Day Seven - Hanging (Around and Over)

Today we literally got up ridiculously hungover at some stupid time. I watched about 10 episodes of Viva La Bam, went to get the odd bit of food from a store, came home and Phil made the best pasta and broccoli in the world ever, watched some Family Guy and then watched Step Brothers. Today was the ultimate in the chill out and getting over a hangover day.

Day Six - Dancing The Night Away

The day started with a bit more of Wide Sargasso Sea, followed by showers all round. We then decided to head out with Tay and play some football, but there had been a mean rainstorm in the morning again which meant that there were some huge puddles in front of the goals. This didn't stop us though, and we totally played ball for a fair few hours and then finished with some two-on-two basketball, followed by more football. I'm totally trying to do fit things in the day to balance out drinking in the evenings, it seems to working ok at the moment, I haven't put on any huge amount of weight.

We'd decided a couple of nights earlier that we were going go out on this evening as there was a cool bar that did cheap drinks, so we had a few at the apartment, watched some Viva La Bam and headed out about 10pm. All that I can remember after this is a hazy, carnage ridden blur. Lots of beer, LOTS of dancing and singing and general merriness. We met some new people and danced more and it was nice. Then about 1.30am we moved over to a bistro and stayed there with some new Canadian friends of ours until about 3am. One girl had the surname Shevchenko, which was incredible. From then on her name was Andriy. Then we brought some of our new friends back to the apartment for a bit, made some late late night drunken pizza and saw Phil get naked. It was a great night, and I am still hungover.

Day Five - Football, Heat and Haircuts

Got up fairly early today, read some of Wide Sargasso Sea. A little bit worried about how I'm going to manage to get all four novels I need to read for college read, but I'm sure I will manage to somehow or another. About 1ish Phil got up and showered and went out to play football in his Aston Villa t-shirt. Si got up and made me a sweet cup of coffee and then I went out and found Phil and Tay on the local High School football pitch, so we had a kickabout for a couple of hours, it got so warm though. I really need to get fit, so me and Phil have decided to go out and play for at least half an hour a day, just do some fitness and stamina training because it sucks being as unfit as I am at present. We came home about 4.30 or something and just sat down in vests and had about 4 icepops each (we got 100 for about 4 bucks in Wal-Mart), and then Tay came round and we reheated last nights late-night pizza. The last few days have been so hot, and the apartment here is like an oven, we pretty much have the fan going 24/7.

At 8 we watched Hell's Kitchen, it seems to be sacrilege for Phil and Si to watch it. It's so different to over here, Ramsey just goes nuts and the people from here are much more confrontational and dickheadish. We cracked some beers open and Si decided that he wanted Phil to cut his hair. I got hold of the new Our Lady Peace record so we listened to it whilst haircutting went on. I figured I'd get Phil to shave my sides and back and keep it long on the top, so I got that done and just got pretty drunk. We watched the second match of the Toronto Blue-Jays versus Seattle Mariners series, but the Blue-Jays lost 4-3, it was nowhere near as exciting as last night's 11-4 win for Toronto. Still, I am well excited about going to see it in the flesh next Wednesday against the New York Yankees. Tay assures us that the Yankees will absolutely punish Toronto though which is no fun! Went to bed about 1.30am in the end, and found it hard to sleep because it is just too hot! More football tomorrow and then out in the evening, cannot wait.

