Reflections after my brother's visit: Toronto - Viewed through
the eyes of European Visitors
>From August 27 to September 6 I had four visitors from Europe in
town: my brother Ewald, his wife Anneliese and their two friends
- my neighbours from my home town in Austria, Luis and Isabella.
You may wonder why this is such a big deal that I need to write
about it.
For me this was a huge deal since it was the first time that my
brother came to visit me since I immigrated to Canada in 1986.
Because of our 9 year age difference we didn't have a chance to
spend that much time together when I was young, and my brother
wasn't big on flying in the first place. But we hatched the idea
of a joint vacation last year, during my first visit back to my
home town in 8 years.
So to me this was a very big deal. For our four visitors it was
a pretty big affair as well since they had never travelled to
North America. After all these 9 days in Toronto were their
first exposure to the New World. We managed to cram a lot of
things into these nine days: a visit to Niagara's Wine Country,
a country driving tour of the Kawartha Lakes, various bicycle
tours of Toronto, checking out Toronto's waterfront, Toronto
Island, the Eastern and Western Beaches, the Humber River,
downtown Toronto with the CN Tower and many of Toronto's
neighbourhoods, including Greektown, Chinatown (East and West),
Kensington Market, Little India, Rosedale, Forest Hill, Bloor
West Village and so many other special spots that Toronto has to
offer.
They enjoyed the Toronto's architectural preservation efforts
visible in the historic Distillery District or the renovated CN
roundhouse that now features the Steam Whistle Brewery. Along
the way they managed to photograph many vintage cars and trucks,
even a 1950s style hearse in the town of Bobcaygeon. They also
fell in love with the Kawartha Lake Region, and ideas of coming
back to Canada to rent a houseboat and explore the Trent-Severn
Canal System started to percolate.
Of course our European visitors commented on the different
dimensions of things, such as the size of cars, of
super-markets, even of squirrels in the park, everything seemed
just a little larger. Our visitors commented on the
sophisticated display rooms and restaurants at Ontario's
wineries, the surprisingly excellent quality of the wines
(Ontario's wines are not very well known in Europe), as well as
the friendliness of service personnel at the wineries, and in
various other stores and restaurants around town. We even had a
variety of friendly interchanges with dog-walkers, people on the
street and lawn bowlers. Toronto definitely showed its best side
during these 9 days, and the perfect weather just added to the
experience.
Our European visitors are all active people who enjoy exploring
and Luis and Isabella in particular are athletes who enjoy
biking, hiking, tennis, skiing etc. I took them around on
mountain bikes and they loved exploring the city in this way. My
husband Nigel, an avid golfer, gave them some golfing lessons at
the driving range, and added some putting lessons on the carpet
in our house. We all went on a fun outing to a par-3 golf course
on the outskirts of Toronto. It was their first initiation to
golf and they had a ball, and decided to explore this activity
further once they get back to Europe.
With our bicycles we explored the Don River Valley and many of
the ravines that criss-cross the Toronto landscape and the
comments that came back from my European gang were time and time
again about how green Toronto is, and how it doesn't feel like a
large urban metropolis, full of concrete and devoid of green
spaces and recreational areas. They talked about the liveability
of this city, that you don't even need to leave Toronto to enjoy
the water and the green spaces, or even off-road mountain
biking.
My brother in particular, was amazingly enthusiastic about his
time in Toronto. He loved the ethnic neighbourhoods and said he
could spend days just exploring Chinatown. He also mentioned
that he never felt an uncomfortable feeling of racial tension in
any of the neighbourhoods, the way he had experienced it in some
areas in various European cities. And they all felt safe, even
though we took the subway and explored some of the less affluent
areas of the city.
Our four visitors were the most considerate guests you can ever
imagine. They took over the kitchen, with my brother, a
consummate chef, whipping up gourmet meals every day, using
fresh Ontario ingredients. Since I still had to work on
different occasions during their stay, they cleaned the house,
watered the flowers, even mowed the lawn. You couldn't imagine a
better group of guests that would be more considerate and
helpful. This 9-day sleepover was one of the most positive
intense experiences I have ever had.
Yesterday, I rode down to the Beaches for the first time again
since my four special visitors had left. I cycled around all the
places that I had taken them, where they had posed for photos
and commented on their experiences. And it was amazing how much
I missed them, how empty the house felt without them, how deep
an impression these 9 days left. I have already touched base on
the phone with them a couple of times to make sure they arrived
safely and to tell them how much I missed them.
Now I am looking forward to planning another get-together, for
some more joint activities, whether it be in Canada, Austria, or
somewhere in between.