Last weekend we spent the night in Toronto–something I like to do a few times a month.

Sitting around an antique dining table at our bed and breakfast, it felt more European than Canadian having breakfast with strangers; there was an elder couple from Prince Rupert British Columbia, two tall women from Holland, and a German math student who grew up in Austria but lives in Indiana.

I love the location of this place.

Smack in the middle of the University of Toronto campus, students are everywhere riding bikes and studying. Slumped over books with highlighters in hand, they set up camp at Starbucks with snacks and jumbo coffees for what seems like days; Two streets over is Spadina–Toronto’s version of Chinatown with its sidewalk markets selling heaps of minuscule freeze dried fishes, slimy squids seaweed and unidentifiable items. The b and b is also near Toronto’s infamous Kensington Market; it’s a hodge podge of food and people.

In the background Bob Dylan groans and locals are sitting outside of cafes. Sidewalk vendors sell everything from trail mixes, grains, vegetables piled in pyramids, stinky cheese from all over the world. Cardboard boxes that they came in are spread throughout the sidewalk.

Outside a Jamaican restaurant, three local kids have laid out two squares of vinyl flooring held together with duck tape and a ghetto blaster. I ask for a show. Three of them line up start lively step that resembles a fast cha chat step. They’re dancing to the Beastie Boys’ song Tricky. The break dancing migrates to the floor—one of the guys starts spinning on his shoulder then stops on his head. Impressive. I toss some loonies into his ice cream container.

Here’s a few pictures of the break dancers:

For lunch, we stay close on Spadina: the Red Room is red velvet curtains and dark lighting—even in the daytime. Every lighting fixture is different—tiffany laps in various sizes and a giant lantern with Asian words in stain glass sways precariously near my head. Then there are the bookshelves. The “library” is quite the mix: the true story of the Backstreet Boys next to a book of Shakespeare’s plays.

The menu reads like trademark international dishes: fried tofu, perogies, Mexican quesadillas, Indian Roti, Blt’s, schnitzel sandwich, nicoise salad, greek salad and of course, Sapporo beer on tap, which they ran out of! Who ever runs out of Sapporo? A restaurant in the middle of Chinatown, that’s who!

I also love how the buildings reveal how the city has grown. I love this picture of a gorgeous old home relegated to the back of the street, hidden. It’s old and new mixed together.

This is Toronto—eclectic, worldly, smalltown and always surprizing.