Matt Haughey reports from his trip to Toronto:
- either I look Canadian or tourists see people with a big stroller and baby and assume I live here. I've never been asked for directions so many times in a strange town.This doesn't happen to me in DC, where guys pushing strollers are probably pegged as tourists. [update: I got definitively shot down on this in the comments, btw.] But it does happen in NYC a lot. See, Toronto? You ARE like New York after all.
"Milk in plastic bags"?? Things I've Learned In Canada [a.wholelottanothing.org]
Milk bags only exist "out east" (Ontario and perhaps Quebec, I can't remember). The rest of Canada drinks milk from a carton or jug.
To learn more about this phenomenon see:
http://home.cogeco.ca/~husky66/Milk/
Click on "The Steps" to see how the bag works and "The Store" to see how milk is sold at the grocery store.
I was rolling our Phil and Ted's, by the way, with a graco car seat above so we had somewhere to put the baby at restaurants. It's a pretty big setup so I'm guessing we looked local because of it.
An umbrella stroller probably wouldn't have gotten the same response.
Everybody and their mother rolls with a Zooper in Toronto. They're great in the snow but they're huge and steel so they're heavy as hell (about 35 pounds or so) to push around, let alone take on public transit. I'm surprised you were pegged as a local with a Phil & Ted's. I've only seen a few around our neighbourhood (West Toronto).
As for milk bags, I've lived in two provinces that have them and I've never understood them either...
Greg,
I and the other hundreds of DC dads who live around Captiol Hill have to take exception to your blanket tourist statement. It so happens that we see quite a few Dads with strollers in tow walking around our part of town. I've been asked directions more than once with my boy in tow.
Although I bet you're more correct if you're asking around the Mall (especially with a travel stroller), around Eastern Market you're going to find mostly locals. It's relatively easy to walk where you need to go. Besides, all the damned tourists keep taking all the good parking places.
[this is what I get for living next to the Zoo. my bad. -ed.]