When the days started getting longer and jackets were left at home and the ball dropped on the basketball court for the last time this season…I bought a book. I know, call me crazy. A book about travelling to Europe.

When the days started getting longer and jackets were left at home and the ball dropped on the basketball court for the last time this season… my dearest friends started getting married and having babies. All at once. This is where I would insert pictures from my European rendezvous but alas, my album is empty. For now. Weekends were filled with wedding showers and baby showers and bachelorette trips and wedding dress shopping and welcome home baby lunches and going to the chapel of love. Weekends were magical and exhausting and truly some of my favourite summer moments. Because my friends were so happy.

And so I decided to have a staycation. And do the things I hadn’t done.

I always label myself as a small town girl at heart with big city dreams so it would only make sense that I landed in Toronto with a scoop of naive and an ice cream hope six years ago. I adore city life. The landscape of people from near and far or ending up at a corner table on a hidden patio with close friends and looking up through the vines and christmas lights, feeling like you’re nowhere near home. A trip to Italy or Greece in just a subway ride, buying homemade perogies in Roncesvalles for Sunday evening and deciding with twenty minutes until opening pitch that you’d like to spend your night at the ballpark. And then making it on time. Hopping onto a friends boat at the base of York Street, the twirl of TIFF and other festivals and peering over my balcony to spot the streetcar so I can judge my timing and not have to stand in the rain. The endless possibilities when you’re restless on any night with the new people you meet on your daily dance.

Yesterday was full of a studio stop and meetings and creativity overload with company over afternoon coffee and cookie crumbs. Via foot. Yonge Street was my tour guide making it from Lakeshore to Eglinton and back. And this is what I saw…

If you’re a city rat, try it. Pretend you’re a tourist. You don’t even need your passport and you can sleep in your own bed without having to remember to put the do not disturb sign on the door. Bonus. -k