Right then, Toronto.

Maybe it was the smog, or maybe it was because we were both a bit homesick, but in a nutshell, we didn't really like the place. That doesn't mean that I don't have some amusing anecdotes about the place though.

The first one involves the drive in. Montreal to Toronto is about 6 hours drive on the Freeway, so the plan was for Karen to drive for a while, and then me, and then when we got into the city (which is bigger than Sydney) Karen to drive and me to navigate.

Some information you need to know before I get too much further into this story is that in general I have noticed that Canadians are foolish drivers. They all travel at a good 20% over the speed limit and are prepared to take big risks.

Anyway, so all was going to plan, I was driving and it was approaching dusk. My glasses were packed away (I only really need them at night) and we were looking for a place to stop and change over. At this point we were on a reasonable sized freeway, 3 lanes each way.

Before we knew it however we were on the outskirts of town and the freeway grew somewhat. To 8 lanes each way! I kid you not. Basically what happens is there is 4 lanes each way of "express" freeway in the middle, so if you want to get off, you have to exit to the outer 4 lanes and then find your exit.

So here's the scene. We are in a left hand drive car, amongst 16 lanes of traffic, moving at about 120km/h, with trucks pushing us from behind. It has got dark and I don't have my glasses on, and Karen for all of her many skills can't read a map to save herself. Needless to say it was a little tense in the ol' grand am.

And then to spice things up, some dick in a Chevy Cavalier (Holden Camira) comes flying onto the freeway from the on ramp in front of us. Except he notices kind of late that there is a truck in the lane he chose, so he swerves back and gets himself into a fish tail.

It was then one of those time slows down kind of moments. This car in front of us was out of control, and was about to have the sort of accident featured in the freeway scene of the Matrix Reloaded. We were amongst trucks so had no where to go. Shit!

Fortunately, the hand of god intervened and somehow, despite the poor suspension engineering of the good people at Isuzu, he managed to straighten it up. Ok, stop the ride, I want to get off.

We were about to call the divorce lawyer after we missed the exit we were going for, but it turned out the next one was actually closer to the hotel anyway. Much ground kissing ensued when we finally pulled in to the hotel carpark and were out of the car.

We decided to spend the extra money and stay in a nice hotel for the nights in Toronto, partly because we got a good deal from expedia.com and partly because we needed a good bed to sleep in. It also had unlimited free internet, which was handy. It was like all big city hotels thought, impersonal and lonely and only made us feel homesick. We probably would have been better in a hostel amongst others, but not to worry.

Our first morning in Toronto was spent wandering around looking at the sites, including the CN tower and a few cool shops. We visited the city hall and park, and saw our first of real life squirrel! We also found a really good and cheap all you can eat indian joint for lunch which went down an absolute treat.

In the afternoon, we decided to jump on a streetcar (no it wasn't named desire) and head to what the Canadians call "The Ex", which is short for the Canadian National Exhibition. It is almost identical to our Royal show, which was kind of cool since at the time we were there the Show was on at home.

The exhibition hall is full of the same dodgy products, including everything from miracle mops, to massage chairs to the obligatory spa's. They don't have a showbag hall thought, the have a hall the same size, but full of every kind of junk food you can imagine. We felt a bit pissweak, but we actually ended up having a salad.

One highlight was the guy on the highwire who walked over the top of the whole thing for charity, check the photos for more details.

At night, we were presented with a dilemma, to go and see the Canadian Mounted Police do their display, or go and see the Eukanuba super dog display. For most people this would have been a pretty easy vote for the mounties, but for homesick people missing thier trusty hound, the dogs were the clear choice. It turned out to be really good, it was a million dollar type production with lights, music, and some very well trained dogs.

Once we had enough of the show, we headed back on the street car to the harbour front area of town. Toronto sits on the edge of Lake Ontario, and this really is the redeeming feature of the city. It is really well set up with markets, bars and restaurants, as well as a free concert stage complete with seating. All through the summer they have free concerts, and we actually spent two of our evenings in Toronto there in the outdoor mexican bar next door listening to the tunes and having beers and nachos.