Exploring, Toronto & Dessert

At the end of the school year, my friends and I made a resolution for next year. It’s not that we didn’t have a great time this year (we did!) but there was one thing we definitely didn’t explore as much as we would have liked to: the city.

A lot of my friends seem to come from small towns/far away and so it makes sense that they haven’t seen much of Toronto. I, on the other hand, grew up in Brampton, right in the GTA! Now, that said, I rarely had any reason to come into the city and while I’ve done the obligatory CN Tower trips with visiting relatives, it was never really something that I did just for myself. Despite this, I’ve been feeling like I should be a lot more well-acquainted with Toronto than I am and that feeling has really thrown me off. I’m usually always eager to explore if I’m visiting somewhere new, something the pages of browser history dedicated to fun spots in cities I’ll be visiting later this summer can attest to. Exploring Toronto should be more or less the same thing but being new in a city that’s so close to home has left me feeling less excited than usual.

Logically, I know this makes zero sense, especially when I really know NOTHING about what the city has to offer. I want to feel at home in Toronto. My sister and I took the GO bus down to the ACC last week for Stars on Ice (!!!) and it was a lot of fun just looking around for a place to eat before the show. I need to stop feeling uncool for geeking out over cool things in Toronto!

This year, my friends and I did lots of fun things together but we didn’t really leave campus much. Who needs the subway when you’ve got froyo at Keele a shuttle ride away or popcorn and a movie down in the common room? (Hint: Me) When I left campus one afternoon to grab some ice cream with a friend when the sun was (finally!) shining, we were both a little regretful that we hadn’t made better use of our proximity to the city to try new things and see new places. It’s not a big deal with only one year behind us but I don’t want to be at the end of my degree with only a handful of excursions off campus to show for it.

Come September, I want to be a tourist again. There’s so much to explore in Toronto and I’ve only seen a tiny sliver of it. I don’t even know the best dessert places to go!! Rest assured that this time next year, I will be an expert on where to go for ice cream and pie 😉

I need to see more of this beautiful city!