A side trip to home, and an ode to Paul

As tourists, we visit foreign cities with an eye to what makes them special. Having explored the places on our bike route with such care, I wanted to see if I could view Toronto and my home through fresh and appreciative eyes. I also wanted to take time to give a shout-out to my partner in crime, so will attempt to do both with this blog entry.

Coming straight up to my parents' cottage after landing at Pearson, it was easy to see the beauty of familiar surroundings. We rose our first morning for a dip and a paddle in the early mists.

While the swimming in Europe had been terrific, there is simply nothing to compare with a refreshing plunge in the clear waters of Georgian Bay.

The sunsets we saw could hold their own against the ones across the Atlantic, whether up north

or in Rachel's backyard in the city.

Of course experiencing sunsets with the family we love

makes them all the more beautiful.

Reading in bed with comfy duvets and a roof over our heads felt luxurious after our so long in a tent.

And the simple pleasure of a campfire to roast marshmallows completed the coming home to a Canadian summer,

as did trips around the bay in the canoe

which sat on shore ready for an impromptu trip at any time, doubling as a place to dry our bathing suits or play hide and seek underneath.

We took advantage of Rachel's styling skills to get a haircut for Tom that should last another six months

and basked in the sunshine in between jumps off the raft.

Surrounded by pine trees,

and the best weather of the summer - though Tom inexplicably wanted to dress for winter when it rained one morning -

it was a perfect place and time to celebrate Tom's birthday.

We marked Jacob and Kyra's in advance with an ice cream cake in the city.

While reuniting with the family was a joy that had been long anticipated by us and the kids,

we also cherished the time with friends who made our time at home all the more memorable. There were walks, lunches, coffees and chats with good friends, like Sarah, who took a break from choreographing her Rocky Horror Picture Show dance class to head to the spa with me and then walk and talk in what was a therapeutic get together in every sense of the word.

After many months of living in biking shorts and sweatshirts, it was fun to dress up a little and go out on the town, one night with a group of friends (including Melissa and Jen below - photographed by Nadine) to Cybele's show at Open Studio at 401 Richmond,

and another to the opening night gala at TIFF where my cousin Brenda and I rubbed shoulders with Jake Gyllenhal and Naomi Watts (or at least looked down at them on stage from our seats in the balcony) before getting a drink at the post-show party at the Lightbox celebrating 40 years of the festival.

Delicious dinners where our only contribution was beer and g&t's, drinks with my favourite troublemakers at a neighbourhood bar which we closed down, and a final evening of champagne, homemade pizza and birthday cake

filled us with the social sustenance that we will miss when we are 15000 km away from home. Some moments were easy to capture digitally, like Kyra's dance-filled visit with her friend Tea, 

and her one last hug with close friend and sorely missed neighbour Talia,

but Paul's early morning hockey (couldn't leave home without at least one game) and Jacob's independent forays to the skate park and roams around the neighbourhood with packs of school friends weren't caught on film by me (though with his birthday phone he happily posted videos of his stunts on Instagram).

As for Toronto itself, while away I hadn't been able to avoid making negative comparisons when faced with the incredible cycling facilities and public spaces of Europe, but once back I found I was able to see the many wonderful aspects of our city.

Our governmental leadership may leave something to be desired, but somehow innovation and creativity burst forth despite budget and political constraints. The diversity in ethnicity, occupation, income level and simply style imbues the streets with an electricity that is unique to Toronto. I noticed architecture I'd never seen, lit from within in contrast to the dark night all around,

The crowds waiting at the transit stops late at night demonstrated residents' willingness to participate wholly in the public sphere, as well as faith in the safety in our communitiy.

My heart swelled with happiness to see my beloved streetcars cruising the boulevards,

and the kids and I thought City Hall looked pretty good for 50.

Murals I had admired so much in European cities seemed to be popping out everywhere I looked. They brightened the streets downtown

and provided a contrast to the wild(ish) lands bordering the West Toronto railpath,

where traffic noise temporarily disappeared and the sounds of crickets filled the late afternoon as cyclists and walkers found peace and nature in the middle of the city.

The bike lanes are coming along, slowly but surely (I hope), Wellesley being a terrific new development

completed since we left.

Meanwhile, as friends and family around us went back to school, and high school applications demanded completion before we left, we pondered our own childrens' educational journey. 

Without fail, every single person we tell about this trip, either at home or abroad, asks what we are doing about school. The teachers and principal at Humewood were unwaveringly supportive of the journey and assured us the kids would benefit immmensely from their year abroad, so we weren't too worried about compensating for what they would miss. Instead, we tailored a plan for their education (that's probably putting it too grandly)  that would primarily focus on math, reading and writing - the areas they would be most vulnerable to falling behind in - and figured they'd pick up language, geography and social studies as we went along. While my approach consisted of occasional nagging to do homework, Paul was a more active teacher, going over historical events on the bus in Brussels,

helping Jacob with fractions on the plane to Istanbul,

reading with Tom at the kitchen table in Cappadocia,

buildling a water wheel out of bamboo in Cirali,

and lecturing about WWII battles on the sand dunes in Holland.

All in all Paul deserves most of the credit for making this cycle trip a reality. Besides being the trip teacher and navigator, Paul was also the bike mechanic that kept us going despite regular flat tires, broken gears and worn out brake cables. He would go off in search of spare parts while the kids did homework

and I read and relaxed. Without Paul's bike knowledge (hard earned and self taught through experience and esoteric youtube videos) we'd still be stuck at the side of the road like Tom, who, tiring of one bike repair on a bridge over the Danube,

decided to simply collapse instead of cope.

Fortunately we were usually very well placed for breakdowns, with excellent bike facilities and friendly mechanics seldom more than a few km away. Whether it was in the shed/wine bottle labelling station of the bed and breakfast in Worms Germany, 

or the parking garage of a shopping mall in Copenhagen, we found tools, pumps and spare parts just when we needed them.

Now we have left the bikes behind and picked up our backpacks, and will do our utmost to bear their weight and the responsibility of making phase two of our journey the best it can be.