Hello Toronto! Plenty of heart, art and creativity here...

Toronto began for us on a sweltery Friday evening. Unusually sweltery apparently - it's officially a heatwave there. And yes, the heat, humidity and hard surfaces combined to make some of our days there feel like 44degC. I discovered that I could get to like shopping malls quite a lot, if only for their air conditioning!

On that first Friday we were welcomed by Thomas to Kim and John's house in Moore Park. Kim knew me a little through work from several years ago and had very generously offered us the use of their home while they were away. How's that for heart??! It was so welcome that Friday as we hauled our weary bodies inside and collapsed on our beds (then realised how hungry we were and quickly ordered takeaways!). 

Surrounded by large trees in a similarly leafy neighbourhood, it not only had air conditioning but 2 friendly cats and great access to the subway and with that, to the rest of the city. So, with some rest we set about discovering it... Dylan was keen on another Hard Rock experience and showed that his newly emerged appreciation of labels is only growing as we trekked through the Eaton Centre (sigh).

But there is more to Toronto than that! We stumbled upon markets and celebrations and we loved the pianos dotted around the city centre, free for people to play. Both visual and aural works of art (mostly!), they got people who didn't know each other talking and laughing and clapping. Beautiful!

Toronto clearly has heart, art and creativity!

Denise