Letters From (North) America #6

Thus the account of the Canadian leg of our adventures begins...

* Any romantic visions of catching the Greyhound from New York to Toronto, coloured perhaps by countless films and the likes of 'On The Road', were shattered by the reality of the experience. Not only did we travel overnight - a cunning plan designed to give us the full Tuesday in New York and then save on an extra night in the hotel, when prices rocketed back to Saturday's exorbitant level - meaning we couldn't see the countryside, but the coach driver between NY and Buffalo had the same gruff demeanour as those routinely encountered on National Express services. There was a familiar resigned and quietly depressed air about our fellow passengers, too. Rather worryingly, one was wearing an orange T-shirt emblazoned with the words "New York City Jail" - if he really was making a break for it and managed to get into Canada without being challenged, then US border control is more lax than I thought.

* The payphones in Toronto Coach Station proclaim it's "Two calls for a loonie". Some kind of interesting outreach programme, perhaps, whereby each new arrival into the country is expected to ring up a mental outpatient (twice) for a friendly chat free of charge? It was only later that we discovered the mundane truth: a loonie is the familiar name for the Canadian dollar coin, because it bears the image of a common loon on the reverse.

Sadly we never went in to find out whether Loony Bargain has a loony bin...

* We're staying with friends in Cabbagetown. Yes, Cabbagetown. The name was (plucking a glossy colour-illustrated guide book from the shelf behind me) "originally a pejorative term for a down-at-the-heels neighbourhood inhabited by British working-class residents who grew and boiled this globular gaseous green". The "real" Cabbagetown is no more, having been demolished to make way for the Regent Park housing development (itself now about to be torn down), but in the suburb just to the east of the city centre which goes by that name today the cabbage is a source of pride; not only is it represented on the flag found flying outside many of the typically nineteenth-century homes, but ornamental cabbages are everywhere. You can even find bouquets of cabbages alongside bunches of roses in the local florists. Though house prices are on the rise, it's still a characteristically liberal area popular with artists of all sorts, and the main thoroughfare Parliament Street is a patchwork of disparate, independent and no-frills cafes, pubs and shops (one called Loonie Or Less). We're told that at night the sound of mooing cows from Riverdale Farm is often as audible as the sound of gunshots from the nearby 'hood to the south...

Hotel Nay & Debs

Say it with cabbages

* As if to distinguish himself from his American counterpart, the Canadian figure illuminated at pedestrian crossings has his shoulders slanted the opposite way at an angle which might be best described as jaunty. This jovial happy-go-lucky chap, perhaps out for a stroll on a sunny summer's day, also has the luxury of fully-formed feet at the end of his stick legs.

* In the UK, 'Panorama' is a hard-hitting topical news programme. In Toronto, it's a very swanky bar on the top (51st floor) of the Manulife Building. Just the place to see the city at night, cocktail or glass of wine in hand.

Downtown Toronto

* One thing we soon learned to appreciate in New York was that just because two buildings are on the same road does not mean they're at all close to each other. Here in Toronto, Queen Street is one of the longest, running horizontally into the city centre from the west and then passing right through to the other side. Streets which are that long can change character completely if you walk along them for long enough. The section of Queen Street West that we explored, at least, is a smarter, more refined cousin of Parliament Street (see above), scrubbed up nicely. Dufflets proved to be a good stop-off point for soup, filled naans, coffee and cakes, and Da Zone can cater for all your casual footwear needs (so long as you're under, er, about 30). Meanwhile, The Healthy Butcher is the place to go for delicious locally raised organic meat including elk or bison sausages, though it's not cheap, our three (admittedly hefty) steaks setting us back more than $50. Best of all, though, is Rotate This, the sort of brilliant independent record shop which, like long-time SWSL favourites Selectadisc and Spillers, is instantly recognisable as a hub for the local music community and staffed by people who really know their stuff. After a conversation about Klaxons and Foals, I left with copies of Electr-O-Pura by Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth's first mini-album plus one of their T-shirts parodying the Goo album cover, before returning half an hour later to pick up tickets to !!!'s show at the Opera House a few days later.

* After we'd passed up the chance to go up either the Empire State Builing or the Rockefeller Center in New York, my vertigo was always going to be given an opportunity to express itself with a trip up the CN Tower. I'd been up before, but still heeded the advice of our friend, who from bitter personal experience recommended a thorough emptying of the bladder before the ear-popping ascent in the lift. To be honest, though, I coped reasonably well, even though Jenni insisted I walk across the glass floor on the 113th storey, one below the main observation level and two below the revolving restaurant, not once but twice and then go on to the Skypod, the uppermost observation level, at 147 storeys and 447m up the highest in the world and the same height as the very tip of the Empire State Building. The problem, though, is that, though the view of the city and lake is generally impressive, the Tower dwarfs all other surrounding buildings (including the Manulife Centre), and it wasn't quite clear enough for us to make out Niagara or Rochester across the water. Something you have to do, though, I suppose - even if it was a bit pricey and I did resent being ejected from the lift straight into the huge gift shop after our descent.

Some tower or other

View from the Tower

Toronto Bay

The glass floor

In the next installment, your intrepid North American explorers venture north of the city in search of the authentic Canadian backwoods.

In the meantime, though, congratulations to one of our hosts here, Debs, who tonight climbed all 1776 stairs of the Tower in just under 27 minutes, all for charity. The world record time is, unbelievably, well under eight minutes...