Our flight left in the evening, so we set out for one of Toronto’s more artistic districts, near the Ontario College of Art and Design (1) and the Art Gallery of Ontario (2). The gallery was under renovation, and seemed to be having labour difficulties, but we went in anyway. For some reason the AGO has a collection of the plasters from British artist Henry Moore (3). Don’t ask what the pole dance figures were doing there, I didn’t get it either. Due to renovation, the Gallery condensed its permanent collection down to a single exhibition, which gave us a decent highlight reel of their works. Also of note was “The thing that won’t let you walk away” by C.A. Swintak (4). It featured a standard furnished bedroom adhered to the wall in a layout recalling a Grecian temple. The whole thing framed a door and was perfectly symmetrical, down to the crumpled paper and cups left on the table. I wasn’t sure if photography was allowed in this room, so I tried it surreptitiously, with mediocre results. Tree and I found it definitely lived up to its title (5).
    We walked to Queen St. and more art could be found along the way, to those inclined to look for it (6). We found the Korean Grill House (7), which had an all-you-can-eat lunch for under $10. Scads of raw meat were to be grilled and consumed by an ex-vegetarian (8). I was on my own for all the beef though. Heading back, we stopped to watch a large group of skateboarders hold up traffic (9). We saw Wendy one more time after she got home from work (10), and she walked us down to the subway. A relatively painless transit ride brought us to the airport and our waiting plane (11).
    Four hours more and we were seeing the lights of Vancouver (12). A quiet arrivals terminal (13) and a friendly face (14) greeted us. Deven loaded our bags into his car, and we drove through the warm and familiar night, home.

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© D.Tan