I LIKE ICE CREAM!

Last night I went to the gym to do the aqua class and it was quite good. It was nice to do something that is normally high impact, but with the fact that I had been going hardcore for the last few days, being in the pool for over an hour was a low impact day for me. However I almost had a "You're overdoing it, please stop, or I'll make you" moment. After the class I decided to go into the hot spa. I had never been in a spa before (I wouldn't call an onsen a hot spa...or maybe it was....OK, for argument's sake, I've never been in a hot spa in Canada before, even though it's one of those generic western ones!) It was nice and relaxing, especially for my muscles that have been aching since I haven't been giving them much of a break. At the 15 minute mark I was getting hot and lightheaded in the water, so I wisely decided to get out. I couldn't get up so in the water, I somehow crawled my way up to the steps. I blacked out on the top step of the spa, just one step before getting out of the spa and I got such a big pressure build up in my head that I could not physically get up. It felt like I was going to faint and puke - maybe not in that order, but I felt like I was going to do both of those things. I crawled up the final step and was out of the water, but still couldn't get up and I was on all fours to try and get that pressure buildup in my head to reduce. I had to sit cross legged in the end and stay for what probably was just 2 minutes, but felt like days. The heat of the spa added to the fact that I was already feeling hot before I went into the spa and possibly made things worse. I could see again, but my head was still pounding. I manage to get up, get my things and make my way to the lockers without incident. I had to sit for a few minutes with my head down between my legs (not the ideal position, but the body just wouldn't stay upright, it just wanted to follow gravity and go down) and I had people coming up to see if I was alright, particularly the aqua instructor. I was fine, I just needed some cool air, which thankfully I was getting in the locker room. After getting in the shower, I was feeling lightheaded again, but I was being really careful in there. Once I got out of there and sat for a few more minutes I was fine again.

To celebrate the fact that I was fine, guess what I did? I went into the sauna!!! I KNOW! I know what you're going to say! I was hot and the heat made me ill, so after I get better, I decide to add more heat to my system. I know, I hear thee! But I've never been in a sauna before and all of those sauna jokes, particularly Jerry Seinfeld health club and sauna jokes just started coming to me in my head and I just said, "You have to do this - even if it's just for a few minutes, you gotta go in the sauna!" So I did. I stayed in there for 5 minutes and was surprised that I felt much better afterwards! So I guess the moral was that my body needed a break, and it'll get the break!

After the class we went shopping for groceries. Dawn and her mum got grocery coupons worth $180, so we went apeshit and got a trolley and filled it up with stuff. And it wasn't generic grocery shopping items, this was, "OK, it's free groceries, get whatever you want". I got my cookies and cream icecream and everyone else got their own thing, which was so cool. It was like Christmas, only FREE! We went at 9:30pm to avoid people having to wait in line after us, but seeing as it was so close to Christmas, there was a fair few people about, even though that shop is open 24 hours. No matter. I even had twinkies for the first time in 19 years. After I had them, I remembered why I hadn't eaten them in 19 years (apart from the fact they are not popular in Australia) and look forward to making that same discovery in 19 year's time! After having my ice cream (I had my cravings come out and play again!) I went to bed.

Today was my lazy day and what do I decide to do? Eat more ice cream. See what it's like to be a girl? Today we went to the beach in Oshawa, which is a pretty little area - and a welcome change to walk at a leisurely pace as opposed to my hardcore style that only I seem to enjoy. I'm a magnet for the beach and the water. There's just something about the water that draws me to it. I even fall asleep to it (almost) every night. I went walking for an hour, but for me it wasn't enough after going full on these last couple of days. We followed the beach trail and it ended abruptly at a bus stop, which was our bus that we waited over 30 minutes for, only to discover that it was going in the opposite direction of where we were headed! Don't blame me, I'm the foreigner, I'm allowed to make dumb mistakes like these! And we weren't in any hurry anyway. So we were on the bus for an hour after having to wait 30 minutes for it. I was so pissy that I could have walked more in that time. Got home, relaxed, ate more ice cream and now I'm packing to go to Ottawa. We leave at daybreak (Frasier joke, for all you Frasier fans....and I have a feeling it's just me on this one!) It's an 8 hour drive there, but I have a feeling we'll be having various pit stops at truckies restaurants. They are the best and most well kept and maintained eating areas, coz if you piss a truckie off by not having a good variety of food, they will tell all the other truckies, as they are a tight knit community of drivers - and all of a sudden, you've lost a lot of business just by not pleasing one trucky. I learnt that when we went to Niagara, and that was just a 2 and a half hour drive. I've done 8 hours straight on a bus before - the overnight one from Sendai to Narita airport. Twice. So I just need my sudoku book, a pair of dark sunglasses and I can sleep most of the way. And I have to be up at 5am, which means I may have to go to bed now!

See ya in a bit!

CHOCOLATE TIME

Got up with a good case of "Give me chocolate RIGHT NOW, or I'll have to inflict some damage to get it", as well as the DOMS. My upper body again was feeling it the most, up until I went downstairs to the kitchen and that's when I felt it in my legs. Going upstairs I can feel it anyway, but if I feel my legs burning and aching when I go downstairs, it simply means I've worked my butt off. And I was ready for more, but I looked outside and it was snowing again - really beautiful - and quite hypnotic. So much so that I changed my mind and stayed indoors. Soon after I got up Judy did too, then Dawn got home and took a sicky to stay home. I haven't seen her properly in days, but we just picked up from where we left off: with silly laughing fits. I love the fact that you can just do that with ppl: there is no need to start over, you just continue - that rocks!

I wanted to do some form of exercise - even if it was just walking to the shops. Then my chocolate cravings got too much that I went into the cupboard and munched on those chocolate chip bits used for baking - and it was dark chocolate. That is an indication of how big that craving was. I don't like dark chocolate, but when my stomach wants it, I will give it ANYTHING with any kind of chocolate. Even if I have to lick it off a package of something. Yes, desperate times. But all for a good cause.

When Dawn got home she got a block of Cadbury chocolate. She can't have a lot of it coz it gives her migraines, so she went for 3 little squares and I had the rest! The good news: the craving has subsided!

Dawn eventually went to bed and I have the place to myself for a while, so I paid my credit card bill (well, more like transferred money over to Mum's account so she can pay it) and have realised that I am saving quite a bit. Having accommodation everywhere really is an immense help. I haven't even begun using part of my spending money - am living very well off the AUD$600 that I changed over a few days before leaving Oz. I'm remarkably happy over this (as anyone would be!)

Today I also discovered something else that was way cool: MOVIE TRIVIA! Alright, I used to be a movie buff and liked all the trivia, but at the age of 22, I completely lost interest in movies and shit like that. But I got to talking to Dawn and her folks who are big movie buffs and I realised how interesting it all is. But the trivia is making me curious about seeing some of these flicks, I must admit. I just need to find the time to watch all of these.

