Mini-vacation

A few days in Toronto, Canada, turned out to be for me a wonderful break from my daily routine work and projects.  I planned this break a few months ago with two objectives in mind: attending a conference and meeting an Albanian family I had been in touch with, mainly via email. Both met and exceeded my expectations.  

I must admit it was an effort to have to leave my residence in NY at 3am to make a 7am flight to Canada. In fact I actually didn’t go to bed at all the night of departure, but the early flight gave me more time to enjoy the new company at destination. The efficiency and facilities of transport at Toronto’s Pearson airport allowed me to get to the hotel by 10:45am, and to plan my first day with ease and comfort. It seems incredible, however, that for a 1 ½ hour actual flighing time one must spend overall several hours to go from start to end destinations, but c’est la vie aujourd'hui!  

Sheraton's inside garden

An oasis in the garden

The Sheraton Centre, where I lodged (and knew since I’d been there during other trips to this city), and attended the conference (that I’ll describe separately), assigned me a beautiful, large, corner room on the 11th floor, with an unobstructed front view of  Toronto’s City Hall, and with a king size bed to boot! Although I had to walk half a mile of corridors to get to it, it was heavenly quiet, very comfortably cooled, and a peaceful place to spend my nights.  It had all the modern facilities for news and communication, but I barely used the TV and intentionally left my laptop at home, thus concentrating only on strictly, old fashioned, but very gratifying, personal conversations!  

Toronto's City Hall

Churchill's statue at City Hall

Toronto's tram

Around noon I was picked up by my acquaintance, a bright, 32 year old, Albanian young business man, whom I met a couple years ago in NY. We had been in touch electronically since then, and, in the interim, he lent a hand as a virtual volunteer to the organization I manage.

He had invited me to meet his entire family, and even to stay at their home during my planned visit (Albanian hospitality is legendary anywhere in the world!) , but I gracefully declined because it was more practical for me to stay where the conference sessions took place, from early mornings until late evenings.  His young wife, who left Albania only 4 years ago, was very comfortable in driving around this busy city. Both he and she wanted to show me how Toronto has changed since my last visit of years ago, and eventually we ended up at a touristy, but very unusual, restaurant, for a long and leisurely lunch.  

We dined indoors since the beastly heat and humidity of these past days were also felt in Canada, and enjoyed a variety of delicious foods. In addition to the variety of its fare, this place is also known for its unusual ambience: roomy and rustic setting, full of tastefully displayed artifacts, with huge lamps and windows (including skylight roof) made of extremely colorful Tiffany type glass.  Our conversation was so involved that I never got around to take any pictures of this place, which I regret.

An unusual occurrence awaited us as we left the restaurant in mid afternoon. While we were walking back to the car, out of the blue, an unexpected outburst of heavy rain poured down on us with such speed and force that got us drenched almost to the bone, but we happily laughed about this bizarre experience as we drove to their home.

There I met the rest of the family, composed of mother and father, the young couple’s (6 month old) baby boy, and the family dog.  I found the parents very ‘simpatico’ and still young, and, as typical Albanian grandparents, they were baby sitting two grand children (including another 8 month old boy of their daughter), to whom they speak only Albanian. Eventually they’ll learn both French and English when it’s time for kindergarten.  

Surprise, surprise…. the dog, a very friendly shepard’s type dog with long hair, who reminded me very much of my own when I was a child in Albania, is also an ‘immigrant’ since he was brought from Tirana, and still understands only the Albanian language!  

Time flew in very exciting conversation about our historic backgrounds and experiences in life, and I even discovered that the bride’s grandfather was a very good friend of my family in the 1930’s.  This is surely a small world and I was grateful for an exhilarating day! By 7pm I was returned to the hotel, where another world was opening up to me: the conference of the World Future Society, which I’ll describe somehow above.