Toronto - Where To Be

[RnJ]

I'm crashing at a friend's place in downtown Toronto right now. I walked around all day today, without much to do. Any suggestions? Where's the place to be? Where do travelers exist? I hitched here, was hoping to at least get some freight info.

 

[RnJ]

I'm looking to head to Montreal or down to Waterloo, perhaps even down to Bushnell, Illinois at the end of June. I'd prefer to make friends in the flesh, rather than just online...which is why I'd prefer to meet someone at some point, rather than just always be solitary.

 

[kai]

getting freight to waterloo will be a tricky endeavour as you'd have to catch on the fly outta the Mack yard. There is one train a day that works that area and will go as far as stratford and most likely will slow down in Kitchener/Waterloo or stop altogether. From living in Guelph in the past observing this line I can say it has no specific way of being ID'd unless you know the units they are using that day. This company that serves this area is called GEXR and their units are sometimes big maroon units, or sometimes Toronto Railway units. Much easier to sneak on the Go-Train to Georgetown and hitchike from there to Waterloo

Alexandria Park. It's on Bathurst st between College Ave and Queen St. Good place to get drunk, Queen and Bathurst is where a lot of travellers go to squeegee and panhandle, there's a really awesome Roti shop there and a beer store also! Also you can dumpster pizza at the Pizza Pizza there.

On King St, between Bathurst and Spadina is SKETCH which is a great place to meet cool people. It's thursday and tuesday from 2-6. They have a huge studio where you can do everything from screen print to woodwork and it's all free, they'll give you bus tokens to and serve lunch and it's a collective environment which is awesome. Bellevue Downs (also known as Market Park) is a good place to meet up with kids to, different crowd then over on bathurst st.

Kensington Market has some of the best Garbage to pick through in town as well, i recommend the patty king dumpster...you have to walk into an empty room beside the patty king but they are super nice.

Bloor street has a couple gems on it also, the super fresh is great and near spadina and at Bathurst and Bloor is the Village Market and Honest Ed's!

A good surefire way to get out of Toronto to Montreal is to take the GO train to Oshawa and hitchhike east.

 

[RnJ]

Gee, thanks guys. I met a non-traveller in Alexandria who told Gaela hangs in Kensington, but I found no one there. I'll check Queen & Bathurst & the bridge tomorrow. A friend of a friend suggested we check Dufferin & King.

 

[Matt Derrick]

toronto is pretty much the origin of urban exploration if you're into that. you should find a copy of infiltration, or look at infiltration.org. lots of stuff to explore out there.

 

[RnJ]

Yeah, I checked into infiltration.org. Nice stuff. I remember discovering that site about 2 years ago when I was still working at a medication plant and realizing that my life really really sucked.

Today, some guy at The Meeting Place said anything at Markham Rd. & Sheppard will stop and then head all the way to the East coast, through Montreal. He suggested it was gonna be between 8 to 12 hours, but that sounds a little unrealistic. He appeared a little retired himself, so that may be old and dead news. Someone else earlier said getting out of Toronto by rail was pain in the ass.

Was the guy at The Meeting Place spouting old info? Or is this hopspot still gonna leave me hanging for a long time? I don't have 3 days, as I'll only be in Montreal for a few days...

I'm happy to hitch, just trying to get some more hops under my belt...

Most kids know her, but I don't think I'll find her address at this rate, but let her know the worst thing I do is dumpster food. I'm just a peaceful sober guy. She can even email me back if she pleases: stickbugg AT gmail dot com.