When Judy gets home we're going to be making a pie and having a light dinner because we're going to the gym tonight to do an aqua class (now that my gorgeous Mum has sent me my bathers!), so at least I won't have a completely lazy day. And I have a feeling from Thursday onwards it's gonna be a hectic time til after New Year, possibly after my little cousin's birthday in late January: On Thursday I'm going to the beach and it's forecast to be 1 degree!; Up early on Friday to pick up Dawn after her last shift ever, then off to Ottawa . It's an 8 hour drive! Back on either Saturday night or Sunday morning; Off to the movies on Sunday if we're not tired, packing on Sunday night, fly off to Madison on Monday for 10 days, fly back to Canada with Christnas dinner 2 days later, packing for the next while to get ready to fly to Argentina 3 days later, 2 days after arriving it's my cousin's 15th birthday (THE HUGE ONE!), 4 days later it's Noche Buena (Christmas Eve) where dogs are sedated because the fireworks spook them all. Then I'll have to get ready for New Years Eve's dinner, then a few hours after that myself, my cousin, aunty and uncle are all driving up to the North East coast of Arg to a beach resort for 2 weeks. When I get back I'll be helping out with my little cousin's birthday party. Last time I helped out it was exhausting, coz as soon as we got back from the beach resort, we went to planning the party and didn't get a break until February! Then I can relax a bit :) If I don't blog for a while, you now know my schedule for the next few months!

After aqua, we're all going shopping for groceries Just remind me for my shopping list: Choc bits, Cadbury almond block to replace what my craving got rid of!)

Well, blog is done for the day, now I can relax til I need to go to Aqua, which isn't for a few hours. YAY!

Off to (insert some place or activity here) See ya!

...I'm melting...

Well, I will be in 3 week's time. Just spoke to my cousin in Argentina and she said it's a humid 36 degrees. Arg summers are notorious for long periods of heat day and night. But at least I don't have to worry about that too much just yet. The snow here is melting and it may be gone by the end of the week. And speaking of melting, I cannot remember who told me this, but we were talking about the Wizard of Oz and how my friend got really sad when the wicked witch of the west was killed. She got so traumatised that her parents didn't allow her to watch it until she was older, and she still gets teary by it. For some reason, I got to thinking of that as I was walking home in the melting snow and just started laughing out loud. I have no idea where that came from, but it was hilarious!

Today I woke up early and decided to go to the gym again. I did something naughty: I did weights again. Usually it's best to have a few days break in between weights sessions, but I couldn't help it. I had energy to burn and doing weights is the quickest way to burn. The good news is I did more cardio and got to running for 9 minutes with a 1 minute break. I built up to it by running for 6 minutes with a 2 minute break, then 5 with a 1 minute break and 6 minutes of I don't remember what, but most of it was running and I am extremely pleased with myself. Now let's see if I can make it a hat trick...but my body is pretty sore as I did more weights than yesterday, especially in the upper body. And to be honest, the only reason I stopped weights at the end and then went for cardio today was coz I felt a pop in my shoulder. It's all good - it was just a moment and it's not painful - just a little heat and t.l.c is all that is needed.

Tomorrow I'll have the place to myself again and depending on how I feel, I may just stay and have a lazy one again. Although I am seriously craving chocolate now. If only the 24 hour store was closer to the house, then I could just pop out and satisfy that urge. But I'll be a good girl and go to sleep now!

Chau chau

Weight Off

That was the kind of day I had today. I woke up refreshed at 9am, the first time in a long time I've felt that way. A few days ago I went back to my meditation CD to put me to sleep. The first night it got me relaxed, the second night (last night) it put me to sleep. I didn't even hear it go off and I woke up with my headphones around my neck. Must be careful with that, coz I'm a tosser and turner in bed! I spoke to Chris for a bit and realised that next week I'll be in Madison. It's all come about so quickly. The other night I had a vivid dream with myself, Michael and Mike, who greeted me at the airport with a huge hug. Can't wait!

After I woke up, I did some impromptu yoga (not too much though, as my room is a bit small for it) and realised I wanted more exercise, so I went to the gym for a few hours. I spent ages doing weights firstly in the circuit section with all controlled weights, then I headed off to the 'boys section' for some more hardcore weights and some free weights. I did an awesome chest press that relied purely on the strength of your chest and I went hardcore on that thing. But surprisingly I now feel DOMS on my legs. Well, not surprisingly. I did back to back squats and leg presses, even some vertical ones that I never tried before (because Fernwood are too girly to have the full on hardcore equipment that I love so much!) Then I did some more great interval training. I'm running for 5 minutes and having a 2 minute break, then I broke it down to a 5 minute run, 1 minute break and ended up running like hell for 3 minutes at the end. Loved it, but I wanted to continue with more cardio, but the body just wouldn't let me. Plus I knew I'd overtrain myself if I did 30 extra minutes, even if it was on the bike doing hill sprints. I did spend more time on weights though, so it's a good thing I didn't do anymore. I compensated by doing more abwork on these fantastic machines that rely on your ab muscles to pull your legs up and straight.

Afterwards I went home - it's around an hour walk and it was raining and snowing, which gave me enough time to clear my head some more. The gym does that to me too - if I want my head cleared, I go and overwork myself. But I'm glad I listened to the body and put a stop to the extra cardio - common sense did prevail at the end. Head clearing wise, I'm in a really good place now and intend on doing everything I can to stay there - at any cost. I am on holiday after all!

I like it that I'm not sure what the next day will bring. If I had my way, more gym work tomorrow with a focus on cardio. If something doesn't come up, that's where I'm heading. I already know that I'm going to Ottawa on Friday, back on Sunday for a movie (in a cinema! Yeah, I know. And I didn't have to be dragged kicking and screaming! Well, I don't know what movie it is yet. There's always time for that!) before going to Madison on Monday.

Off to bed. See ya!

Back to the T Dot

So an album called "Chinese Democracy" came out today. It's been on the TV everywhere and radio as well. Hard Rock Cafe in downtown Toronto were going nuts over it. But I have a question: Do we really care? No. Good! NEXT!

This morning I decided to spend the day in Toronto - just because I can! I was getting dropped off in town and luckily we were meant to leave the house at 10 (For some reason I got the impression that I had to be up at 6am on a Sunday, but thankfully I was way off!) I was ready early and as I got dropped off at Toronto, Dawn was being picked up from work, so I saw her for all of 10 seconds. This day trip to Toronto was going to be better than last week's because a) it wasn't pissing down with rain and b) I had more of an idea of what I wanted to do. I got to Toronto at 11 and I mainly came in town to see the shoe museum which opened up at 12. But it was a fair way to get from Union Station to the place, so I spent an hour walking there and taking in all of the sights and sounds of a busy city - even for a Sunday. I like venturing out on my own. I'm in my element. I don't need to worry about getting lost and if I get off the beaten track, the better it is for me (although hard to do in a city the size of Toronto!)

As I arrived at the museum, so did 3 deafening fire trucks racing up Bloor St West and parking right outside the shoe museum. I had to think twice about going in, but the drivers were just sitting in the front seat having a bite to eat, so I figured it was safe to go in. Although why they flashed their sirens to overtake everyone only to park at a museum and have lunch is still beyond my realm of justification. The building itself is shaped like a shoe box (apparently. I'm still yet to see the resemblance! Can you?)

