I spent a few days in Toronto on my way from Cuba back to Iceland, and it was a cold, windy weekend. I was staying with a friend who lives a stones throw away from King and Queen street – the main shopping drags – as well as a few blocks from the CN tower, so I couldn’t justify taking any public transport and spent a few days just walking around in the blistering cold. I was wearing my Olympic gear jacket and hat since it was the only winter wear I packed with me and felt like that kid who was wearing clothes that were ´so yesterday.´ My friends lived in one of a set of 2 storey, 150 year old brick buildings that looked like they were straight out of the Mary Poppins movie set!

I wanted to go up the CN tower but it cost a cool $25 just to take the elevator up to the top and look through the glass floor apparently many people dont even have the stomach for. I instead observed it in all its glory from outiside, and was almost blown over by winds so strong that taking a photo of that was difficult.

The highlight of my visit to Toronto was a daytrip I took to Niagara falls, about an hour and a half drive away and directly on the border between Ontario, Canada and NY, USA. It was even more windy and cold there, with some of the water from the falls being blown back up instead of falling down, and coming right over the observation deck and soaking everyone and their cameras. It was soooo horribly cold, and you couldn’t even look directly at the falls since water was literally being thrown in your face, so Im not sure I got the best Niagara experience, but I did have my waterproof camera and managed to get a few shots. Even if you walked a few hundred meters away from the falls along the cliff edge, still with a good view of the falls, it was raining, and with the wind combined, raining horizontally, still going straight into your face. It was like battle of the elements as I struggled to walk forward and in a straight line with winds strong enough to blow you over. The American Falls, a set of falls on the American side of the river and half a km away from the main horseshoe falls, were more tame, and also far away enough not to soak me, so I took a couple photos of that too, but the sight of casinos, and other highrise buildings in the background in Buffalo took something away from this ´natural wonder´attraction.