I arrived on a sunny but chilly Wednesday afternoon. Upon leaving Toronto Pearson Airport, I immediately hop onto a cab to take me to my hotel. I was going to take the public transit but I didn’t want to risk getting lost again, and I couldn’t be bothered dragging a 50 lbs. luggage onto and off the bus.

My cab ride from the Airport to the hotel was longer than I had expected. I was very chatty and the driver was friendly. I kept pointing and asking him questions and he was happy to answer them. At some point, I just shut up and started taking photos. However, I was floored to find out that my bill comes to $55 — yes ladies and gentleman. THAT is the most I’ve paid on a cab ride in my whole life, seriously. I later asked my friends from Toronto to verify that I wasn’t ripped off — and yes, that’s usually how much the cab ride is from Pearson Airport to downtown Toronto.

Toronto is beautiful. I find a lot of the establishments are old and have full of characters. The people are also nicer than I had anticipated — in Vancouver, you often hear how people in Toronto can get too snubby, but luckily, that wasn’t the case for me. Maybe it’s too early to tell, but the people in most of the places I’ve been to so far are genuinely nice and friendly.