Haircuts In Canada

Toronto

Day Four - 'Mon The Blue-Jays

We all got up at a fairly reasonable time this morning, and we were all up and showered and ready to go out by 1ish. Got the bus and got the subway to Bathurst and finally went to Honest Ed's. It was as much of a letdown as it was last year. It's basically a huge warehouse that sells lots of cheap tacky crap really, but I needed some new vests to sleep in and they were like 4 dollars for 3, so at least I got something. Phil needed shoes, so we walked towards Yorkville and the shopping district. He purchased some mega-nice Lacoste shoes, and then we went and sat down on a big huge rock in Yorkville and chilled in the sun for a while. We walked a hell of a long way today, taking in a lot of things that I remember from my trip here last year. We went down to the area where we had stayed last year, it was pretty nostalgic taking in the places we'd been to, and we ended up going for a pint and a bite to eat in the place that was right opposite our hotel last year and that we had gone to a fair amount of times then. It was pretty deserted and ghost-town like, the jukebox no longer worked, and I guess since having explored a few more places to go out here in Toronto I realised it actually wasn't that great a place. Phil and Si wanted to show me the area where their second hostel had been, a place called George Street. The whole area was so run down, poverty stricken and drug-addled. It was fairly ridiculous being so close to the upper-class, rich areas of Yorkville and Dundas We saw some crazy addict lady smash her hands down on a car and start screaming for change, it was fairly intense, but nobody really flinched, it seemed like a normal part of life in that area. Within about a five minute walk from that area though we got back to Dundas Square, and the Eaton Centre. I guess this is like the heart of the tourist and shopping part of Toronto. There was a 5 piece band that looked like all the members were from the same family playing some loud funk music in the middle of the square with a big crowd watching. We went into the Eaton Centre, although didn't really look around much, we went in Sears just because it's so big and then walked around downtown before going into the huge HMV on Yonge so I could buy a couple of CD's.

We walked back via Queen's Park, and the Firefighters memorial that they have near there. Queen's Park is beautiful, I still find it so odd how tame all the Squirrels are here though! They come up so close and don't seem to flinch at all, it's all pretty surreal. We headed back towards the apartment on the TTC. When we got in I was shattered, we'd actually done quite a lot today which was awesome, but it was tiring too. I heard from Dan today too, he's definitely coming over on August 18th which is going to be sweet, can't wait for that. I slapped on one of my new vests (seriously, this apartment gets so warm!) and just relaxed all evening. We watched the Toronto Blue-Jays play the Seattle Mariners at baseball on the television. It was pretty awesome, by the end I actually understood all the rules, the Blue-Jats won 11-4 and I think next Wednesday we're gonna go and watch them play at the Rogers Centre which should be great, apparently you can get nosebleed tickets for like 10 bucks, which is stupidly cheap. We stayed up pretty late watching Poker online, and we ordered a pizza in at about 2am. There was so much though, most of it is still in the fridge right about now. We didn't get round to playing football again, but hopefully tomorrow we actually will. I also think that I need to shave, I'm starting to both look and feel hideous.

Day Three - Poker Face ♠♣♥♦

Woke up slightly hungover to the sound of the biggest rainstorm I think I've ever heard, which in reality was going to be a fairly big theme for the day. We decided we wanted to make ourselves some pizzas from scratch, so we decided that at some point we would head to the Price Chopper near the apartment, but first on the agenda was going to the Beer Store. Beer had run out on the first evening I was there, and the Beer Store gives you 10 cents for every empty that you recycle with them, so we ended up carrying 72 empty bottles down there, and came back with some Labbatt's Blue. The other guys went into the place next door to get (ridiculously over priced) imported beers and I stood outside guarding what we'd already purchased. In the car park was a homeless old black guy playing a guitar for change. He was incredible, he sounded like Bob Dylan and he was honking on his harmonica and it was awesome. It was strange, it inspired me, saddened me and made me happy all at the same time. There was genuine feeling in his voice, he meant the songs he was singing, he looked happy but I couldn't help but wonder whether or not he really was. I wish that I had had my camera with me, I wanted to have a document of his existence, be a witness to his life.

Tay and Phil both were fairly sure that there was a Wal-Mart nearby, so we loaded ourselves up like alcohol pack-horses and started to walk. We stopped a guy on a bike to ask directions at around ten to six who told us that it closed at six as it was a Sunday, so we darted across to where he said, finally made it just as it started to absolutely pour with rain. It turned out that the guy on the bike clearly didn't have a clue, as Wal-Mart doesn't close until 11 every day of the week, but it didn't matter we were there regardless. Wal-Mart is huge, it's too big, and it literally has everything you could ever want in it. First port of call was finding a football, it had already been too long since any of us had played, so we went on a trek and managed to find a fairly nice Wilson one. Job done! Anyway, for the next two or so hours we all wandered around this huge place, losing each other, finding each other again (once finding Phil and Tay who had crept off to the in-built McDonalds!), and finally getting to the end with a trolley full of goods. We got a poker set, got a taxi because we couldn't be bothered to lug everything about and went home.

