On to Toronto

I left home this morning and got into Canada about 9 AM. My husband and I got pulled over at customs and had to go inside and see an immigration officer. They wanted to make sure that I was strictly doing volunteer work for PBI and had me register as an ongoing guest in Canada. I hope this means that I won't need to go through this every time I cross the border. The border officials were very polite but very "we mean business" in their attitude. We took the tunnel over to Canada which was very cool!

I said my goodbye's to my husband at the Windsor train station and had to wait for several hours for the train to Toronto to arrive. It was a good thing that the station had wi-fi so I could work on some of my PBI documents.

The trip. From Windsor to Toronto was wonderful. I had the fortune of sitting with a young man that had just attended the International Conference on the Great Lakes in Detroit. He had heard vice president Al Gore's plenary session on climate change in person. I had heard it over the Internet and both of us were all fired up about it. We had several hours of great conversation. Boris was actually born in Thailand and has dual Canadian citizenship. He speaks three languages fluently and several others passably. He also in his spare time works on projects that preserve the rainforest for a non-profit (http://www.uiracu.org.br/en/index.html) much like I do for polar bears with PBI.

He went over some of my PowerPoint slides on climate change and found that one of my diagrams was a little off since it didn't mention the methane that cows give off which is one of the biggest producers of green house gases. As part of his sustainable lifestyle, he is a vegan and doesn't eat meat so he doesn't support beef methane production. He also took the train to the conference which has lower greenhouse gas production than flying. He has been all over the world working on environmental issues and has a wealth of knowledge.

Also talked about all the windmills we saw in Canada and how wind plays a big role in alternative energy production there. Their windmills looked smaller than the ones we may put up in Michigan and they were on farms all around Windsor, even really close to the farmhouses. He wasn't aware of any of the Michigan controversy that surrounds the installation of windmills in the US and had not heard of any issues with the Canadian windmills

We parted ways in Toronto after exchanging business cards. He was fascinated by my work with PBI so I gave him an impromptu presentation and we watched the movies I had on my iPad. He really also liked the iPad very much!

I had to wait in the Panorama Lounge for several hours for my next train to Winnipeg. The train red cap took all of my luggage and even put it in my room on the next train for me so I didn't have to deal with it at all! I explored Toronto a bit within a few blocks of the train station as I went in search of dinner. The Maple Leaf hockey team was playing that night and "Maple Leaf mania" was in full swing downtown with people hawking tickets, souvenirs, etc. I grabbed a couple of hot dogs finally from a street vendor and then went back to work on the Internet in the lounge until my train was called.

After boarding the train at 9:30 PM, I found my room which was incredibly small and met all the people in adjoining rooms. We all went and checked out the train together, exploring all the different lounges and the dome cars where you sit up high and get a 360 degree view of the train track and surrounding area which was just awesome. We all went to bed around midnight. The bed is very comfortable and I will literally get rocked to sleep all night long by the moving train. I'm looking forward to tomorrow!!

Entering Canadian customs from the tunnel

Detroit skyline from Windsor side of the Detroit River

Ready to rock n' roll on the train