We are all somewhat stiff from the 46 flights of stairs down from Sunday still – walking down stairs requires the use of a handrail – and it isn’t just me that feels that way – even the 20somethings have the problem. The good news is that the fire alarm never went off yesterday (or if it did it wasn’t while any of us were here).

I had a client breakfast meeting so was out early and then after that I was playing golf with clients. Unfortunately the course (Deer Ridge Golf Course) is in Waterloo (no not the station in London) which is about 1.5 hour drive from Toronto so I had to rent a car and drive down there.

The rest of them went on a harbour boat tour around the Toronto islands and then back to Amsterdam Brewery for lunch. It is apparently named that because the city of Amsterdam donated the bridge that is nearby. S & H wanted to figure out how the PATH works. The PATH is a (mostly) underground network of walkways that covers more than 30 kms. It is particularly well used during bad weather and allows you to stay dry in rainy or snowy periods. There is a map of the PATH but they had all managed to end up walking around in circles so they wanted to figure out why they did that and how to avoid doing it again.

After all the activity they apparently had a mid-afternoon nap. All this while I was playing a round of golf in beautiful weather. It was 25 degrees C with a light breeze (my playing partners kept on calling it a wind but by Cape Town standards it was a breeze). Despite using rented clubs and never having played the course before I was pretty happy with my round. We had dinner afterwards and then I headed back into Toronto and dropped the car off before heading back to the apartment.

I got back just before H who had been out at a baseball game – Toronto Blue Jays playing the Baltimore Orioles at the Rodgers Stadium right near us. S & K had decided not to go but H decided to go with my brother-in-law, niece and nephew. If you’re surprised about H attending, so was I! She came back saying she thoroughly enjoyed it. She thought lots of action … some people consider baseball actionless so that was even more surprising. It was her first time to a ballgame though so I guess there was lots to look at and enjoy. Americans (yes I know we are in Canada) do know how to make sport entertaining though.

S & K went out last night for BeaverTails. They are fried dough pastries, individually hand stretched to resemble beaver’s tails, topped with either sweet or savoury ingredients. Not unusual to have nutella on top with or without bananas. It is a Canadian specialty and so worth trying. I failed to mention the other day that we had another Canadian food called poutine. That is a dish of french fries and cheese curds topped with a brown gravy. We have managed at least of the local specialties so far.

Until tomorrow …

P, H (for braving a baseball game and experiencing new things), K & S