I went in and there were 4 exhibits - 2 permanent and 2 on rotation. One of the permanent ones was the most interesting of all - and the exhibit I stumbled upon first. It's called "All About Shoes" and it details the history of footwear from around the world without being dry and bland about it. Although I did lose interest at the second permanent exhibit, which was more of how indiginous tribes made their footwear (it wasn't totally boring, but I was just expecting more after being wowed by the first exhibit. I guess I was just admiring Roger Federer's shoes too much (Yes, he donated them to the museum. And I'm in shock that he is just one year older than me!) Here, take a look:

(And I think he did end up winning that Masters Cup match in Shanghai against Andy Murray last week - the one I got hooked on and the one that made me barrack quite loudly like the good ol' sport loving Aussie I am!)

Just in case his runners got misplaced in the change rooms, he can find them again because he's got his name on them - HOORAY!

I left the museum just after 2pm. The sun was out and I was planning on going on a discovery walk in Cabbagetown, just east of Toronto. I would only have needed to catch a subway for 2 stations, then off on my own I can go exploring. But as I got to the subway station, I couldn't buy any travel tokens coz both machine weren't working and there was no staff at the ticket booth and I had no other way to get in, as the gates only open up if you have a token. So I took that as a sign of 'Don't go walking in the middle of nowhere today, you'll end up being REALLY cold and perhaps freeze your cute butt off". It was already -1 degrees in Toronto and I didn't fancy a walk around parks with only one subway station that was close enough to catch. Another time - perhaps earlier in the day when the sun is still up.

So I made my way back to where I was coming from and I wanted to find Nathan Phillips Square - the place that opens up in Winter for ice skaters. After not knowing where I was, I just kept heading South and taking turns all over the place - and it turns out I found it by accident! There was a tourist office open and I asked "Where's Nathan Phillips Square?" and he tried not to laugh when he said, "Um, right behind you". And being the tourist that I am, I wanted to ice skate, but the surface was being prepared and ready to be open for skating on Thursday, so right then there was only snow. So I pretended to ice skate on the snow and looked like a tool in front of some bewildered Japanese tourists! I'm glad I'm cute enough to get away with it still!

In my trusty Lonely Planet I found some suggested walking tours, all starting and finishing at major landmarks across town. One ended at Nathan Phillips Square - and I only had just started. So I decided to take that particular tour and do it backwards. It was quite interesting. Because of the Christmas season, I ended up seeing some Chirstmas windows from major department stores (Just like the Myer Christmas Windows, for you Aussies out there!) They were very elaborately done with a lot of attention to detail - I really liked them - despite me not being an overly Christmas loving kind of person. I managed to find a laneway that takes you to a little labyrinth in the middle of the city, just outside the Eaton Centre. What you do is you think of a question and then follow the labyrinth from the outside all the way into the centre. This is meant to be a calming and meditative exercise to do when feeling a bit stressed from life in the city. And if it weren't so cold and if the snow hadn't covered the pathways to the centre of the labyrinth, I would have done it. But my toes were still a bit blue from going to the Christmas Parade yesterday, so I wasn't about to take my chances. I continued walking the tour backwards and found a printing place that is haunted by the ghost of the first mayor of Toronto who was an avid printing press fan. Then saw some cool architectural buildings in the heart of the city - especially the Toronto Stock Exchange building. That you can tell is very old but very well maintained. I even managed to go on the Canadian Walk of Fame (very lame that you HAVE to see it!) There were only about 18 stars on there (cue 'lack of Canadian talent' jokes here!)

The sun went down and here, when it goes down, the temperature just drops with it - there's no gradual decline, it's instant (I discovered that the other week when I was walking home from the gym at 4pm. The sun was still shining really brightly that I decided to take the bike path home. This path is pretty during the day, but has a creepy vibe at night. As soon as the sun set, it became quite dark and cold very quickly and I ended up running to the house on the path. Got home just before it got pitch black) and I decided that was my cue to go back home. So I caught the train out to Oshawa (just in time, otherwise I would have needed to wait an hour for the next one), then got picked up by car.

Legs are sore (nowhere near as bad as last week - just sore enough to realise that I did do some exercise and got to know the city of Toronto a little bit better with the only way to do it - by getting lost in it!)

I have been watching The Amazing Race here and there are 2 more episodes to go. I'll be in Madison when the final ep is played - possibly with Chris - and I need to make sure I see it, coz it's getting good. I have a week to go before going to Wisconsin and I want to figure out what to do while there (when Chris, Michael and Mike are at work). Time to do a bit of research on this one...

See ya later :)

Dashing through the snow

After indulging in my lazy week, I thought it was time to put that aside and get up early, even though I got to sleep at around 2am. Got up at 9:30 and made an impromptu trip to Toronto. When we got back my legs wanted to walk some more and I wanted to take advantage of the sunny and snowy weather, so I went for a walk around the neighbourhood and took lots of winter photos. But I have to figure out my camera. After putting brand new batteries, they deplete after only taking around 6 shots. I'll figure it out.

Got back from my 2 and a half hour walk around town to learn that the annual Oshawa Christmas Parade was going to be held tonight. So myself, Judy and her future daughter in law went over. It started at 6, but we went early to get a prime viewing spot. Judy and Stef were really cold and bailed early by going into a restaurant to wait for me. I on the other hand stayed and watched the whole thing despite my toes getting quite cold. So whose the REAL Canadian now? I gave them shit for it afterwards! But I had some hot chocolate waiting in the car for me as I heated back up again. Santa Claus was very disappointing and Judy got pissy by it! Santa came along and he was just leaning back onto the sleigh and very lazily and unenthusiastically bellowed out 'Merry Chirstmas" - very monotone (Think Ferris Bueller's teacher. Bueller? Bueller? You know what I mean!) Then a kid yelled out, "Why isn't he saying ho ho ho?". Santa then continued with the monotone and did what the kid suggested and lazily said it. Judy's reaction was priceless. She is a gem. 2 things you don't screw around with and get away with if you do them really poorly: Bad Santas and Bad Christmas Decorations! She was so riled up and said, "You know what I'm going to do, I'm going to write a strongly worded letter to the newspaper". Stef and I PISSED ourselves laughing. Apparently that's how Canadians get angry - they don't go to riots, they write angry letters to the editor. (The reason it was so funny was because Stef and I commented and laughed over that exact thing around 2 hours before Judy said that. It was a golden moment!)

Got to meet Dawn's brother and they both share a similar sense of humour, so me, Dawn's folks, her brother and fiancee were all pissing ourselves laughing over shit (Dawn was asleep coz she had to go to work in a few hours doing the midnight shift. But it was hilarious - pity she missed out!)

