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8 Hours in Toronto

the shortest long layover

By Elias Julian

December 8^th, 2016

Long layovers typically go one of two ways. Either you spend it lounging in the airport with the best of intentions, only to deeply regret your decision halfway through; OR you take a little risk and leave the airport to get a brief taste of what the city has to offer, even if it means potentially missing your connecting flight. I'll always choose the latter.

Off to the 6 we go.

We took the Union Pearson Express from Pearson International downtown and it was a pretty short train ride. Probably 20 minutes one way. As the name would suggest, it lets out at Union Station which is only a short walk away from the CN Tower, so naturally that was our first stop.

Once we got to the top of the CN Tower, everyone was clambering to get a glimpse of city skyline, ya know, cause it's the tallest building in the world and whatnot. But, I hung back for a minute and got this shot instead. I enjoy it so much more than the skyline photos I took.

Then we set off to find burgers and poutine. I'd heard good things about P&L burger and knew generally what neighborhood it was in, so we wandered for a while.

We admired some of Frank Gehry's work at the Art Gallery of Ontario and meandered through the city's impressively large chinatown district.

Post-burger-and-poutine was definitely a struggle (well worth it), but there was no time for slowing down. We only had a few hours to roam Toronto before heading back to the airport and were not about to waste any time.

We found our way over to Kensington Market to check out some of the local shops, and found this gem of a Drake sitting on the CN Tower enamel pin. Immediately pinned it to my cap where it remains even as I'm typing this nearly 2 months later.

When we heard that there was an ice cream/coffee shop named Sweet Jesus, it was immediately added to our list of things to check out. And we also lucked out with some beautiful afternoon Canadian light. It just so happened to strike this stained glass window perfectly as we were walking back towards Union Station.