Early morning.   Much too early.  Not as bad as the airport, but still, the bus leaving at 8am wasn’t much fun.  And no plugs/ports meant no Netflix on the bus.  Mostly amounted to getting onto the thing and going to sleep.

It’s a long ride.  Not a solid 8 hours, there is a bus transfer in Ottawa, but my comfort level did not invoke much confidence in my 4 day train trip in a few days.  I woke up and took pictures a few times:

I think the oddest part was waking up and looking outside and knowing where I was –  Kanata!  I can’t see things not having changed after 15 years, but it still looked the same.  Memory isn’t exact, so I guess a Loblaw’s always gets remembered as a Loblaw’s.  Ottawa was greener mid august than I remember leaving it in June all those years ago.  Maybe the sharp switch from snow, dog-poop covered lawns, blooming summer into dry grass was just exaggerated in my mind.   Guess it’s time to visit Ottawa again.

Toronto bus station wasn’t too bad, and I pulled up at a starbucks to wait for my old Barcelona roomie.  Felt a bit silly with all my gear, but not a bad place to people watch:

After meeting up, we went to a nearby restaurant for dinner and drinks.   The sangria was on special, so we ordered a carafe for old time’s sake.  It was good catching up and catching up on shared acquaintances.

After dinner, I dragged my luggage down to Union Station to board a GO Bus to meet up with some newlywed friends out in Stouffville.  They really weren’t kidding when they said they lived a ‘little ways’ out of downtown Toronto.  The metropolitan part of me started to wish I had tried harder to find a place to stay closer to the core, but transit really wasn’t bad at all.  GTA might be very spread out and highways are a bit of a mess, but at least the support for the commute is there.

Having just moved in, their place was still fairly empty.  They had settled into a decent routine and me showing up messed things up a bit.   Very grateful to be part of their lives and have a place to crash!