Girls Weekend in Toronto

I recently had the opportunity to meet up with one of my good friends in Toronto for a weekend of kid-free fun while the hubbys held down the fort back home.

Day 1:
After checking into the hotel, we took a crash course navigating the subway system and eventually made our way to the waterfront.  We took a 60 minute narrated cruise with Toronto Harbour Tours which gave us an opportunity to see the harbor front and the Toronto Islands.

View of Roger Centre & CN Tower from the boat

Afterwards we had dinner at Toula, a restaurant on the 38th floor of the Westin which overlooks Lake Ontario and has views of the city skyline.  As part of Summerlicious we ordered from a prix fixe menu.  I immediately noticed the portion sizes were much smaller than what I'm used to in the U.S.

Not having stuffed myself at dinner, I had plenty of room for a Beavertail, which I had been eager to try.  We hung out by the waterfront for DJ Deep Fried Friday, and listened to some music while enjoying our Beavertails.  I chose bacon and maple syrup while my friend opted for nutella. 

Day 2:
Unfortunately my friend was up all night with food poisoning.  But she was a trooper and managed to keep with most of our planned itinerary.  We took a private walking tour with Live Toronto.  It was pretty cool because our tour guide, Dustin, knew a lot of interesting factoids and also took photos of us which he provided after our return home.

After the tour we went to St. Lawrence Market, the #1 food market in the world according to National Geographic, where we had pea-meal bacon sandwiches at Carousel Bakery.  Peameal bacon is pork loin that is cured and rolled in cornmeal. 

one floor of St. Lawrence Market

Next on our itinerary was the Distillery District for a Segway tour run by Segway of Ontario.  The Distillery District is a hip little village of boutiques, cafes, art studios and performance venues.  Apparently, it's the second largest film location outside of Hollywood.  Movies including Chicago and Three Men and a Baby were filmed here.

I managed not to run over anyone!

Next we went to Chinatown for  some souvenir shopping and dumplings at Mother's Dumplings, home of the best dumplings according to Toronto Life. 

After a full day, we headed back to the hotel where we watched Admission and called it a night.

Day 3:
After sleeping in (by that I mean to 8 a.m.) we were off to Kensington Market, an interesting hippie neighborhood full of eclectic and vintage shops.  We were there before any shops opened so we just walked around, grabbed some coffee at a local coffee shop featuring famous Jimmy's and then had brunch at Voodoo Child.  We sat at the bar and watched the chef work in a very tiny space but cook up some delicious food. 

Street art?  A car remodeled with plants growing out of it.

At the airport, I finished my souvenir shopping returning with bottles of maple syrup and some stuffed animals for the kids.

It was a fun weekend catching up with my friend, enjoying some uninterrupted sleep and touring a fun city. Can't wait for next year's trip!