Friday 12 September 2008

What Your City has to Offer


I wouldn’t call myself boring. My life is anything but a routine (right?) However, I always manage to do the same thing in the city every day or weekend. I take the great city of Toronto for granted and never manage to visit any of the city’s breathtaking sights. I had the pleasure of taking my boyfriend’s cousins from Germany around Toronto and Montreal/Quebec. I was excited to once again go up to Mont-Tremblant and spend a day swimming in the fresh clean lake. I couldn’t wait to eat on one of Montreal’s many patios. The Toronto portion of the trip was not at all on my list of priorities. Yet the city was somehow able to sneak up on me and force me to open my mind to its possibilities. It didn’t take long for me to fall in love with Toronto all over again. It doesn’t hold a candle to Berlin or other cities in the world that have so much to offer. However, Toronto has come a long way. And she has quite a base of attractions to build on. I drive past the CN Tower every day, taking its amazing height for granted. This past week I was standing at the highest point of the CN Tower a tourist could venture, and it made me realize how breathtaking the tower is. Moreover, I stood with my jaw dropped at the Toronto skyline view at night. Brief visits to Centre Island and Casa Loma, the ROM and the AGO forced me to see Toronto through a tourist’s eyes. It wasn’t fair of me to condemn a city that I hadn’t really explored since my field trips in elementary school. Watching the amazement on the eyes of my tourist friends as we navigated our way through Toronto, made me appreciate all the city has to offer. Even though my German friends spoke no English, many Torontonians managed to communicate with them in an exceptionally friendly manner. Have a love-hate relationship with your city? Maybe its time you re-explored it through a tourist’s eyes. After all, beauty is truly in the eyes of the beholder.

Kristyn xo

No comments: