Day 33: Toronto

zis-fundraising Tour 2022 2 Minutes

After a deep, long sleep I had breakfast and then ventured out to take a water taxi to Toronto island. This had been a tip from my friend and former colleague Aaron.

The water taxi was fun. After a short ride we arrived ad Ward‘s Island, the calmest area of the islands.

Toronto Island

As promised, the view on the skyline of Toronto (which means „trees with their feet in the water“) was very beautiful. Personally I find that big cities are really only beautiful from afar.

Skyline of Toronto

One thought that I had was how different life in Toronto and Vancouver was from the backcountry. The people, their values, and their outlook on life were almost entirely opposite I found. It is almost like two different planets. It was really hard for me to reconcile that I had only traveled one singles country.

Toronto island is really nice. It has beaches and little groves.

Beaches by the city

There are even small cozy houses of people who live there.

Little houses in the forest

After a longer hike and a visit in a nice cafe I took the water taxi back to the city and went shopping.

I found a large MEC store. Mountain Equipment Coop is a dreamworld for every outdoorsy person. They had really everything you can dream of. I found a paper map to plan my next trip and an inflatable pillow which was really next level.

We met at the Royal Ontario Museum where I finally got to see my dinosaur.

I hauled my harvest back into the hotel and got ready for my meeting with Aaron. We had worked together back in the days at Bombardier. He had been part of my core team at a very crazy SAP implementation project in Brugge, Belgium. We figured that we had met the last time in 2009 or so.

Royal Ontario Museum

Aaron, who was originally from a small town in Newfoundland, gave me a little tour through the university district downtown. It was so good to see him again.

We had an early dinner and started to reminisce and walk down memory lane. He talked me through his career so far and explained some options that he was seeing for himself going forward.

Later we took an Uber and had a stroll through the financial district where he was working. Aaron being a very urban person was a perfect sounding board for my observations regarding the people in the Canadian back country.

In front of the new city hall

We ended up in a pub nearby and from that time on my memories are not so clear anymore. I recall though that we had a great time together.

Published by Karsten Drath

About 30 years ago, two zis scholarships helped me to broaden my horizon, expand my understanding of what is possible, and develop more self-confidence. zis is a non-profit organization that has been awarding scholarships for study trips to young people between the ages of 16 and 20 for more than 60 years. Today, the word we use for tenacity and grit is resilience - and I've made it my profession, to help managers around the world to develop more of this inner power. In retrospect, the experiences I've had on these trips to Scotland and Iceland have been priceless for my development. After having had a childhood with some challenges, I learned that I could cycle 1,700km on my own and get wet every day without despairing. I have learned that I was able to get along with only 300 € for 4 weeks and still had a good time. I have learned what it's like to be threatened with deportation and how to get an interview with the President from such a crisis. I have understood that limitations are primarily constructs in our heads, and I want to make these insights available to as many adolescents as possible.

Published

Leave a Reply