Oh Canada!

Toronto in the magical sunshine!

Oh Canada! How I’ve missed you! After spending an extended period of time all over Canada over the past couple of months, I can definitely say that this place truly is spectacular! I love this amazing country! The natural beauty, the extreme weather, the amazing cities, the culture and the amazing people!

After spending a month on the road travelling around the USofA and seeing that side of North America, landing back in Canada  in Toronto really did feel like I was back home! Being greeted at the airport with a big bear hug from my dad’s uncle Hymie definitely helped promote the home away from home feeling! Managed to JUST cram my big ol backpack into Hymie’s tiny little BMW Z6 convertible before we raced off to his place in north Toronto which is where I called home for the next week and a bit, broken up by a trip up north to check out some of the French side of  Canada in Montreal & Quebec City. Met Shirleen, Hymie’s wife who had prepared the most delicious lunch which I devoured! (Should definitely say a HUGE thanks to Shirleen for all the amazing food she provided for me! I seriously havn’t eaten that much or that well in MONTHS! Kept saying I never wanted to leave and go back to my shitty backpackers diet! Only been gone a week or so now and already miss it!) With my stomach full, I proceeded to sleep the afternoon away before having another massive and delicious meal (seriously half this blog is food sorry!) a lovely Canadian BBQ with Dad’s cousins Laurie and Myra for father’s day. Was really nice to see the girls, as I saw Laurie not too long ago back home (maybe 2 or 3 years), but I can’t even remember the last time I saw Myra, so it was definitely a long overdue visit!

Over the next 2 days Hymie took me on his grand tourist tour around Toronto, taking me absolutely all over the place, showing me all the different areas, suburbs and places to see in the city. Started with a brief tour around Hy’s own brewery (Hymies a part owner in a local brewing company) before checking out some of the views over lake Ontario from the scarbour bluffs and the “beaches area” I’m learning more and more how blessed we really have it back home with out pristine white sandy beaches! Apparently a couple of times a year they have to close the beaches completely due to pollution levels in the water from US industries on the other side of the lake…

Little different and warmer to when you were here Sid!

Cruised through some of the fancy schmancy areas of Toronto gawking at some of the mega mansions and really well kept gardens for a while before meeting Laurie for lunch at the Pub owned by Hy’s brewery which is located in this awesome little pocket of perfect urban renewal in an old industrial area which has been turned into nice restaurants, where I had some more awesome food before Hy and I took the ferry across to the Toronto Islands and ventured around there for while getting some pretty spectacular views of Toronto in the glorious sunshine!

The following day was part 2 of Hymies tourist tour of Toronto, taking in some of the areas including China Town, St Laurence Markets & the Kensington Markets (which I frequented a number of times on my own as it is just full of crazy hipster stuff to see and do), where Hy & I grabbed some pretty decent coffee (probably goes down as the best coffee I got in North America) before heading towards downtown for some seriously epic thai food for lunch! I love my thai food and am a pretty harsh critic on the stuff but man this was some good thai! Spent the rest of the arvo cruising around town checking out some of the other areas of Toronto before grabbing a couple of beers down by the water before I ventured off and met Andy (Laurie’s husband) to watch Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Hockey Finals in a MASSIVE sports bar. I’m talking HUGE! So huge that I got there and realised I was never going to find Andy there and didn’t know what name he had booked a table under so I proceeded to undertake the only logical option and grab a beer and sit bye the door until I saw him (should point out I was without a phone the whole time I was back in Canada as I couldn’t be bothered to pay for it for the 2 weeks I was there) Finally found Andy and proceeded to stuff my face full of delicious ribs and watch some brutal hockey! Blackhawkes won, fun times!

