Our Summer Travels: Toronto

After a six hour bus journey from Montreal, we rocked up at our hostel in downtown Toronto feeling hungry, tired, and even more hungry. A short exploratory walk north along Spadina led us to the awesome Sneaky Dee's on College, where cold cider and beer, and heaps of vegan Tex-Mex, could be had for very few dollars. Dim, dark, with tattooed bartenders and graffiti-covered loos, this place was heaven to us and we felt right at home: for me, the scuzzier somewhere is, the more comfortable I generally feel! A legacy of my misspent youth frequenting the dodgier rock clubs and bars of Bradford and Leicester.

And speaking of feeling right at home... Not for us pounding the pavements of the generic, sky-scraper-ed downtown area, with its obvious desire to be the Manhattan of the north. Rather, we spent the majority of our two days in Toronto hanging out in the dive bars, vegan food eateries*, secondhand bookstores and vintage clothes shops of the funky Kensington Market district. Imagine crossing The Lanes in Brighton with a less tourist-clogged Camden Market, throw in a dash of Manchester's Northern Quarter, and that's Kensington Market. Obviously, we loved it.

* Vegan pizza! Vegan soulfood! Vegan cake! Vegan burritos! Thomas was in actual vegan heaven.

Even amid the hustle and bustle of downtown, you know you're in Toronto, rather than A.N.Other generic North American city, by the streetcar lines that crisscross the sky. There are also some beautiful historic buildings tucked away amongst the skyscrapers, such as you might stumble upon in London. We were particularly taken with the fact that you could just walk right into the Canadian Supreme Court building, a neo-classical beauty of a building surrounded by an intricate cast-iron fence. Even more strange was the fact that the security guards keenly pointed us in the direction of the exhibition down the hall, which we assumed would be about the history of the Canadian courts system or some such and which turned out, instead, to be about said fence. Yep, an entire exhibition about a fence (it's how I'm able to confidently tell you that it's cast-iron not wrought, because thanks to the exhibition I now know the difference). We also loved the Gallery of Inuit Art, bizarrely located in the reception and mezzanine area of the TD Bank building but very much worth a visit.

All-in-all, we found ourselves utterly charmed by Canada's biggest city: it may not have the beauty of Montreal, but it's definitely worth a visit.

My Canada Book Haul

My absolute favourite thing about visiting North America has to be book shopping. Not only do I adore the binding of US and Canadian books (so floppy!) but, although fiction tends to be widely published across the Atlantic, non-fiction is often more localised and there's always a ton of good stuff that I can't find in the UK. Not to mention, bookshops are just infinitely more interesting to browse when a large number of the titles are completely new to me.

Both Montreal and Toronto were blessed with numerous bookshops, secondhand and new. In Montreal I've already written about my love for Drawn & Quarterly, which is well worth a visit should you ever find yourself in the city. In Toronto, She Said Boom on College St was a small but exceptionally varied secondhand book and record store, filled with excellent stock of both fiction and non-fiction. On Queen West was Type Books (pictured above), a stunning space full of well-selected books and magazines. We visited on our last morning, by which time we had no room left for books in our luggage, yet still ended up buying four titles between us.

My total book haul was a not-too-shabby eight (pretty much all I could cram into my already over-full backpack, basically, plus a couple that had to go into my carry-on). From feminist cartoons to fat non-fiction, I got it all.

The books I was looking for
I enjoyed Michelle Tea's novel, Valencia, and read all of her columns about trying to conceive on xojane, so I'd had my eyes peeled for her memoir since it came out last year. I had no luck finding it in the UK, but Drawn & Quarterly in Montreal came up trumps.

The Infinite Moment Of Us is a YA romance. I'd read an extract in the UK-published anthology Love Hurts, but then struggled to track down a copy anywhere in this country but Amazon (boo). So I was thrilled to find it on our last day in Type Books.

The cartoons

While in Drawn & Quarterly I wanted to get something from their extensive graphic novel and comics section, and as soon as I saw this - The Big Feminist But: Comics About Women, Men and the IFs, ANDs & BUTs of Feminism - I knew it would be coming home with me. An extensive anthology featuring work by a range of artists, I can't wait to dive in.

A Bunch Of Pretty Things I Did Not Buy was, ironically enough given the subject matter - consumerism and spending - an impulse buy after I picked up a copy at the till in Type Books.

The Canadian book
I'd had some interesting chats with my Canadian uncle and one of my cousins about the First Nations in Canada and how reparations have failed to be made for the exploitation and theft of their land, so when I saw this new release for a bargain price in She Said Boom it seemed the perfect way to educate myself about the issues. Written by a Native American author, it comes garlanded with praise and I'm very much looking forward to reading this.

The bargain non-fiction
BMV Books in Toronto is a four floor behemoth of used and remainder books, and it was there I stumbled upon these three bargains, which together cost be about £6. Judging A Book By Its Lover is an example of a genre I always enjoy: books about books and reading. Scoot Over Skinny: The Fat Non-Fiction Anthology was super cheap and, with essays by David Sedaris among others, I thought it might be a fun read. Record Collecting For Girls appealed to the music fan in me. Who knows whether they'll be any cop, but at that price, it's worth the risk.

Our Summer Travels: Montreal

And so, from Iceland we travelled on to Canada. A surprise upgrade on the flight from Reykjavik was a bonus, a nightmare experience with Air Canada on our connecting flight to Ottawa less so. We spent a short time in the city before travelling to my family reunion in the Ontario countryside: I'll write more about that soon (at the moment I'm still processing the whole experience!). And from there we went to Montreal, at the heart of French-speaking Quebec.

Montreal was amazing: totally and utterly our kind of place. Awesome vegan food, good local cider (thank you French influence!), amazing street art, cosy bookshops, and a very winning combination of European and North American sensibilities, which seem to result in a completely unique city.

To me, this is the ultimate Montreal image: beautiful old architecture mixed with anarchist graffiti. The Catholic churches in the Old Town and surrounding areas are just stunning, and I loved the juxtaposition of Parisian-style buildings, towering spires, and huge skyscrapers.

As lovely as the Old Town was, though, my favourite neighbourhoods were the hip Plateau Mount Royal and the slightly grungier Mile End, both to the north of the city. The vegan food here was so good: Thomas was in raptures over the vegan crispy duck at Chu Chai. I adored both the cider and the huge veggie nachos at Lola Rosa, while I think T would quite happily marry their vegan poutine. Honestly, we barely scratched the surface of vegan Montreal and are already planning our next visit.

Also in the area, we came out of Drawn & Quarterly a good few dollars lighter. Specialising in graphic novels but with a superb fiction and non-fiction selection too, this English-language bookshop was a real highlight.

On Sunday we stumbled upon Under Pressure, an international festival of street art taking place in the Centreville. With sound systems booming, skate ramps set up in the street, entire buildings being used as canvases, and artists working everywhere, it was quite a sight. A couple of pints in a nearby rock bar (I'm happy anywhere painted black and covered in graffiti) made for a happy afternoon.

It honestly broke my heart a little to leave Montreal, as I feel that our four days there barely scratched the surface of what the city has to offer. If you get the chance, go go go!