The evening was so hot, I felt ill for ages just because I was so hot. Me and Si went down to the Price Chopper just to get the last few bits and bobs, and came back and made some sweet home-made pizzas. The evening really consisted of doing not much, with Tay's xbox 360, some beers and the internet. We finally got a Poker game going about midnight, but really I'm no good at it. I even wore my Rick Astley'esque sunglasses in the hope that I would be able to bluff people, but I was still no good. I will get better though. We ended up going to bed about 1.30am, I was shattered, I think maybe the huge long traveling day may have finally caught up with me. We said we'd play football today, but it rained too much and then we got tired.

Day Two - Rainfall!!!

My fold up double bed turns out to be incredibly comfortable. I already realise after just two nights that I could very easily get used to living in the living room of my two best friends' appartment in Toronto, I'm not convinced that I'll want to ever leave when the time comes. After getting to bed around 7.30 on my first evening in this city, I woke around half past midday on the afternoon of my second day here. I have a feeling that this time difference is going to confuse the hell out of my body, I mean, Phil and SI have both lived here for over a month now, and they still work on a pattern of 'go to bed around 5/6/7/8 in the morning, wake up at 1/2/3/4 in the afternoon', although I do know that in the next few days we are all going to make a conscious effort to try and get into a regular sleeping pattern (of sorts), as we want to be able to do things in the days, as well as going out in the evenings. Phil and Si got up around 1, we lounged around in the afternoon, chatted and chilled out. We'd planned to go to Honest Ed's to go and get some cheap vests to sleep in, but literally it rained and rained and rained for about 6 hours continuously. Sitting in Phil's room you could just see how heavy and hard the rainfall was, smashing down onto the roof that his window overlooks, I genuinely wasn't convinced that it was going to stop at all yesterday. Phil made me the best toast I think I have ever eaten at about 3 in the afternoon, breakfast Canadian style!

Tay, the guy from the flat downstairs, came over in the afternoon so we chilled out with him. We put some awful football on on the T.V, it was something from the Canadian Soccer League, Toronto Croatia versus London City. It really was awful, but it definitely provided us with many laughs over how godawful the standard of football is over here anywhere below the MLS. Today it's the birthday of Andy, one of the guys that Phil and Si met in their hostel when they first got over here, so last night we descended downtown to go out with him and a few of his friends and celebrate. We got the bus, the subway and a streetcar into downtown, (I was rather impressed with the use of three methods of transport in around 30 minutes), and went down to meet Andy and a Dutch friend of his in a place called The Horseshoe Tavern. On the way, me and Phil fulfilled one of our life-quests in that we saw a homeless Chinese person, something I was utterly convinced I may never see in my whole life, so even by around 8pm I already felt like a winner. I swear to Zeus the bar that we went to was the darkest place I have ever been into. Just to talk to someone in there required a constant straining of the eyes just to try and vaguely make out their features. Later in the evening one of Andy's friends he met in Montreal came too. Anyway, Phil got a bit drunk, Si did, we all did and then we headed on a walk to a bar rather crudely named 'The Dogs Bollocks', where more drinking, pool playing and the turning up of an Australian that a drunken Phil continuously was rude to, ensued. We drank too many shots and by the time we all said our goodbyes it was clear to everyone this had been a swell night.

Whilst waiting for the bus home at about 4 in the morning we ended up having such a huge, world-changing conversation with lots of people. We ended up talking about the areas of the city, poverty, crime, cleanliness, good-naturedness and everything in between with a black guy, a Mexican girl and a gay guy. I stood there with my two best friends and realised that people over here don't care who you are, what you are, the kind of life that you lead, people over here just tend to get on. There is no way that at 4 in the morning at a bus stop in London you would ever get into a conversation with such a cosmopolitan crew of people, you would stare straight ahead and not make eye contact with anybody that you didn't know. It made me feel a little bit sick to think of how rigid-backboned our society is, how threatening parts of it can be, but worse than that, just how 'every man for himself' our culture in England seems to have become.