Got home, feet are back at their normal temperature and I'm ready to go out tomorrow. After wondering about that shoe museum I saw on Wednesday, I decided I'll be doing that tomorrow. It's the only time I'll be able to get a lift into Toronto, so I may as well take advantage of that. Not sure what else to do. It's going to be -1 degrees, so perhaps I won't do much! Still, I can spend a hell of a lot of time in museums, so we'll see how long I stay in there. And shoes is one of my 2 passions (the other being bags). It's gonna be great!

Off to sleep. See ya!

MY LAZY WEEK

OK, so I did end up finishing the previous post (just in case you didn't see it, you can go now and check it out!) In real time it's my end of the week so I'm in a bit more of a reflective mood than usual. Let's review my lazy week!

MONDAY: My legs were still sore and I'm quite surprised by it. Usually I get delayed onset of muscle soreness (the DOMS) after going to the gym. Everybody gets this and it takes 2 days to see it at its worst, but I experience it on the same day as the exercise just because I'm used to getting exercise all the time. It's been 2 days since my mammoth walk around Toronto and am surprised that the soreness is still about - although I haven't been as fit and active in the gym as I have been at home - but I'm getting more exercise here. Very odd, but I feel like a commoner!

Today my Mum sent me an email with a recipe for choc chip muffins that I love, so I decided to make them for everyone here. I had all the ingredients set up and was ready. Firstly I had to beat the butter and sugar. I did, but for some reason it didn't mix well (the butter wasn't soft enough so when it blended in with the sugar, there were lots of lumps - so now we know the reason!) and I didn't do if for enough time, so when I put the other ingredients in, they didn't mix properly. There were lumps of butter and I knew it was going to be a disastrous mix, even though I tried to mix it up and blend the butter in some more. So after including all of those ingredients, I ditched it, threw it in the recycling and started all over again with soft butter and it worked. I baked them and they came out fine - a little drier than what I am used to, but the people here all had some. But whenever I make stuff, I don't like the taste of it. It could taste exactly the same as when my Mum makes them, but the idea that it was me making them and not her makes the taste different. Weird, I know.

It was cold outside so we decided to do what Canadians do best: have ice cream! Yes, it can be a cold Wintery day, but Canadians like nothing more than rugging up nice and warm, going to the local ice-creamery and downing a nice cold one! Dawn had a field day when she discovered for the first time that I was the first non Canadian that she knows who would go out for ice-cream in the cold back in Japan. We used to go out to the 24 hour convenience store at 3am to get ice-cream. And we'd go to the 99 Yen shop, where it cost 103 yen and for some reason, we had a tin full of 1 cent coins - around $5 worth. I think someone passed it onto us and we were sick of seeing it in the apartment, so we decided to spend it on ice-cream. So she and I went to the 99 Yen shop, got our ice creams, at the register we gave them the tin and waited til they counted all those one cent coins (and watching as the other staff were trying not to piss themselves laughing - although it was Dawn and I doing the most laughing) , went back home and had our little ice creams. Good times! And as I was re-telling that story, I think I may have blogged about it before. But that was back in MySpace. This is Blogger, so it doesn't count - as far as you know, this is the first time you've read it! Deal?!

Here we got just a little cone with a huge helping of soft serve ice-cream. I thought it wouldn't have been enough, seeing as I love my ice-cream, and I hadn't had anything to eat for breakfast or lunch aside from one of the muffins I made. But I'm so glad I stuck with the small coz it was extremely filling. Although I twigged onto the fact that the small was enough when I saw Dawn's dad get that small size. He loves his ice cream just as much as me and eats more of it, but when I saw him get the small I wisely decided to do the same. We had a late dinner because we were so stuffed from the 4pm ice-cream fix that we all indulged in.

I also booked my flight to Wisconsin. A few days ago I found a really good deal but was holding off in case the travel agent got me a better deal As a result, I lost the good deals and had to settle for second best. But then second best was about to disappear, but thankfully I went through another search engine and found it again with a different company. So it was a good find - and I get to fly into Madison instead of having to catch a bus in Chicago. So I'll be flying from Toronto to Chicago, then Chicago to Madison. When I return it'll be via Milwaukee. YAY! All in all, a great start to my lazy week!

TUESDAY: And a good continuation of Andy's Lazy Week, coz I did nothing here. NADA! Didn't go out anywhere, as my lower back was also a bit troublesome from the weekend, but I knew it would be fine once I got some rest. Today it was Dawn's mum's turn to overtake the kitchen. She made more gingerbread and my favourite: molasses buns! I first tried those in Japan when Dawn's mum sent some over to the apartment as part of Dawn's care package. I ate them and fell in love with molasses! She also did an experiment with the gingerbread. We wanted to make gingerbread in the shape of a bowl to give as a gift to a friend of a friend, then fill the bowl up with her favourite candies - mainly jelly beans. But we didn't know if the bowl was going to work, so we experimented on a mould and took it from there. When it came out of the oven it was perfect, but when we decided to take it out of the mould, it was still hot and it cracked. So lesson learnt: leave it overnight to cool down, then remove it. But at least we had scrap gingerbread to keep us munching on stuff! It was a very nice lazy day, but by the end of the night I was exhausted and had a headache and just wanted to sleep, although I couldn't because Dawn, Judy and I were going to head off to Toronto all day and we needed to leave early.

WEDNESDAY: Toronto! We all woke up early to get out of the house by 9:30. Didn't get much sleep and wasn't feeling like my usual happy self, but I knew just the thing that would get me out of it; RETAIL THERAPY! Never underestimate the sheer power of shopping folks! It doesn't have to be something big, just something! And boy did I get it today! Once we got to downtown, we went to a place called Honest Ed's. It is a huge discount warehouse where you can get just about anything: dodgy souveneirs (and I got LOTS!), clothes, food, porcelain statues that belong in the 80's, an enlarged Elvis head, kitchen utensils - you name it, they've got it all cheap. The shop itself takes up a whole block encompassing 3 levels of shopping delight. Thankfully I had recovered from the weekend and my legs were up for a walk. The owner is called Ed (obviously) and he made a fortune not only with the warehouse, but with his love of the theatre and movies. He commissioned a lot of work and was loved by the arts community. You can tell this by all the movie posters in the shop and an endless amount of signed pictures from actors from yesteryear. He made a lot of money and gave a lot of it back to the city of Toronto, so it was a sad day when he died last year.

A lot of the stuff you find is dodgy (for all you Aussies, think Dimmeys, but BIGGER!) but you can get some good quality items if you know where to look - and thankfully I did! I got myself a warm jacket for Winter, a hot belt (it's come in handy, my jeans keep falling off!), dodgy souveneirs for the people in my life who have a nice twisted sense of humour - I got it all! We then went walking back to Union Station via the scenic route and we were continuing our window shopping. I LOVE SHOPPING!!!

