Neighborhood musings - Trinity Bellwoods and Queen West (8)

So yesterday Melisa and I did a little touring, we went to visit Trinity Bellwoods, then Queen West, then Kensington market and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Now the first of those two are neighborhoods in Toronto. Neighborhoods here are not like in Montreal. Montreal neighboorhoods are much much larger and usually stem from the name of the city they used to be. When people would ask where I lived I would say "downtown" even though someone 1km away on Bleury and Rene-Levesque would say the same thing. In Toronto neighborhoods are much more micro, like maybe ... a 10 block range East-West and 2-3 block radius north south (like Montreal, the blocks stretch much longer north-south than they do east-west). So Trinity Bellwoods, which is located only about 15 blocks West of me, and also called the Art and Design district is its own Neighborhood. In fact its quite a bit Mile-End-ish. i.e. lots of young wealthy urbanites who, on Saturday mornings, frolic to get $5 lattes and peruse boutiques around the centrally located Trinity Bellwoods Park. Now I have no objection to the stores, in fact there was a great bookstore named Type from which you may all be getting X-mas gifts (only if someone decides to pay me for my talents though). But there was a slight air of pretention. The park makes it all worth while though, its a lovely green space.
I treated myself to this book. So I can be wiser!  The history of the city of Toronto and its development isn't programmed into everyone like it is in Montreal. How early did we start learning that Jacques Cartier sailed over the ocean blue? Very early. And then there is Champlain and de Maisonneuve and etc. etc.
Here there is Dundas and Spadina and Bathurst but who are these dudes and what did they do? From what I've been previously able to tell ... not much!

So after that little visit we moved along a little closer down Queen towards my place into the Fashion District part of Queen. This section was a little grungier, though first we moved through some upscale clothing boutiques. They may have appealed to me but with $3 in my pocket ... well we just kept walking. The grungier part reminded me a little of upper St-Laurent with a few furniture stores, fabric stores and sewing accessories (buttons, beads, thread).  I'll save going in those for another time.
We did spot into a little Eastern European shop, the Praque Fine Food Emportium, which I thought would have peirogies. They did but with no ingredients marked on the bags, I didn't buy any. Melisa bought cod livers in oil (like in a Sardine tin) and that poppy seed roll we used to get before it nearly killed M! These things were introduced to Melisa buy a Ukranian friend while living in London. Who would have thought that cod livers could make someone's lips smack!