We woke up, finalized our first day plans, and were off to Toronto. I was awake until the border crossing, then fell into a deep sleep until 30 minutes outside of my vacation spot. I was so glad I didn’t have to drive. Car rides make me so very sleepy and having a long week previous to the trip didn’t help my heavy eyelids stay open.
One thing that made me exceptionally angry happened less than ¼ mile into Canada. I was so eager to see stuff that was truly Canadian—maybe a moose or a maple tree—SOMETHING Canadian. And what greeted me?
McDonalds. My cultural synapse wretched and my mood tanked for about 10 miles. How indemnifying. Yes, I do realize that McDonalds is a corporate, transnational giant, but it was still irritating. I guess they justified their presence by placing a maple leaf emblem at the crux of the double arches. Ugh Americanization of the entire universe.
Traffic picked up and we got lost a bit and then drove around for about 30 minutes. Then we arrived at another one of my bucket list entries. A hostel.
A hostel for years scared me cuz it’s so close in sound to “brothel” and I don’t want to be associated with being a prostitute or exotic associate. But then, I found out what a hostel really is. A hostel is a building with rooms where you stay inexpensively and pay per bed or per private room. I’m not exactly sure how the large the main room is where several guests stay in one room because we rented out a private room. The one we stayed in offered internet, breakfast, and a relatively clean stay. The greatest and coolest thing about hostels is the international presence. Everywhere you turned there was a new language. I wish I could have spent time with some of the others staying there. What you pay for is what you get. And what you see is what you get. No extra amenities. It was higher quality than our cabin, but could be equated to the rejected, illegitimate, no alimony dispensed to love child of a Hilton hotel. But I paid $25 a night. So I’m not complaining.
Our room had two sets of bunk beds. I got top bunk. Our view of Toronto from our first window was of a brick wall and in the second, we had a perfect view into the window of the guests’ room across the mini courtyard.
Classy.
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