The following day I thought it be appropriate to sleep half the day away before getting the subway downtown and exploring a bit myself before finding a nice pub with a patio in the sun to sit down, have a beer and read all afternoon! Can’t remember the last time I actually sat down for a long while and just got lost in a book so that was a pleasant change! 🙂 That evening I met up with Shirley (Dad’s Aunt on the other side) & all her kids & grandkids for dinner. Which was again delicious and lovely to see/meet everyone who again welcomed me with open arms & I must say there really is nothing like family!! (Dad seriously has the biggest family scattered across the globe, it’s amazing!) After another lovely family dinner it was time to call it an early night as I had to be up early to get my train up to Montreal in the morning.

5 hours later and I found myself lost and confused in a very French Canadian city! Hopped out of the train station and couldn’t read any of the signs or anything! Good ol google maps helped me find the subway & get the train to my hostel! Seriously the worst traveller! I’m absolutely screwed without my phone guiding my way! Dumped my stuff and proceeded to wander the pretty streets of Montreal check out some of the cafes, pubs and restaurants for the arvo before partying the night away at the hostel checking out local ska band which was fun.

Sadly you can see my good spell of weather ran thin here and I had a couple of miserable rainy days exploring Montreal, but that sure didn’t stop me! Still got out & about, went exploring and got rather drenched numerous times.

The following morning I went for a wander through the cobble stone streets old Montreal in the pouring rain, after getting miserably drenched I decided to find a nice cafe, and grab some smoked meat poutine (2 delicacies in Quebec) which I devoured before heading out to the old ’76 Olympics site to see the botanical gardens and some weird “biodome” zoo thing which was pretty strange. Was like a giant bubble greenhouse with different climates & plants and animals in there.

After this it was back to the hostel where of course I could never say no to a beer & ended up at some weird and dingy but cool hipster pub with a couple of Aussie and Scottish girls. It was definitely a locals pub as there was not even the slightest attempt to speak English in there, but it was still a fun night and good to see more of the local atmosphere.

Following morning I ventured out and continued my trend of being a little bit civilised and checked out the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts which apart from its strange contemporary section was quite enjoyable.

Life goal achieved! See and mimic “The Thinker”

After enough civilised time I walked up the shitton of hills/stairs up to the top of Mount Royal which is the highest point in Montreal and also a massive parkland area. Would have been fine had it not been like 4billion% humidity, practically swam up there! It was pretty overcast though sadly so the view wasn’t that great but at least I felt buggered and somewhat healthy..

From there I proceeded to do numerous laps around the steep, uneven and unsigned pathways around the park trying desperately to get the crap out of there and find the section of the park where they put on the weekly Tam Tam festivals in the summer months. Got there in the end to discover my ultimate Sunday afternoon! Picture half of the city packed into a massive park all with drums, tambourines, and anything slightly percussion related as well as eskies full of beer and a lot of energy to create massive drum & dance circles all over the whole place! It was insane! I sat there for about half an hour before the energy of the place was too much and I ended up diving in, stealing some random guys drum and bashing and dancing away for about 2 hours straight! I had even got there late in the arvo, its apparently even bigger around lunchtime!

Couldn’t figure out how to directly post this video but heres the link:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151471986531828&l=8029795606802300197

Again, being someone who loves sleep and all things healthy… I natureally ended out again until about 3 or 4 to another really awesome pub with a nice fun crowd from the hostel. The place called Le Saint Sulpice (seriously recommend it to anyone passing through Montreal!) is massnormous! I think I heard that it started as 1 building and then they started expanding (by purchasing the neighbouring buildings) and its turned into a pub that basically takes up a whole block! It’s about 4 stories tall and has an enormgous beer garden in the middle! (Shame it started pisssssssssing down as soon as we got there!) But it was still a really fun night & I got to meet some really fun and nice people!

