Family Visit

By Andrew Mortimer, University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada

Having not gone home at Christmas, or at any other time, it was exciting to have my family visit in early March. None of my mum, dad, brother or sister had been to Canada before, and as they were only staying for 4 days, we had to make a busy itinerary. This could only begin on the Saturday once they had attempted to sleep having arrived on Friday night, though, by going up the CN Tower. As I had had dinner up there months before, I suggested we have lunch for different views and a different menu. Standing on the glass panels that allow you to look straight down at the people below was even more surreal in the daytime and is worth it if you’re feeling brave enough.

That evening, after checking out Graffiti Alley, the downtown campus and what felt like the whole city, we also managed to stumble across the Ontario women’s varsity ice hockey final. Although UofT unfortunately lost, the packed arena (something I had not seen before at the college level) meant that my family was very lucky to coincidentally visit whilst this game was on. After being in the city all day, I spent Sunday showing them around my local area, which they were staying in too whilst visiting. We went to a diner for breakfast, which is always a delicious treat, and then we walked around my campus. After a long day, we came home via a nearby nature trail, where we saw red cardinals, blue jays and a raccoon.

As they were leaving on Tuesday morning, we spent most of Monday doing a comprehensive guided tour around Niagara Falls, plus a nearby ice winery and the picturesque town of Niagara-on-the-Lake. That evening we had poutine at a restaurant downtown once we got back to Toronto and played some board games. Unfortunately, the next morning I had to say goodbye to them, as they were heading to the airport (where they saw Mitchell Hooper). I went to see the sunset at Riverdale Park, completely shattered, which I recommend on any nice day.

A month after my family visited, I was able to return to Niagara Falls (again) to see the eclipse of the Sun, which by complete luck was going to be there in totality. With them watching it back in the UK on the live stream, it was a surreal feeling to have what felt like 24 hours in 5 minutes. With my final exams about to begin it was a nice break, but even nicer was going to Canada’s Wonderland after those tests were done. This theme park, which is tricky to plan for visiting as it is pretty much never open during term time, has some of the biggest roller coasters in the world. One of them is over 300 ft tall, and you can see the CN Tower from it, despite being almost 20 miles away. Having now finished studying on my year abroad and done pretty much everything I wanted to in Toronto, I could begin preparing for my trip to Western Canada, which began a few days later.