This was the first day that it started to snow properly. All the other days the snow has been melting but today, it was piling up and turning into a Winter Wonderland. It was pretty to see. I walked past the shoe museum and decided that I need to go there before I leave. Maybe I'll fit it in one of these days. But I have been calculating that I don't have far to go before I leave Canada. In less than 2 weeks I go to Madison for 10 days, I get back to Canada just for 5 days, then it's no more Winter and I charge straight into an Argentinian Summer. Time is absolutely flying here. Maybe coz I have lots of things I want to do - and I have packed a lot into the last 2 weeks or so. Thank goodness for Lazy Week. Let's move on...

THURSDAY: Had the place to myself for a lot of the day. Dawn had an interview at a place that is an hour away and her folks drove her there, as they also wanted to do something in that area. They asked if I wanted to come along, but seeing as they planned to leave at 5:30am, I gave it a miss! It took them 3 hours to get there instead of 1 because of the amount of accidents on the road. It was the first full night of snow, and all of a sudden people go crazy on the roads. It's like when it rains: people underestimate the effect rain has on the road conditions and keep driving as if the road was dry.

I was also waiting for my package from Australia to come. On my last full day in Australia, I applied for a credit card. Even though I do have one already, this particular one charges no money at all for withdrawals in all overseas ATM's. So I told Mum to look out for it while I'm gone and to send me the card and all the rest of the details when she gets it. She mailed it express international last week and it was due today. And it came at 11:30, so I was wrapt. She also sent me bathers, which I forgot to pack even though most of the time I'll be away it'll be Summer or Spring. I also forgot my iPod. Damn!

2 hours after they got back from the interview, we decided to continue retail therapy at the local shopping centre. Lots of fun! I found some cool winter gear that I liked, but decided not to get it, as I cannot take a lot of gear with me. Must curb my retail therapy! Got back home, had dinner and decided to again continue with retail therapy at the 24 hour Walmart. Their gear is pretty decent, but I was a good girl and left empty handed. Stayed up til 2am with Dawn watching movies, The Biggest Loser, talking shit and laughing shit. It's so great catching up with her - I forgot how much fun she was!

TODAY: Got up at midday. I am worrying of my 'sleep late, wake up later' habits, so I'm breaking them today by going out, wearing myself out at the gym so much that I end up sleeping like a baby. I got the first half set out right. I went to the gym for 2 hours and DOMS is kicking in so much right now, especially in my arms. I warmed up, did weights for nearly an hour, an hour of cardio and then ab work. This isn't including the 45 minute walk it takes each way to get to the gym, so it was really 3 and a half hours. Although the walking is now different, as there is snow and black ice everywhere. I'm used to walking at the same quick speed, but with the aforementioned black ice, it's hard to do. So it's a matter of slowing down at the black iced sections.

I have no idea what's happening on the weekend. We were going to go to Niagara, but it's quite cold. I may go to the gym again, but we'll see. Hope you've had a good week. Feels good that I've caught up!

See ya later :)

Andy Does The Big Apple

The clean version!

SUNDAY: Up at 8am to go and drop off Dawn in the west, then go back to where we came from and make our way further east to get to The Big Apple. No, it's not New York! The Big Apple is in Coborne, Oshawa. It is a wholesaler pie factory that make pies (mainly apple pie) just an hour east of Oshawa. I thought we were going to go directly from Toronto and was mightily pissed when I was made to wake up early, then drop off Dawn downtown, only to go back to the house to get something. I wish I could have slept and they could have just picked me up. But I snapped out of it when I got some sleep in the car and when we got there. We were greeted by a huge red apple on the side of the road - you cannot miss this thing! We got in and you have the cafe and the wholesale pie factory at the entrance where you can see them making the pies from scratch. Outside you have a mini golf course, a go-kart track (for little kids, mind you) and a mini farm in the "Garden of Eden". That garden is a 10 minute track that takes you to geese, some tractors and a sewer. No wonder Adam and Eve were happy to have been kicked out of there! It's catered for kids and tourists, but it's not so touristy that it's tacky. It's a lot of fun. I went into the cafe and there were big pieces of apple pie available to buy and eat. And it was a HUGE slice. I hadn't eaten breakfast, so I ate it with no complaints (and no bitching about portion sizes of food, not today anyway!) Inside there were lots of photos of other Big monuments found around the world - and most of them were from Australia. There's the Big Banana, The Big Cow and surprisingly one in Victoria - The Big Rolling Pin! I keep learning about stuff about Australia this weekend. Yesterday I learned that the founder of the Ontario Art Gallery was an Aussie. And when I was learning about the history of the gallery, they had their first painting that they commissioned to have presented at the gallery. I looked at it without reading the blurb and said, "This is very Australian". It was a landscape painting with 3 kids at a beach circa 1890's. To me, it looked like the beach towns that are (And I can't finish the blog now, I've got to go and make dinner. Damn, I keep doing this, but I will be back)

OK, it's been over 24 hours, but I am back! So I was describing a painting that I believed was stereotypically Australian. I read the blurb and wouldn't you know it, it was made in Melbourne! You gotta trust those instincts! Got back home and it was all very low-key. I was still incredibly sore from being on my feet all day on Saturday and declared that the coming week was going to be my lazy week! Well it's true, ever since I've arrived it's 'go go go', which has been incredibly brilliant. But it took its toll and I'm going to take it easy.

Next post: MY LAZY WEEK!

My legs...I can't feel my legs!

SATURDAY: Got up super early to go to Toronto. Dawn and I were going to get driven downtown, which takes an hour from Oshawa. We slept most of the way and by 10:30, we were there. Dawn started work at 11 and had a 12 hour shift, so the plan was to meet back with her at 11pm and we'd go back to Oshawa together. So 12 hours to myself in Toronto - what is a girl to do? I did have some walking tour things that I wanted to do. I knew that it was going to be walking day at my own pace (which is usually quicker than the others!) Started off the day with going to Kensington Market, which is 4-5 blocks from Union Station. Now these blocks are HUGE. It would take around 5 minutes to walk up just one block. And ordinarily I wouldn't have minded. But it was PISSING down with rain. And with me being the stubborn one that I am, I was not going to go in the underground and heated PATH just yet when there were so many outside sights I wanted to see.