The following morning we all surfaced rather slowly, but we did manage to get a group together which we had drunkenly organised to go get Crepes for breaky in the morning. Granted it was at lunch time but hey points for trying? Had the most amazingly mouthgazmic white chocolate crepes + an iced coffee which damn near defeated me they were so rich but I got there in the end with some positive encouragement! Of course naturally soon afterwards we proceeded to go off and grab some quick beers before I had to race off to get my train to Quebec City. This is where I discoverd my first major fuck up of huge series of fuck ups regarding my eastern Canadian travels. No plans, no worries failed me again! Little bit of planning DEFINITELY would have gone a LONG way, but my stupid nativity got the better of me! So basically the Province of Quebec, being French and different to Canada naturally has to have their Canada Day celebrations a week earlier then the rest of Canada, which of course was going on in Montreal that very afternoon including a massive parade of public intoxication which goes on into the early hours of the morning with music and fireworks! Sounds fun yeah!

Don’t worry I was told, the party’s even bigger up in Quebec City with the whole town piling into one of the parks for a similar scene plus a music festival! Awesome me thinks! I love festivals! I was getting into Quebec at 7pm so could dump my stuff and race off to the party! WRONG! Little did I know but apparently Quebec City had their party the night before! So not only did I miss both bit parties, I also rocked up to a seriously hungover and miserable Quebec City! So yeah royally screwed that one up! Had I known I would have definitely stayed an extra night in Montreal! Ah well hindsights a bitch!

Went for a bit of an evening explore of Old Quebec City where I was staying and checked out some of the parks & remains of the last standing walled city in North America:

The following morning I took the bus out to see again some more of Canada’s amazing natural beauty; the very impressive Montmorency Falls located just out of the city. Will admit it was insanely hot at about 33 degrees with again over 9000 humidity! So of course I deemed it a good idea to trek down to the waterfalls base, take some photo’s, get drenched by the spray and then trek it alllllllll the way back up the shitton of stairs back to the top. Was shattered afterwards!

This bad boy is 30m taller then the Niagara Falls! Still manages to freeze over each winter for people to ice climb!

You have no idea how painful this was!

Spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the very very French Quebec City’s streets and alleys before heading back to the hostel and pumping myself up to see the free Cirque Du Soleil show they put on during the summer months followed by a lightshow about some famous Quebec dude (Iwasnt really interested in that part..) SADLY 😦 Due to weather conditions (a shitton of rain) the shows were cancelled, but we only found this out after we had walked the 10 minutes from the hostel to the waterfront (whilst it was still dry). So only naturally this lead to another random pub crawl with random folk from the hostel.. Was fairly interesting sitting in a weird pub listening to live French Rap… Not my style to say the least but it was an experience I guess.

The following morning I met up with Leona & Jewell 2 nice American girls I’d met down in Montreal for a nice little brunch before before I had to jump back  on the train for the huge 8hr haul back to Toronto.

Had a very exciting and eventful first day in Toronto consisting of sleep, eat, vege and finding a place to stay for when I got to London in a couple of days. The following day was again only slightly more eventful which consisted sleep, eat, wander around town & the Kensington Markets, got drenched walking home, eat sleep. Saturday the 29th was another mammoth day starting early with me heading into town to borrow Laurie/Myra’s car for the day so I could trek out to Niagara Falls to be a tourist for a bit before heading to Niagara on the Lake to be immersed in the filthy music sluttage that I am oh so good at, where I got see Regina Spektor, Jimmy Eat World, Metric and City & Colour devour my eardrums. The estimated 1hr 50min drive out to Niagara Falls took exactly a heap longer then that due to the less then helpful directions from Hymies GPS which constantly decided to tell me to turn left after I had passed said road… + the fact that Laurie had programmed it to take me to some random exit off the highway 10kms out of town didn’t help either… Regardless I got there in the end and stood in awe for a couple of hours at the magical sight!

Did the touristy “journey behind the falls” which is basically an elevator that takes you down and after some stumbling around sopping wet dark tunnels you pop out right on the side of the falls where you can see behind (you can also go to another tunnel which is basically just a viewing window directly behind the falls, not as exciting as you cant see anything) but its pretty awesome to get that close to the power of the falls and get drenched by the constant spray! Definitely well worth it!

