Having decided that we need to go to the US, we also needed to decide where to go. We had friends and family distributed throughout the US, from New York and New Jersey, through West Virginia, Arizona and Southern California. Fortunately, our decision was made relatively easy since it turned out that Anand and Bashi (who live in San Diego) would be in India through late May and early June - and hence we decided to stick to the East Coast. Conversations with people who had been to the States quickly revealed that if we wished to see Niagara Falls, we should do so from the Canadian side - and since we needed to get a Canada visa in any case, we decided to visit Toronto as well.
A holiday with 7 people traveling together is certainly difficult to organise. To add to that, my back had been giving me a problem for a few weeks prior to our trip, and everybody (especially Radhika and Daddy) had been paranoid about that. Fortunately, everything went smoothly on our trip
Day 1 - May 28, 2011
Amma and Appa had decided to spend some extra time with Jayashree and family in New Jersey before the rest of us started our vacation. They set out on May 24th, and reached Newark comfortably.
The rest of us started our vacation on the evening of Friday, May 27. Unlike our last holiday abroad, our trip to the Bombay airport was rather uneventful, we managed to get all our stuff into our car and were dropped at the airport by Ramesh without much ado. Check-in was relatively smooth, but Lufthansa and Air Canada had conspired to give Radhika, Avinash and me three separate seats for our Frankfurt to Toronto leg. While the check in attendant was not able to call up the Air Canada seat map to change our seat allocation, he assured us that this would be taken care of, either at the gate or in Frankfurt.
As we wer
e on our way to immigration, I happened to mention that the Bombay airport operator was now providing strollers for families traveling with children. Avinash happened to hear this, and promptly insisted that we find a stroller for him. Fortunately, when we reached the stroller station, there was one stroller available, chained by an old bicycle lock to a post. We called the number mentioned there, and after about 10 minutes, someone turned up with a key, gave us the stroller, and noted our details down as security for the stroller on his own palm. The stroller itself was about 500 years old, and Avi was virtually scraping the ground when he sat in it. But he insisted on sitting in it.
Immigration was fairly swift, and thanks to Avi and the stroller, we were allowed to bypass the security queue and take the lift down to an alternate security post where there were no other passengers. Despite this, the security checks took a while - as neither us nor the security guards had any clue about how the stroller could be folded to fit into the Xray machine. Finally, we made it to the gate, and also managed to get Radhika's seat on the FRA - YYZ leg changed to be next to Avinash.
On boarding the Lufthansa flight, Avinash had the shock of his life.... There were no individual TV screens for each seat, only an old 20 inch monitor for about 10 or 15 rows. Avinash refused to believe that a plane could be so primitive, and a brief tantrum started, but the air hostess was nice enough to pacify Avinash by giving him a bunch of puzzles. From my perspective, the bigger issue was that leg-room was non existent, and the guys in front of me reclined their seats fully, leaving me with no space at all. The flight left on time, but the lack of space combined with a bit of hypochondria about my back meant that I slept less than 2 hours on the flight. With typical German efficiency, we landed in Frankfurt about 5 minutes ahead of schedule.
Security at Frankfurt was typically efficient (which is why it is my favourite transit airport), and despite only a 2 hour co
nnection, we had enough time to freshen up and grab some coffee and muffins. The Air Canada aircraft was far superior to the LH one (and was similar in configuration to the Jet Airways planes), and there was both adequate leg room and video screens for Avinash. After a rather uneventful flight, we reached Toronto. Immigration was fairly quick despite the long line, and as we approached the baggage reclaim area, Amma and Appa, who had flown in from New Jersey, were waiting for us. I was relieved to note that my back had held up fairly well. The only taxi waiting in the rank was a Dodge minivan with an Indian driver, who agreed to fit all of us and our luggage in for CAD 20 extra. I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of our stuff fitted into the boot even with 7 seats in place, and the rest could be easily accommodated between the seats.
After checking into our rooms, we stopped for a late lunch at a food court across the street from our hotel, and then decided to head to the harborfront area having promised Avi a boat ride. On our way, we diverted to a supermarket to stock up for the next 2 days, and hence it was almost 7 pm by the time we reached the harborfront. To out disappointment, we found that most of the harbour cruises ended around 5 pm. Further, it was bitterly cold, and hence we quickly retreated to the comfort of our hotel. Having succeeded in my objective of getting everyone to stay awake till c 830 pm (barring Avi who slept at a little after 7), I was quite happy with dour first day out.
Day 2 - May 29, 2011
As seems to be usual for our trips abroad (at least those to the West), Avi woke by 3am. He had skipped dinner, and was hungry. Fortunately, we had picked up bread and jam the previous night, and Radhika was able to fix sandwiches for all of us. After that, Radhika and I went back to sleep, but Avi stayed up, occasionally shaking us to ask if it was morning yet. By 630, all of us were up. Nevertheless, it was almost 10 am by the time we got out of the hotel, looking for someplace to have breakfast. There was a Starbucks a few doors from our hotel, and we went there for coffee and snacks.