So the first block I walked was all construction and rubble - was starting to think that the PATH wasn't such a bad idea after all. But I persisted and the second block was mildly better, with more shops, cafes, your mandatory McDonalds and things were looking good. 3rd block up and all the shops on this block were all opened and clumped together, basically with the look of a market, but not the one I was looking for. As I kept walking further North, the look of the markets and shops had an Asian feel, with lots of kanji, tone deaf screaming of random prices of fruit and vegies, people all mingled and stuck on the sidewalk trying to either buy something or get out of the way. It was official: I hit Chinatown with a vengeance! There was no warning of it, no signs. It was a very distinctive change - similar to one I have experienced back at home when I was going to work: once you crossed a certain set of lights and tram tracks, you just knew you were in Jew Town - no signs necessary! This was alike in so many ways. And Chinatown is pretty big, but not a lot of eateries, just outdoor market style stalls. I was on the hunt for Kensington Market, further up north. Chinatown continued for the next 2 blocks until I hit a left, went through the backstreets and accidentally found what I was looking for! This market is on a one way street, but it's a very eclectic one. It has eateries from all around the world - there's a place to buy African antiques, Chilean food - YUMMY (After all my bitching about food here, you have no idea how satisfying it was to get some empanadas! MMMMMM!), your typical fruits and vegies, second rate soccer tops, some great international music, especially from Senegal. Then the one that grabbed my attention was the multi level indoor organic market. Now it's not only organic produce, but it was all fair trade items and with lots of clothes from local designers. Since my best mate is a fashion designer, she has taught me the value of local clothes items and also the difficulty of obtaining material from places other than China. So when I saw that everything was made in Canada, that just took the cake for me. The dresses - just for casual days - were amazing. It took a lot to walk away empty handed (and the wise thing I did was leave my credit and debit cards in Oshawa and not have a lot of cash on me, so that also made things easier!) After bumming about for around an hour, I then made my way to the Ontario Art Gallery, that had been closed for re-development and were opening up again on the weekend for free, so I went there. The line up was HUGE! Although the line was moving pretty quickly. I was at the end of the line at midday and by 12:30 I was in. And luckily I got there when I did. People had lined up at 2pm and didn't get in til 4pm. I was relieved to get out of the rain because it was pouring down so much that I had to cancel my initial outdoor walking tour I had planned. There were 3 floors of things to explore. I have to say I'm not really an art kind of person. I can look at something and think, 'What the hell is that?" and my next question would be, "Why???". I'm very analytical and things have to make sense. A lot of the time, especially in the abstract stuff, I just don't get it. Thankfully there wasn't a lot of that. I really liked the photographic section. So funny, there was one photo of a completely naked guy hidden in a corner. All of the kids passed by it, parents barred their kids from seeing it, but the old women just kept looking at it - totally amazed! Don't you just love people watching? The gallery was so huge that I ended up staying there for 7 hours! It kind of helped that it was raining and it was fairly cold to go out and walk around Toronto. But I managed to go through every corner of that gallery and was on my feet for the whole time. I hadn't even had anything to eat anything in the morning and despite all of my time in the gallery, I wasn't hungry at all. (OK, I'm gonna have to finish up this blog, as I have to go and wait for a package that Mum is sending me from home and it's meant to be here today. I'll be back soon to finish this up, I promise! BYE!)

I'M BACK! Now where were we....ah the gallery. At 7:30 I decided to leave and go to the PATH and challenge myself to get lost in there. Went back to Union Station in the subway and tried hard to get lost in there. It didn't work. My sense of direction is way too good. I went outside to walk around and saw how pretty the CN Tower is at night. It's all lit up in red and blue, then the actual pathway to the entrace is all lit up with treelights and Christmas decorations. Back in the PATH I managed to bum around there and find the Toronto attractions by night. It's almost eery, as there were not that many people about, it was almost scary. But the PATH is well heated and secured, so technically it's safe. It was just interesting to see a quiet side of buzzing and busy Toronto.

Somehow it was 10:00pm before I realised I needed a break, so I sat down and spied on Dawn at work and was trying to distract her by being a tool. Just the usual. I sat and was making my legs relax before meeting up with Dawn at 11pm and going back to Oshawa. But my legs were so so sore. 7 hours on my feet and the DOMS from the gym just took its toll. Got back home at 12:30am hoping for a lazy Sunday sleep in, only to be told that we were going to go to The Big Apple directly after dropping Dawn off at work in Toronto. It took me ages to get some sleep but then had to be up at 8am. So this falls under Sunday's blog, so were' going to continue onto the next post, OK? Good! See ya in the next one!

WAIT, I'm backtracking, don't go anywhere!

I'm back. I spent these last few days recovering from a whopper of a weekend - mainly from a lack of energy and DOMS and from doing almost too much. But my head is back to normal and ready to backblog:

FRIDAY NIGHT: I did end up going to the gym. It's a long walk from the house (around 40 minutes if I'm taking my time). Went straight up to the treadmill and was glad I brought over my $1 headphones ( I LOVE THE DOLLARAMA HERE! It's like the 99 yen shop, anything you want for $1 - plus a bit of tax, but not much. YAY!) coz as I was doing my thing on the treadmill, I decided to watch TV and scroll through the 135 channels I could watch (HEAVEN!) and opted for sport (a mild surprise for me, as I thought I would go with something girly). I didn't realise how much I missed my sport until I began watching a tennis match for the first time in what felt like years. It was Roger Federer and Andy Murray and the match was INCREDIBLE! Long rallies, a 'come from behind' battle for the player ranked 1 in the world - I didn't know who to go for. Usually I can't go past my Roger, but Andy was good. While I was deciding who to go for, I had decided to just run for 15 minutes as a warm up, but I was so engrossed with the match that I looked up and saw I had actually been on there for 45 minutes running! I KNOW! How could I not notice? Admittedly I wasn't pushing myself to my highest limit (which is usually my interval training: jog for 30 seconds, run like hell for 30 seconds, then extend it to a minute, then just keep going til the body says 'no more'! I used to be able to run like hell for 18 minutes straight, but thankfully I can always get back to that level of fitness very easily) But I did end up doing 7 minutes of intervals before switching to the cross trainer, so it wasn't a complete loss. I don't know who won though, coz by the time I did all of my cardio, weights and stretches, they STILL hadn't finished the match and I was getting tired, knowing that I had to walk an extra 40 minutes to get back to the house - I didn't want to stick around. An internet search will fix that (they played the Masters Cup at Shanghai, so it won't be difficult to track at all).
After the gym, I went across the road to the library and relaxed a bit with a good book I found before trekking it back to the house. As soon as I arrived at the door, we were picked up to go for dinner, so no time to dump anything. I've been sampling different eateries here and I am still not impressed. We went to a place called Wendy's. I was told that they had good salads, and I was looking forward to it coz I thought Wendy's was a restaurant. Turns out it's just another fast food place. I don't like getting salads at fast food places coz a) it's just wrong! and b) it's all processed shit anyway. I really don't want to go out to eat here, it's almost soul crushing - well it would be to my relos in South America and all the foodies back home in Melbs. I was starving but didn't want to eat a lot of crap (and honestly, my choices were limited) so I got the healthiest thing I could think of - which was a chicken grilled burger - and that was it. I got weird looks when I declined the meal offer and got just the burger, but like I said - I was starving, but I wasn't going to eat shit (stubborn, aren't I?!?!) Shortly after getting back to the house I went to bed, otherwise I would have been picking at food and I needed to get to bed early to get ready for 12 hours in Toronto!

I'm going to separate the posts because they are all quite long. So see ya in the next one!

