Tag: canada
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Poor Man’s Shia & Other Things
I’d read somewhere Toronto had a thriving underground nightlife, and my friends were determined to find it. Luckily some Torontonians they’d met on another trip showed us the places to go to be seen. I went along with it, despite my usual desire not to be seen by anyone but the people I want to…
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Subways and Streetcars
It’s easy to get around Toronto. One morning S. and I wandered over to the outskirts of Toronto to a Cambodian restaurant, where she talked to the owner in Cambodianglish for 10 minutes. “I’m proud of myself!” she said afterward. Here, we waited for the streetcar. Just around the corner from our hotel, Union Station.…
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The Art of Undocumenting
“We should plan tomorrow better.” We’d breezed through Kensington Market, a neighborhood in Toronto known for its diverse population, restaurants and nooks, and were in the midst of doing the same to Queen Street West. There went a bookstore, an art gallery, and so on, until we’d passed so many they might as well have…
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Overlooking Toronto
Toronto on the surface pretty much feels like the U.S., except there are slightly different accents, sentences punctuated with “eh” and signs translated in French. Someone lame is a dude bro, and fries with gravy are totally natural. I knew little about Toronto and preferred to keep it that way. “Toronto?” A Canadian friend said…
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A Brush With Royalty
After climbing a hilly sidewalk to get to Casa Loma, we stumbled upon soldiers in uniform. They were lined up facing the mansion, and a small crowd had begun to gather. I saw a woman in black walk solemnly into the house. Was it a funeral? An arrest? We later learned they were celebrating the…