Toronto Canada

 Toronto Canada. It’s not New York, N.Y. but it’s Canada, the melting pot.

‘I’ll take the subway.’

‘There’s a TTC station around the corner.’

People who live in the City of Toronto, mean they’ll dive underground and take a train that will download them in another part of the city. They’ll walk up the stairs or take an escalator that will up-load them to another part of the station which leads them outside, into sunshine or snow.

If their journey is a little bit complicated, they take a bus within the station to transport them to their final destination. They could also take the escalator to the street, where they’ll take a streetcar.

Train,bus, streetcar, it’s all in the family, called the Toronto Transit Authority (TTC). That’s why you don’t pay extra to catch a connecting train, bus or streetcar. Permanent residents buy monthly travel passes.

The TTC is a travel system obviously, but it is also an answer to all the questions you ever had about Canada but was afraid to ask. Subway trains carry the world, all kinds of people, and characters too.

There are people, and there are characters. Characters are individuals who dress and act differently. They might even have tattoos of birds on their faces or 10 diamond studs in their ears. By different we mean people who don’t act the way you are used to.

The difference between the two is important especially for people out of town. Toronto is the first port of call for many people landing in Canada from all corners of the world. It might be their last destination because they are going to attend some university, start a new job on Bay Street or settle in Mississauga as landed immigrants.

Toronto might be a stop-over on their way to Vancouver B.C, Winnipeg Manitoba or Calgary Alberta. Which ever way, concentrate on the names of the stations, and not on the characters you think are ‘acting strangely.’ Otherwise, you might miss your stop.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.