Found these signs hilarious, but apparently people are still stupid and die here…

After taking in yet another 1 of Canada’s spectacular waterfalls it was time to take in some of Canada’s spectacular musicians and I drove off to Niagara on the Lake which seriously needs another main road as it took me over an hour just to get the car into the carpark! (Getting out was even worse, but more on that later.) By the time I managed to finally get into the site I had already missed the first band (of which I cannot remember who it was, but I didn’t know them so not too annoyed) found myself a nice patch of grass and lounged in the sun listening to Regina Spektor before pushing further into the crowd for Jimmy Eat Worlds set which was awesome! Just as Metric took to the stage these ominous clouds started rolling in and during their 2^nd or 3^rd song it started pouring down, so of course the crowd’s only option was to embrace and go completely nuts! There were people crowd surfing left right and centre! Awesome atmosphere! Finally during their final song, singing about the sun coming out, good ol Mother Nature willingly obliged and stopped the downpour and returned a portion of the glorious sunshine we had earlier! City & Colour finally took to the stage and what do I say but wow! Everyone just stood there and listened in awe (apart from the 3 or 4 crazy people still trying to crowd surf to metric’s long gone performance!) City & Colour played a huge set with & without the band and played a massive encore which was pure bliss!

Trying to get out of the carpark and back home… Not so much! Took me over an hr to get out of the car park & then over 40 mins just to get onto the highway! (Niagara on the Lake has only 1 main road out back onto the highway! I ended up sitting stationary on that main road about 5kms out from the highway for about 15mins before I cracked the shits, turned around and proceeded to go get lost until the GPS found an alternative route. A couple of backstreets later with god knows how many moonshiners & I was back fanging down the highway on the wrong side of the road back towards Toronto and my nice comfortable bed waiting!

Would have loved a sleepin! But sadly had to be up early to drop the car back off for Myra & to go off and meet Shirley & all the family again for another delicious lunch/lounging about/I even went for a swim the weather was that nice! After some sad farewells and some stern encouragement for everyone to come visit us in Australia I had to head off for, yet another, yep you guessed it, delicious family dinner for Myra’s birthday. (Told you the whole post was food!) Had a lovely meal again at the pub/restaurant owned by Hy’s brewery before it was sadly time for more farewells to Laurie & Andy (All the best with the lil bub! Can’t wait to hear how everything goes!)

Next morning was the 3^rd and final instalment of my eastern Canadian screw ups! I flew out to London on Monday the 1^st of July (Canada Day!) Yep the hat trick complete! Not only did I miss the French Canadian celebrations, but I missed the rest of the nations party as well! I did head into town and wandered around a bit where I stumbled across a big “Chinese Canadian” parade through China Town, did find a Canadian flag to stick to my umbrella to get into the spirit before meeting up with Myra for some pretty epic “beast grilled chease” sandwiches and some final farewell beers before I flew out. Another farewell and it was time for one last huge thankyou and goodbye to Hymie & Shirleen for hosting and feeding me so well before scabbing one last favour, a ride out to the airport, where I truly discovered why you need to show up for flights 3hrs early! Flying out on Canada Day! There was all of 2 or 3 people working checkins with 4 flights due to depart within 30mins of eachother to London alone lets just say it was disasterous! Took me almost 2 hrs just to check in & another hr to get through customs & security! Literally got to my gate as they were on final boarding calls! (Was alright as half the plane rocked up after me.) Was cheering to have the emergency row which equals more leg room for all of about 5 mins before I embarked on the worst flight out. Que shitdonkulously fat guy (I’m talking like 2.5 times the size of a regular fat guy) sitting in the middle of me and this poor other bastard on the other side! Being forced to only have about 1/3^rd of my already tiny seat, and having to sit on an angle with my head out in the isle I proceeded to get smashed by every person/trolly going up and down the isles for the entire flight! Thank god it was only a quick 7hr flight otherwise I may have killed some people…

So there we have the final instalment to my North American adventures! Cheers and thanks for all the fun times!

Until next time,

Arrivederci