Gary's guided tour of Toronto

The challenge this morning was to figure when to do everything with a different time line than we’ve had all the time we’ve been here. Anyway, Bogart and I had it figured out and were ready to go by 7:50am as directed. We always have trouble getting out of here on time but this time we had an 8:28am Go train to catch into Toronto and they only run every hour on holidays, which today is in Canada. We all piled into the van. since Michelle was sick we had heard she wasn’t coming along. Katy and her mom also didn’t want to come along. Thanks to this there was quite a bit more room for us and our dogs in the van. The sliding door closed shut, swoosh wham and we should have been ready to go. “Hmm, where are the drivers? “Jade was really starting to worry. It was 8:07am and we have not left. Then Courtney popped her head into say that Michelle was coming and had until 8:10am to get into the van. People in the van were starting to get restless. I was starting to get a little anxious but what is the worse thing that could happen? We miss the train and have to take the next one.

Well as we were about to attempt driving the van ourselves Michelle showed up and the trainers piled in. We got to witness Courtney’s grand prix driving skills as we hustled to the go Train station. We still had to buy tickets for everyone as well, not to mention get our dogs back into harness once we got out of the van.

As you probably all guess, we made it with time to spare. (well, okay about 2 minutes to spare, but who is counting? Jade?).

We got on the go Train at the accessible car which is one that has a ramp instead of stairs which was pretty cool. It is about a 45 minute train ride into Toronto from Oakville. I listened to some music and enjoyed a bit of chit chat with my class mates.

Once we arrived at Union station we nervously got off the train and followed Courtney’s directions very carefully. I find train sations to be very nerve racking with all the noises around, especially when I'm not familiar wit hthem. In the station, as we discussed our route to take, it became obvious that I knew the downtown probably the best of anyone, perhaps except Kenneth. I proposed what I thought would be a good route that would have us on the subway, walking on some city streets and then taking a street car to another subway to get us back to union station. Everyone seemed to agree and off we went.

Michele uses Union station more than anyone else so she knew how to lead us out and to the subway station. When we got there we took the train north on the University line. We then got off at Queen Street. It was funny in the subway trying to decide which exit to take. Although I knew the way, it has been 20 years since I lived in Toronto. So I had to get clarification on the signage. I think it was Courtney who was reading the sign that would take us to a west bound street car but forgetting that this wouldn't be on the west side of University Ave. Once this was clarified we headed off to the left and than right up the stairs to the road. Bogart got a little over excited and walked me right into the back of Kenneth,bonk!

No offense to Courtney and Leah, but their sense of direction isn’t well developed, at least not in Toronto.  Once we got the group situated we headed west on Queen street. Being a holiday Monday, there really wasn’t a lot of foot traffic but enough, mixed with all the obstacles, to make our dogs work. John was having difficulties with Rocco really pulling. Bogart too was pulling hard except when he was in the lead, then he calmed down to a reasonable pace.

Once we managed to get to Spadina, the next step was getting on a street car. Of course, this is the intersection where the streetcar platforms aren’t in the same place they normally are. It must of looked pretty funny to passers by. There were eight people and six guide dogs all lined up at the curb trying to figure out how to proceed. Basically, we had to wait for two street cars heading opposite directions to pass to know where they would stop. Once we figured that out it was full steam ahead to the platform. We managed to walk out into the middle of the road, tell our dogs “over right” and they led us onto the platform. Getting on the street car wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be but, again, it was pretty empty. This street car takes us right into the subway where the north south and east west lines meet which was convenient.

Once off the street car we managed to follow the signs to the correct subway platform. This street car tunnel never existed when I lived in Toronto so I wasn’t quite sure where it dumped us out.

Anyway, we got to do another subway station which was good practice. This one was another one with a platform on each side, meaning it is a more narrow station than some of the central platform stations. Courtney had a big scare when she was leading jade to the escalator and saw Kenneth get off at the bottom and turn right. To the right was the abyss!! She yelled “Kenneth stop!”. Luckily he had also figured out what was going on and Aiden had stopped too. Kenneth joked that this is why he needs a new dog. The last one fell in. ,chuckle>

Once we had piled onto the train Courtney was happy that all were accounted for. 

