Adventures in the Great White North

I'm in Toronto for a school on U.S. - Canada cross-border tax issues. I find the material interesting, but the presenters not so much. There were two decent presenters out of six, but even they were just ok. The rest? Dull, duller, and dry as dust. It's as if they were under strict orders to avoid any attempt at humor.

But enough of that. I am getting to visit a city I never have seen, and it's certainly the last time I will do so without a passport. Yes, you'll even need a passport to visit Canada starting next year, like it was a foreign country or something. You mean it's not part of Minnesota?




The electric trolley bus lines are cool. Whether they work well or anything, I don't know, but they make me think of the ancient ones in Waukegan (or am I just hallucinating those from my childhood?).





The hotel I'm stayin in is in the "entertainment district." You get a good view of it from the elevator lobby on the 16th floor of my hotel. I think I had dinner at a restaurant at the far right of this picture.



The most spectacular thing here is the CN Tower. This picture doesn't do it justice. It is a remarkable structure. There are a lot of gleaming glass office towers, as befits the financial center of a modern economy. And yet...



...there's a surprising amount of this, too. I always had pictured Toronto as a combination of Minneapolis and Lake Forest. Not so. It seems every block has at least one hobo with an established cardboard-marked spot. Just a few steps off the theater-district fronts are graffiti and hobo nests, like the one in the doorway on the left here.

It's all very interesting. I hope to explore more after class tomorrow.