It's been a while since I've had a lot of routine. You know I missed it for a long time. These days my weeks are pretty full and only getting fuller. Saturday is one of those days that has had a section fill up lately. Our church has recently begun a morning program for kids in the area that includes cartoons and games.
!!Saturday Morning Cartoons!!
Today I was all set up and ready for everyone to show up. As often happens with new programs we've had up and down numbers to start. This week was a down. We had one of our regular families come in but they didn't come until late. While I was waiting spontaneity struck!!
Spontaneity has a certain genius about it. 11 times out of 10 it is enjoyable but you know you've struck gold when it is an activity worth repeating. Today was one of those days. A day that will be mimicked in the future.
So it is 9:45 and myself and a coworker from Germany named Salome are chatting and we come to the false realization that none of the children will be coming this morning. We decide to wait until 10:00 before commencing any tear down and as we are chatting the topic turns to our plans for the day.
Salome came to our Church as a volunteer from a German missions agency called Liebenzell. Since she's come she helped us host a YWAM team from Australia, she has helped with all our programs like Woman's Art Drop In, both Bible studies in the week, Sunday Service, Wednesday Community Dinner and Youth on Fridays. She is fluent in English but still learning more and more. Everyone in the church has appreciated having her around.
Somehow between our two working minds we decided to call some of the Youth up and see who was interested in going out for a day on the town. So I waited till around 10 and did just that. As one might guess many of the Youth were busy, but, a few were interested. A few minutes after I made the call a family showed up to the church and we had a good time watctching part of Shrek and playing blindfolded hide and go seek in a section of our Church.
12:30 rolled around and we had a plan. Two students decided they would like to come and once they arrived we went to the Subway, grabbed ourselves a daypass (unlimited travel for us all!) and were off to Little Italy.
South down Dufferin then East on College we cut our way through the city in hopes of finding Gelato, or something like that. The real plan was to find a good Italien restaurant where we would dine on our next adventure because by this time we'd already established that this was to be a recurring event.
If I was given the chance to do it again we would definately have got out and walked through Little Italy. Hindsight is 20/20 and this day worked out none the less. Things as they were we only saw the side of College our window was facing so some locals suggested we go the the "Diplimatico" or the "Dip". I'll tell you about that next month.
After Little Italy it wasn't long to get to Augusta where we got out and cut through Kensington Market for our lunches. This "cut" was interrupted by a lengthy stop at the Blue Banana (a very large and awesome import store) and a brief stop at a Candy Store. At the Banana we were all eyes but no buys, but it was our discoveries there that prompted an efficient trip to the Candy Store. There between us all some Fudge, a lolly pop and a bag of Jelly Bellies was purchased.
After finally getting out of Kensington Market (an unplanned stop that ate our clock- but was awesome none the less) we quickly proceeded to the Ding Dong Pasteries the Chinese bakery I currently favour in TO. Between the 4 of us we paid $5.2o and had a feasts worth of goodies as the team soon found out.
From Ding Dong we headed back to College and ventured across town to Allen Gardens for a picnic. Given the rain that day many people questioned by idea of a picnic but Allen Gardens is probably the most charming place for a picninc in the whole city on a rainy day. We had our picnic in Texas with the Cacti. That is we ate inside the Greenhouse (I hope that is allowed) in the Cactus section. It was a marvelous time. We tried some new goodies from the Bakery that I hadn't yet tried. My favourite being the coconut puff thing that one of my students picked out.
After this we walked for a while and ended up at the Eaton Center where we got some bubble tea and ate our fudge at a McDonalds overlooking Queen Street. It was pretty cool and we still were late coming home. After such a long day I was pretty tired on the ride home. We almost missed Lansdowne Station (our home station).
All in all it was an epic day and I hope to soon be venturing again for more Sponanious Saturdays.