Just outside, there was an open top tour bus, and after a brief conversation, we signed up for the tour (which also included a 1 hour boat ride). We were told that the tour bus would get us to the harborfront in time to catch the 1130 harbour cruise. As we started the tour, I noticed a number of people marching with Canadian and Israeli flags.... It turned out that there was a march in support of Israel that day. Banners from both the Liberal and Conservative parties, which were vying with each other to claim to be friends of Israel brought out the strength of the Israeli lobby in Canada. The crowd kept building as we approached the harborfront, and the tour guide was forced to announce that the bus would need to skip the harborfront stop due to traffic diversions. We decided to continue on with the tour, and took in the various sites of Toronto including the CN Tower, the Rogers Centre stadium, the RBC building which has gold plated windows, and the Royal York Hotel, which is shaped like a throne, which is where Queen Elizabeth stays when she is in town. The roads were still full of people, and there were a number of other diversions we made, before getting out of the downtown area.
After an interminable crawl, we approached a large shopping mall called Eaton Centre, and decided to hop off the bus there. We spent some time going thru a Sears store, and then grabbed lunch at an Italian restaurant there. We then resumed the tour, going through quaint neighbourhoods, and looking at some Toronto landmarks such as the Royal Ontario gallery, the Bata show museum and the Casa Lova (which was a completely over the top home built by a hydro electricity pioneer, which also had palatial stables with each horse's name engraved in gold). Unlike in the previous open top tour we had done in Paris, noone seemed to get off the bus. 
Overall, Toronto is a pretty city but with nothing exceptional - as my Torontonian friend Prashant put it a little later, it's a great city to live in but with nothing (other than the CN tower) to wow tourists.
The sun started peeping out of the clouds while we were on our tour - and we were able to shed a few layers of sweaters. Seeing the locals dressed in T-shirts and shorts while we were shivering had hammered home how cold this city could be. After completing a full round of the city, we reached the harbour front once again, in time for the 430 cruise. It had become cloudy once again by now, and was also much colder. While waiting for the cruise to start, we could see the planes taking off from the Toronto island airport, which is located on one of the islands in the Toronto harbor.
During the cruise, we ended up spending some time on the upper deck taking in the Toronto skyline, (with Radhika making full use of her new Canon DSLR, experimenting with various types of snaps), but then retereated down to the deck below, unable to take the cold on a pleasantly "warm" Toronto day.
After the cruise, we headed back to the hotel. Radhika, Avi and I were scheduled to go to Prashant's house that day. But Avi was hit by the jet lag, his early start to the day and the cold, and was fast asleep by 6pm. Reluctantly, Radhika and I decided to let him sleep through in the hotel, and went to Prashant's place without him. As we stepped out of the hotel wearing two sweaters each, we found Prashant waiting for us outside his Ford Flex (a really nice car, I must say) dressed in a T shirt and shorts.
We had a great time at Prashant's, being entertained by Rohan and Ranbir, his twin sons, and having a great meal that Rachana and her mom had put together.
Day 3 - May 30, 2011
Despite having slept at 6pm, Avi woke up only at 5 am (which as you can imagine was a relief for both of us). After breakfast in the room, and coffee at Starbucks, we headed for the CN Tower. The CN Tower, as you may be aware, was the world's tallest freestanding structure, until it was surpassed by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Despite it being less than 5 minutes away from our hotel, we took almost an hour getting there - with multiple stops to take different kinds of photos. We booked our tickets to go up to the main Observation Area, and also to the top deck of the tower. We were whisked to the observation area (over 115 stories high) by a swift elevator.
While the sun was out, it was still relatively murky, and the views did not compare to the distant vistas we had previously seen at the London Eye and the Eiffel Tower. After spending almost an hour there, we set out for the top, but to our disappointment, found that access had been stopped due to high winds. We then went down one level to the Glass Floor level. This level literally has a double glazed Glass Floor running around the tower, with a view to the ground over 500 metres below. However, most of the floor is covered with a carpet, with only limited areas exposed to the ground.
This clearly brought out how human psychology works - even though all of us knew there is no difference between the floors in the carpeted and uncarpeted areas, we were fine in the carpeted area, but scared while walking across the glass surface. The only person who was unfazed by the sight of the drop was Avi.
We then went to an Indian restaurant, Dhabha, located on King Street W, and had a great buffet lunch. Clearly, all of us were missing Indian food just 2 days into our trip. After that, since I had a head-ache and Amma was tired, we headed back to the hotel, while the others set out for more mall hopping. I crashed as soon as I reached my room, and woke up almost 2 hours later, still feeling very groggy. It was then that I realised that the Jet Lag had finally caught up with me. I never have any difficulty adjusting to the new time zone on my typical one or two day business trips. But my system seemed to be saying that my two days of sleeping at odd hours were done, and it was time for me to revert to India time.
We turned in relatively early that day, given the need to make an early start for Niagara Falls.
1 comment:
very nice writing. while reading ur writing, i realize we had such a big trip.... pictures ar also apt... great... enjoyed every bit of it..
Post a Comment