I couldn’t resist one last blog entry, for our friends in South America. We have visited many exotic and wonderful places on this trip, and our friends have asked us about Toronto.

Well, it’s snowing today, windy and cold, about -9 C. This is about the worst weather we have all year. Other parts of Canada are much colder, and get much more snow, I grew up in Montreal and Ottawa which are much worse. Winnipeg is famous for it’s horrid winters. Toronto’s weather is considered mild by Canadian standards.

Winter doesn’t officially start until Sunday (two days from now). We are expecting another dump of snow on that day to help celebrate.

But nothing to do. Bundle up, with lots of scarves and mittens, shovel out the driveway, and go downtown to do some Christmas shopping. Michelle and I were at Yonge and Bloor – the major intersection of Toronto – and it was deserted on a Friday afternoon.

On the surrounding streets, there were a few pedestrians struggling through the snowdrifts. Walking was hard because many of the sidewalks had not yet been cleared of snow.

When the weather is bad, people duck underground. There is a maze of about 30 kilometers of tunnels that connect the major buildings in downtown Toronto. If you live and work downtown, you can probably spend the entire winter without stepping outside.

The city offers a map of the underground, it’s considered a good challenge to give a tourist the map have have them navigate from one point to another – an urban form of Orienteering.  Definitely more entertaining than wandering around in a forest, and you can always stop at a nice coffee shop.

Here’s a part of the map.

Toronto in the summer is a magical place – as nice as Mendoza, as dynamic as Buenos Aires, as interesting as Cuenca. Then there is winter…