We had 45 minutes to wait for our go Train back to Oakville so leah offered us ice cream. I took a milkshake instead and enjoyed it immensely. It was pretty hot outside today.

The train ride was uneventful except for Rocco had some nasty gas that was pretty embarrassing. I’m sure he felt better letting it out but we all sure didn’t. H probably was feeling much more relaxed and wondering why we , his friends, were all holding our noses.

In the afternoon we took a nice walk down to the beach. Besides getting some rays and enjoying the warm weather, the other reason for doing this is to have some practice at walking on roads with no sidewalks. The whole group headed down which was pretty interesting. Two trainers with 8 clients and many dogs with personality. Except for pulling a bit much Bogart did fine on the way there. We had to walk down a flight of wooden stairs from the road down to the river and Denise, Katy’s mom, said we looked like pros coming down there. Nice and smooth. That was nice to hear. It did feel pretty good. We ended up at some picnic tables on a hill above the marina. Nice view, nice breeze and a warm sun made this wonderful. We had lots of laughs chatting. I learned about a cool bag from lulu lemons. It’s a pooch bag or something like that but it has pockets for a ball, treats, pickup bags and the normal things you need as well. It’s got a strap that is sort of courier style. Have to check that out once I'm back in vancouver but it seemed fashionable and practical.

Bogart got comments from Courtney as he stared at himself peeing. "Hey, I'm a cool guy. look at how great I can pee. Cool man." Needless to say I gotraazed about my dog after that. The trainers also did one of their tricks where they switch leashes on the client. It is to se how observant we are about our dogs. This one didn't work so great since they attached me to Hedda, a small lab.The first thing I always do when I go to pick up my harness is pet my dog. So no joy on that one gals. Well, I'm sure they still got to see a pretty funny look on my face for the first second or so while I figured it out. :)

On the way back Bogart got in the lead of the second group which means he wasn’t pulling anymore and walking at a good pace. He had another great maneuver where he could have gone forward up a curb, over a bit of grass and then onto the sidewalk but instead he walked around the edge of the curb and onto the wheelchair curb cut to get onto the sidewalk. Very good.

The embarrassing thing that happened though was when he stopped for no reason I could figure out. I had just checked to be sure that there was no obstacles in my way when I heard Courtney yell that my dog was taking a dump on the sidewalk. How embarrassing. Usually it is Rocco who does these sorts of things, not a proud poodle such as Bogart. It was a pleasure to pick up Bogart’s offering. At least Courtney offered to find me a garbage to put it in. I guess the lesson I learned was that Bogart went onto grass several times and I corrected him back to the sidewalk. I guess I should have pulled off his harness to see if he had to go.

Besides that , he guided all the way back with no collision for me. Have to like that.

After dinner, Leah said we needed to decide who was doing the speech on Thursday. We explained that we had planned on figuring this all out at the morning meeting but we ended up all being in Toronto at that time. Leah said that’s great but we need to figure this out now. So we did our nominations and it was clear that that there were two people who thought that they would b interested in doing the speech but the rest of the group wanted Katjyia and myself to do the speech to represent the younger and older, I mean more mature, members of our class. How do I always get myself into these situations? Eventually I’ll have to admit I like doing this sort of thing won’t I . With that in mind, the film crew will be back on Thursday to film the graduation so me being involved in the speech will give them some more good images to use for the story.

Katjyia and I are going to work on ideas tomorrow and then bring them to the group to help us with little funny stories to get people laughing as well as what would be some key points we would want to be conveying.

Tomorrow we will be doing two walks. The plan is to do quests. This is where they tell us what to find and we have to go downtown and find it by asking Joe public where it is. Sounds like tons of fun! (yeah, you’re getting my sarcasm I’m sure.) I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.