CANADA DAY!

1^st July Friday

Canada day commemorates Canada’s birthday. It is 144 years old today. There are probably people alive today that are nearly as old as this country. Crazy. To celebrate, our hostel was putting on a special breakfast of Eggs Benedict. We ate it in the basement cafe. It was delicious! Our guidebook suggested a ‘historic district walk’. At the words ‘historic’, Gillian started listening (true history geeky-ness showing). We emerged from the hostel with map, guidebook, and camera in hand. The only thing that would make us look more like tourists would be a John-style hat, and possibly a Hawaiian shirt. We passed a parade in one neighbourhood celebrating Canada Day:

 On the way to the historic district we passed the site of the original houses of Parliament. In the war of 1812 (America vs. Canada/the British), the Americans took control of the Canadian houses of Parliament. The British responded by just blowing the buildings up (no messing about then). After America retaliated, the Canadian/British marched to Washington D.C., set fire to the White House, and then left- not even bothering to try and occupy the place. Apparently this fact is not advertised too much in American history lessons; the Canadians say it was the only war the American’s ever lost.

The historic district of Toronto used to be an old distillery where all the ale, beer and whiskey was made and shipped across the world, mostly to the British it seemed. The area became really run down until the 1990’s. But in 2001 the current owners updated it into the ‘yuppy’ area it is today. It certainly is very artsy. There are loads of art galleries and expensive knick knack shops. We wandered through fantasising about what we’d buy if we owned one of the apartments for rent there, which were converted from old warehouses with huge windows and exposed brick walls. We also bought some handmade soap.

We stopped at a very expensive cafe for lunch.

 Afterwards we found a shop that sold Segway tours. In case you didn’t know, a Segway is a machine that you stand on to drive, holding onto a handle to steer. To go you have to lean forward on your feet, and lean back to stop. They look like they are out of a sci-fi movie and are absolutely AWESOME!! The coolest thing we’ve done. EVER. We had a personal tour guide called Wayne who gave us a short tutorial. Gillian was absolutely rubbish and painfully slow (at the beginning, she hastens to add!!). Alice and Bessie on the other hand were brilliant, complete naturals (yeah whatever, is Gillian’s response!). 

(She was going VERY slowly- it was an intense training!)

Wayne took us round the distillery district for an hour, pointing out historical facts on the way. We also stopped at the Mill Brewery where we tried some free samples of beer. There were two very light flavours, one dark beer –a Tankhouse Ale (quite the acquired taste) and a wonderful coffee beer. It was as if beer and coffee had a baby that was even more incredible than the two parents. Pure heaven. At least Alice thought so. Gillian and Bessie weren’t quite so convinced. Needless to say, after this particular stop, we were all complete pros on our Segways- no more wobbling at all! We also stopped at a fancy chocolate shop to try some free samples. All too soon we had to return to the Segway shop. It was a shame because (especially after a few beers) we were getting pretty good at it!

Look at them go! (post beer tasting)

We had a look at Hästens later, a bed shop that provides beds for the Royal family at a cool price of $90,000 upwards, and pillows at $200. We had a little lie down.....

Also revisited the choc shop and sat on a bench for a while. We finished our historic walk passing Toronto’s first post office, a sculpture garden, and a supermarket on the way.

It was heavy!!

Back at the hostel there was a special dinner of cheeseburger and mash so we sacrificed tomorrow’s breakfast food voucher and sat on the 5^th floor patio eating them.

We were soon joined at our round table by 2 Mexicans (unnamed), a Colombian (Fabio), two Germans (Simon and Paul), two Canadians (Sam and Greg), and three Americans (Ray, Mike, and Ben). So we pretty much had it covered when it comes to international relations at the dinner table. Might as well have set up a G8 Summit or something!

We mostly all just talked about ourselves. Ray and Mike were teachers in Arizona, so we had a nice long chat about various educational systems, and then about where each of us had been travelling and the such- it was all very fascinating. The one thing we’ve all really come to love about hostelling is the people you get to meet, and the stories you hear from them!

I’m sure we’re also providing people with a few entertaining stories (or we hope we are!) For example, part way through this cheeseburger meal, Bessie went back up to the room to use the toilet. Gillian went soon after, and found the room key-card Bessie had used to let herself in (which was in fact Alice’s), in the bottom of the toilet. Bessie was highly embarrassed, which made it all the more funny. Delightful story for you all right there!

At 9pm we all reconvened in the lobby downstairs, ready to go out for some fireworks. Our smallish group of about 10 people had somehow multiplied several times over to form a group of around about 30! It was a noisy, song filled walk over to Lake Ontario (some very interesting arrangements of Queen were the songs of choice). Once there, we decided we all rather fancied a drink, so headed off to the nearest bar (which turned out to be a restaurant, but we used it as a bar anyway because we were running out of time), bought ourselves a tequila each, and then went to join the larger group.

Upon realising that the queue for beers was rather long, and growing with every passing second, we quickly jumped into the back of it, and once at the front, bought several beers each (to prevent future trips into the queue). We had a very nice beer called a Steaming Whistle, which was brewed locally and tasted very nice.

At that point the fireworks started over in Ontario Place. We were pretty far away from them, but the display was lovely, and we were in a nice large company of fellow travellers, and had some cold beers, and it was a very pleasant temperature too. This is definitely the life!

After fireworks we were all in the mood for a bit of a dance. We headed off to find somewhere that played some music. On this journey, Alice and Bessie found themselves absolutely desperate for the loo (sorry so much of this entry seems to revolve around the toilet!) The two of them found a portaloo on the street (which was behind a closed fence which went all the way around, might I add), and decided breaking through this fence and into the portaloo was a fine old idea- which is exactly what they did while the rest of our international friends, and Gillian, waited patiently for them outside.

Alice got stuck because Gillian decided to lock her in!

Next stop was a bar, where we all got a few more drinks, and had some very interesting conversations with everyone (to be honest, everything we discussed that night was pretty interesting). This is a photo of the whole mad group.

Soon we found ourselves all pretty worn out, so headed back to the hostel (it was a long walk- we’d come a long way in search of that bar!) We chatted for a bit in the basement, but soon we all went our separate ways to bed.

This is a photo from Las Vegas which our friend Ashleigh took, we really wanted to put it on the blog but Bessie vetoed that idea (untagging it on facebook as well!). So we came up with a deal, Gillian and Alice would replicate the photo on subsequent nights out and we'd put all three up:

This is the original, completely natural photo.

These two are staged!!