It’s Josh–When we first left our house for Iceland, we knew that our flight to Toronto was already delayed, meaning that our connecting flight to Iceland was going to be a close call. We went to the airport hoping that our flight wouldn’t be delayed any further or we could find another flight to Iceland or Toronto. Once we arrived, we found out that neither of these things was going to work out, as our plane was further delayed and we had no other flights we could transfer to. This meant that we going to have to stay in Toronto one night and catch the next available plane to Iceland the next night at 9 pm. Because we were going to miss a whole day of Iceland mom and dad had to scramble to rebook and replan the things we were going to do there, eventually deciding that we had to cut out the entire northern part of our trip. While they were doing that, me and Halle were put in charge of finding fun things to do in Toronto the next day. Since we had to have a layober we were glad it was in a place we’ve never been. We can check another country off our list! After searching the internet to find the coolest things in Toronto (blogger moms/travel blogs are the best!) we came up with an entire itinerary for the next day. Our flight to Toronto eventually took off, and we got into Toronto super late at night and stayed in the hotel attached to the airport. The next day we woke up jet lagged and underslept, and began our adventure in Toronto. Though I was sad to be going to Iceland a little later than originally planned and I could barely keep my eyes open in the morning, I was excited to be in the city. I think that planning and picking the things we were going to do was really fun and I think it made me more hyped for what we did.

We started the day by taking an Uber from our hotel to a place called Kensington market were we were going to get breakfast sandwiches at a place that looked good called Egg Bae. When we arrived we found out it was closed possibly due to some sort of holiday, and so we set off in search of somewhere else to get breakfast. We walked along the “market” (it turned out to just be a street with a lot of buildings that sold stuff) and after looking in some shops and at the restaurants went to a bakery with a lot of peach things. Blake also got a hot chocolate from an automated dispenser which was pretty cool to see.

At the bakery, we got a peach pie and some peach soft serve and I got a peach slushee. The peach soft serve was a huge hit and we ate it on our pie which was delicious.

After that, we walked to a place called Grafiti Alley and admired the art there. The alleyway was quite long and was covered almost floor to ceiling two stories high in all sorts of grafiti. We saw it a lot in Toronto but in this alley especially there were a lot of these ducks drawn in a certain cutesy style and I liked the mural of them doing Canadian things such as playing hokey, wearing warm clothes, and being cold.

We then made our way over to the CN Tower, the tallest skyscraper in the Northern Hemisphere, and looked out over the city. The lines were pretty long and it was quite packed, but the views of the city and over the lake it sits on were stunning. There were two viewing levels, a bigger lower one and a smaller upper one and after we looked at the first one we went up to the second one, which I thought was way cooler due to one thing: you could see the tower swaying. While Blake was having none of the swaying or really the heights in general I thought standing on one leg or looking at a pendulum in the tower to see/feel the tower move was super neat.

After we came down we went across the street to a park with a train and ate a beaver tail, a Canadian treat which is basically fry bread with sugary goodness on top of it.

We then walked for a bit over to what is officially titled “The Dog Fountain”. As one could guess, the fountain featured a lot of dogs (27 dogs 1 cat), each spewing water of their mouths. After admiring the dogs for a while we learned that the place we planned on going for dinner, St. Lawrence market (which was a real market!), was closed due to the holiday.

. While we were deciding what to do I remembered this outdoor spot we had passed on our way to the dog fountain that had all sorts of food that looked good. We went there and me and mom shared some Greek and some Indian food which were both delicious along with a mango drink from the Indian place and chips and guac from the Mexican place there with the rest of the family, both of which were also great.

We then headed to the museum whose name I can’t remember to see a Fantastic Beasts exhibit. At the museum we saw some fantastic beasts, some very pretty rocks, rocks that looked like cocks,  some dinosaurs, and a bat cave thing.

After that, we headed back to our hotel to get our bags and go to the airport so that we could finally get to Iceland. I had a great time in Toronto, like I said earlier planning it was very fun and it made the pain of having to miss out on stuff in Iceland a lot more bearable.

And here’s the sunrise as we were flying over Greenland