Giving way

The weather was asking us all to stay rugged up indoors. And who am I to argue with that? So I stayed inside almost all day doing nothing, and I loved it. It was only towards 3pm where my legs wanted a walk (despite the fact the body was still sore from the 4 hour marathon walk the day before. Perhaps that's why I was born in the year of the dog. Coz just like dogs, I need to be walked everyday!) so I decided to go for a wander further out than I had been before. There's nothing out there but houses, but I forgot where I was as the houses and units were similar to the ones back at home. And you know how here they drive on the right hand side - and I'm used to driving on the left hand side - and you know how when you are walking and sharing the footpath that the same rules apply? Well I was on a seeemingly deserted path, so I gave in to the Aussie in me and started going onto the left side. I was in my own little fantasy world (with fairies and weird looking leprachauns. And somehow my boyfriend got into that little fantasy!!) when I almost got rammed into by a kid on a bike who was doing the right thing and overtaking from the left - which of course he couldn't do coz the Aussie was on the left side. If he hadn't spoken up we'd be both in the shit. And people over here just love to strike up a conversation in any way that they can coz after that, this other guy just kept looking over at me and trying to get a convo going, but I just walked like the wind and left the scene.

I have been noticing the fact that ppl are more open here and try to talk to you more. Dawn and Judy say it's like a 'busy-body' syndrome, but I kind of liked it. But I have a feeling I'd only like it until it got me into trouble, which it almost did on Remembrance Day. Dawn and I were at Oshawa Centre and I was waiting for her outside the ATM, just pacing up and down the sidewalk when I noticed this old dude walking and staring at me. So as I've been trained to do by my navy friends as a tool of intimidation, I stared back with a dirty look - as he did. He walked past me, turned around and was STILL looking at me, so I continued looking at him. (Apparantly it's a good tool because ppl don't want to get busted staring, so if someone stares at you intentionally, you stare back and keep at their eyes until someone stares away - preferably them). I was relentless and continued staring. He then says, "So I guess you caught me staring at you" in a mildly aggressive way just as Dawn comes out, to which I said, "Yeah, why don't you make it less obvious next time". Dawn wisely pushed me away and gave me the 'Don't talk to crazies' speech, which was quite funny. But I could have taken him on, even if he was a veteran. I was taught all this in Arg - never back off from a fight until it's finished (which would probably explain why some relatives of mine in Arg are scared of me and what I'm capable of - and for men being fearful of a woman is more of a kick in the face to them, as they are still quite behind on the equality issue - and will be trying to kill me off when I'm there this Summer. Hey, look what I have to look forward to!!!). There was this other guy yesterday who was checking out my groceries and built up a convo through that way. But he wasn't a crazy, just a busy body, which I can handle!

As I woke up late, I wasn't tired so I stayed up til 2 watching TV and bumming around. Although it's going to be a busy weekend. I'm going to be in Toronto all day on my own exploring the city, which I can't wait for. I'll be there til 11pm, where I'll meet up with Dawn after work and then make our way home. I haven't got much planned, just looking through my Lonely Planet Toronto book and doing some things from there. There are a few suggested walking tours - and seeing as I love walking so much, I may do them all. And I think there was a free opening at a gallery just this weekend, plus a customer loyalty day at a major book retailer, so I may have a peruse of that. I love not having plans! Sunday we may be going to the big apple. YEAH BABY! I'll keep you posted on that!

Today I may go to the gym, which is a 30 minute walk from the house (but it's free, so I don't mind!), tonight we're going out for hamburgers and tomorrow I have to be up early for Toronto. And if the boy is reading this, welcome back to Spain :)

I'm off. If I don't blog this weekend you now know why - I haven't been busted for injuring a veteran, I'm just out! :)

See ya!

Andy's Walkabout Tour of Oshawa

TUESDAY: It snowed in the morning, but I was fast asleep and it disappeared after Dawn and I woke up. As a result of the cold and snowy-ish day, I thought it was just going to be a bumming day. And it kinda was, except for the 90 minute walk I went on. In my case, that is lazy. But any exercise is better than n0thing. Slept in and watched the Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa (from the tube!). It was a public holiday for most people and we sat and watched the Parade and all the comemmorations that go with it. Afterwards I went out with Dawn to the Oshawa Centre (the mall) and I wanted to walk, so while she got the car to go home, I walked it. Went to Memorial Park and saw all the wreaths that were laid down on the monuments. I counted them all: there were 83. I'm sure the number will increase.

TODAY: Woke up early and went for a walk for 90 minutes with Dawn's mum. We met up with Dawn at Oshawa Centre and had lunch. Went to Pizza Hut - it was the only thing we could think of. We arrived in time for the lunch buffet and it was pretty good. The best I've had so far when it comes to dining out in restaurants (and that's not saying much - the pizza was alright). The only thing here: whenever you order a hot chocolate ANYWHERE, they always add whipped cream over the top. EWWW! That ruins it for me and that continues to confirm what I've been saying about the issue of obesity here. They even had dessert pizzas (again, more confirmation, but I never say no to dessert!): half apple half blueberry. I tried it for the novelty factor. The apple was nice, the blueberry was too sweet. I still ate it! And when we left they had one that was half cherry half apple. DAMN!

At Oshawa Centre they were giving away free coffee. Not to pass up on an opportunity like that, I went and took advantage of it. They had no tea or hot chocolate so I could only have coffee. I ordered the weakest one I could think of but it was still strong. Bare in mind that the last time I had coffee I was 16 years old, so anything would be strong for my tastes. I had a latte 10 years ago and it was a strong fucker. It took me a while to get back to 'normal'. I got heart pulpitations from it and thought, "I'm never having coffee again". Fast forward to today: I'm older, wiser, the body is at the stage where it can try something new, so I tried again and failed at it. Coffee isn't for me, tea is! And after less than 2 minutes, I crashed. HARD! I just wanted to go to sleep. The body, especially the legs, were stuffed. I had to sit down with Dawn for around half an hour before I decided that going for a long walk would help to get the caffeine out of my system. So I did just that. I walked from Oshawa Centre to Memorial Park to see the wreaths again, then walked towards Dawn's house, passed it and went to the gym that I am now a pseudo member of, got my membership card and walked back home. In total, it was 2 and a half hours (plus 1 and a half from this morning: 4 hours in total. No wonder my legs are tired!) As soon as I got home I went for the water. Was still full from Pizza Hut, so I had fruit for dinner (and a block of chocolate later on when I got hungry. Nice to know I can balance things out!) And now I'm here typing this. Time is flying over here. It's hard to believe that it's almost 2 weeks since my arrival. I've done lots of things and am booked up until I leave.

I'm currently looking for better deals to Wisconsin. Dawn's travel agent is investigating for me.

Well, after my colossal lunch and walk, it's time for Andy to go to bed. Sweet dreams!

Monday's Blog: Lazy day

My first one since arriving here around 9 days ago. It was lovely to have a sleep in and to not be expected to do anything. Because everybody was going to be out and I would have the house to myself, I decided to cook dinner so they don't have to worry about it. But as I had been mentioning, it's hard to cook for fussy people, so the key is to just

a) keep it simple. Take out all the fancy herbs and spices that I now call my 'everyday essential seasonings' and stick to the bare basics and
b) if that doesn't work, don't tell them what's in it!

