an average weekend though it stretched to extraordinary lengths when so many of my friends from undergrad were able to reunite for (a veg(etari)an) dinner at Fresh and we dined by candlelight for Earth Hour.
I can’t wait to move back.
Ella and Sam, aka, Salmonella
Of course, a visit to nearly-springtime southern Ontario wouldn’t be complete without one last snowfall, as seen from my front door.
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