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if i had to leave toronto tomorrow then apart from my friends and my great job, i would miss Queen Street West. i love my own neighbourhood where i live and run and enjoy the lakeshore, but Queen Street has some of the best charm and craziness that i've seen anywhere in the world. not only are my yoga studio and hair stylist located there, but there are a couple of other gems that i want to tell everyone about.
one shop that is a huge stand out for me is the Outer Layer. this gift shop is heads and shoulders above the most fun store that i've ever been in as an adult. they sll cards and gift books and perfumes and bath stuff, like many other stores, but every single product that they have is hilarious, irreverent, fun, quirky, delightful, and endearing. for example, the "CRAP" filing folders from knock knock that i bought last week (fairly commonplace file folders, except they have the words "MORE CRAP" or "TOTAL CRAP" plastered in huge letters on the side) specifically cause me to smile with disestablishmentarianism! but the best part about the store, the part that always grabs me and reminds me how cool everything is inside the shop is the chalkboard sign outside that always seems to have a hilarious new message on it... i've posted a few to give you a sense of what i mean.
another store that i love completely is the paper place. this shop has thousands of styles of hand-made and specialty papers from all around the world. it's sad that paper has been demonized to the point where it feels guilty to take any pleasure from it, but for those rare moments when you need something unique, this store has it. i won't even go into all the cool styles of paper that this place has - their website is quite good and the pictures speak thousands of times more clearly than my descriptions. if i had more time, i would definitely take their papermaking workshops. but that's an adventure for another time.
the final shop that i'll mention is dufflet pastries. i don't really do pastries, but i hear that they are some of the best. they've apparently been around for 30 years and not only are a great quality provider of goodies, but they have a great sense of business ethics, commitment to quality and standards, and demonstrate how a company can be successful, sustain that success, and be responsible for bringing a lot of happiness to people. i got a couple of cookies, and they were absolutely a treat.
finally, i enjoy the fact that i can have great shopping experiences and adventures without having to patronize a national or international retail chain, which is actually one of the things that i wanted to do much more of this year. ask yourself what kind of shops and boutiques you have near you and take the chance to step inside and see what they have!
- g
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