I wanted to see a Raccoon, because Phil had told me how huge they were, and in general I just wanted to see one for myself. We got off the bus a block early, walked to a 7/11 store, met an Indian who once lived in Tottenham but totally digged Cricket more than the Hotspurs, and Phil jumped drunkenly over a sofa that was just left on the sidewalk, landing on his arm, and resulting in lots of laughter. We got back to the flat and sat outside for a while, light starting to appear as morning crept ever closer, and discussed the Raccoon situation. Minutes later I was told there was one behind me, I turned and we looked as this huge Raccoon stopped and stared at us about 20 metres away from us. You could see the lines on his face, it was amazing. It stared at us, stared at us, stared at us, and then casually walked across the road, up some steps into someone's garden and then disappeared into a hedge. Day two is dead and I love Canada.

Day One - The Start of the Nightmare/The End of the Nightmare

The time was 6am and I was awake and raring to go. My coach from Cambridge to Heathrow left at around 07.58am and on the whole it was a fairly comfortable ride down the M25 despite the fact that the whole coach smelled of burnt popcorn. I watched a Japanese man try and stretch the muscles in his back out for about 30 minutes and I listened to the Maccabees' new album, so all in all the start of the day was fine, I was in a swell mood and ready to get on the plane and get to Toronto delivering The Sun newspaper to Si. So I check in, and as I do this I find out from a rather pleasant chap on the Air India check in desk called Paul that my flight has been delayed from 13.40 until 20.20 that night. Total fail on all parts. Air India did in fact lay on a hotel for all the passengers of the ill-fated AI187 flight though, so for the majority of the afternoon I did these things:

- Watched Flog It!, Escape To The Country and Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.
- Had a free lunch, overloaded myself on Orange Juice.
- Used the toilet facilities because it had to be done.

Then, finally at around 18.30 a coach picked us up and dropped us back off at Terminal 3 and I went through to departures, treated myself to a Boost and some Volvic and sat down only to find out that the flight now wasn't leaving until 21.50, but boarding was about an hour and a half earlier so I wasn't too fussed. I people watched, read some of Homer's Odyssey and finally went to Gate 23. Here ensued more sitting, more waiting and general boredom, but I finally got on the plane and then, as if the day hadn't been tiring and annoying enough, continued to sit on the plane on the runway until 23.30 because there was approximately 4096 planes trying to take off at the same time. On the flight I actually managed to have a fairly decent sized sleep (which I was exceptionally glad of by the time I finally made it to Toronto), and I ate a bread roll and a Kit-Kat, I didn't hugely like the look of the curry that was offered to me. I mean I'm not one for stereotyping, but Air India did themselves no favours with the meal that they laid on. As I said, I fell asleep and by the time that I awoke the hostess' were handing out the Declaration forms, so I knew from previous experience that we weren't actually that far from landing. At this point I should probably mention that of about 250 people on the plane, I was one of about 10 caucasians, the rest being either Canadian-Indians returning home, or (more's the pity) loud Indians from Dudley/Birmingham/Wolverhampton/etc. Anyway, as I filled in my form the woman in front stood up and stared at me. She was probably around 50, looked pregnant but was just fat and generally scared the living daylights out of me. She kept staring and was standing right over me. Now, we are most definitely talking crotch-height here for me as I was sitting, and she, not once, not twice, but thrice times scratched her crotch right near my face and then started asking me questions in Hindi. Unfortunately my Hindi is not quite up to scratch so I put on my best blank 'I'm a Tourist' face and finally I got saved by the man sitting two seats away from me. This experience was terrifying.

By the time I finally landed at Toronto Pearson International Airport and had gone through Customs and located my luggage it was about 2.30am Canadian time. This made it 7.30am GMT, thus meaning I had officially been on the road for about 24 hours on a trip that should have taken at most around 14. I have never been more relieved to see my two best friends' faces then when I walked into arrivals last night. We got a taxi back to their appartment and sat up until about half past 7 this morning and drank and chatted and to be honest, that few hours alone made the hassle of the journey worthwhile. Today I think we are going to Honest Ed's to buy some cheap crappy clothes to lounge around in. The nightmare is over, let the games begin!