I was looking through a little cookbook that my Mum gave me before I left (it's from Super Food Ideas, which is a monthly magazine that is really the best because it caters for budget conscious simplists who sometimes want to eat something aside from bread and water every night) and the simplest thing I could find that I knew they would like was a ham and macaroni bake (everyone here called it macaroni and cheese - and I guess they were right - but I put mine in the oven instead! The other night when 3 of us had tacos, 1 had mac cheese but froom the packet, so I'm trying to instill home made cooking here, moreso as a practice for me!) I took out the parsley :( and there was no ham so instead I put turkey rashes (they looked like bacon anyway. 1 person doesn't like turkey, but I can fudge my way through that!)

It was all very easy, just had to pop into the shop to get some cheddar cheese, and that was a task in itself. Not because there wasn't any, just because there were too many cheddar cheese varieties to choose from (old style, medium, white, marble. Just give me anything man!) I ended up deciding on the marble thinking it would be lighter. I told Judy to prepare for the worst and have a back-up dinner option in case this failed. I made my salad to go with it, we had it and it was delicious! We all went for 3rd helpings and as a result, there was only a tiny plate left for Dawn (She was at work at the time!), but she doesn't eat much anyway. And when Dawn finally had hers she really liked it. Mission accomplished: I can cook for fussy people. It will come in handy again pretty soon!

Spent the day cooking and spent the night drinking tea and watching murder shows on the crime channel. Believe it or not, I had never seen an episode of the CSI Franchise until last night. It's a bit hit and miss - I'll stick to Criminal Intent and NCIS - but I'd watch the other one if there was nothing else on.

I've only just got up, so today's bloggy will come later tonight. I'm off to walk somewhere! Maybe to the gym. We'll see.

Bye!

Niagara

OK, before I get to the details about our cool day trip, I'm gonna bitch about something. Today I learnt something: who I can and cannot trust while I'm overseas. Last week you may recall I had problems with my email and as a result I couldn't get in touch with my Mum. I had asked someone we knew if she could pass on a message and tell my Mum to check her email coz there were a few urgent messages I wanted her to get. This friend calls and passes the message on, but goes on to tell Mum she wasn't happy that she was playing messenger and asked that I not send her anymore emails. WHAT THE FUCK??? She is a fucked up freak. What I sent was urgent - I don't have access to a phone so I couldn't call Mum and the email was screwing up on me and all I asked was if she could let Mum know to check her email, I didn't ask for a kidney. I regarded this person as family but after pulling a stupid stunt like this, I had decided to send her an email basically telling her to fuck off. It took all of my being to get me to stop and to think about it rationally for a second. I was ready to send off that email to her, but then thought she was just going to cause more trouble for Mum who is innocent in all of this. I decided to send an email to my Mum instead letting her know that I was going to tell this bitch off (after getting back from Niagara). When I got back I was ready to send it, but Mum got back to me and told me not to. So I am begrudgingly keeping quiet because I know the psycho will make my Mum pay. She's always saying that she is upfront, but if she can't speak to me about this then she is just a fucking idiot. I am cutting her loose and no longer want to have anything to do with her. I told my Mum that I would like her to do the same, but Mum will probably keep seeing the freak. I just won't be kind to her - after everything that my family has done for her she takes offence at calling my Mum to pass on a simple message. I have zero tolerance for people who involve my Mum in ridiculous issues like this. So here's a lesson for you out there - mess with me and you're screwed anyway - but if you mess with my Mum in any bullshit like this, you'll have me to deal with. (Can you tell that I am protective of my Mum? Ask O!)

I've been wanting to get that out of my system all day. So now I can move on! We left just after 8 to go to Niagara On The Lake. At the halfway mark we stopped at a good ol' trucker's diner with a 24 hour buffet. I hadn't eaten any breakfast and wanted to have something, but just seeing the buffet made me sick (the sight of the eggs and bacon was enough to block anyone's arteries) and I wisely didn't want to have anything except tea. (Honestly though I was still cut at the bitch and was just thinking about sending that email to her). I ended up drinking 4 cups of tea in one sitting.

Niagara On The Lake is a small historic town just before you get to the falls and has become a touristy area. It's like Williamstown, but with more history. There were some cool bakeries and food specialty shops (the amount of candy apples and the variations to them - normal ones, chocolate coated ones with smarties, rocky road candy apples, etc - were phenomenal - and I think that's a typo!) even an ice-creamery called "Cows" where they sold cool merchandise all to do with cows and filled with all the parodies they could fit with the word cows (iCud, Mootown Music, Hello Cowie. Had to be seen to be believed - it was HILARIOUS!) Dawn and I posed for stupidly funny shots (I'll upload them another day) and it turned out to be lots of fun.

We were about to return home, but it was still quite early, so we made a detour and headed for Niagara Falls! Something I wasn't expecting but was glad to be prepared for. I didn't realise the Falls were at the US/Canadian border (Italian was my strongest subject at school, not geography!) and everybody kept pointing and saying, "See over the bridge - that's the US!" We were driving and went past the US falls first. I thought they were so impressive. Drive a minute further and you get to the Canadian falls - the better of the 2 (even though I was quite chuffed with the American ones!) There was so much mist and fog covering the Canadian falls. The American one just didn't compare to the Canadian ones. It was quite cold - glove-worthy weather - but there were still so many people there all rugged up and all on the Canadian side trying to get the postcard-perfect shot. The cascades were truly remarkable. We went walking up and down to stake out the perfect spot for pictures. In Winter time, they shine lights on the Falls so they lighten up in the dark. We will be returning for an overnight stay to see them. I also want to go down to the bottom of the falls for a closer look, where there has been a lookout built to take a closer look at the Falls. All for next time though! I have a feeling that will be something I will be doing on my own, as the others suffer from claustrophobia. I'm up for it! After a little while - and after we got our shots we made our way back to Oshawa - 2 and a half hours by car.

A few things I've been having trouble with during my stay:
1: The prices of things. I had my little rant yesterday that I was only going to buy things if the tax was included in the cost. Today I got a $2 deal on chocolate and I only bought it because I saw my 2 favourite words here in Canada: "Tax Included"!
2: North American 'family restaurants'. The menus are huge. Too many things to choose from - and none or very few healthy options. We didn't feel like making dinner, so we popped by "Teddy's", a restaurant that has a 20 minute wait for a table - on a good day. I just wanted something with white meat. It was just the fish they had but it was fried and I knew my stomach wouldn't have been able to handle it. Even the salads had big chunks of red meat and other shit. It seems to be a common theme in all restaurants. I really do miss my Lygon Street (The Italian restaurant district in Melbourne, also known as Little Italy) or just any place where I can get fresh food. I struggled and just pointed and got the healthiest thing there, which was an open mushroom burger with a big chunk of beef, a side of mushroom gravy and 2 onion rings on top. Needless to say I was not impressed and just ate the mushrooms dipped in the gravy and had half of the sandwich. Usually I like to leave room for dessert but the servings are so huge I just don't want to have them. But I spied on some other tables and saw they had huge portions of dessert. We have been going out a lot for dinner and I'm just going for the tea. Actually being here makes me understand the obesity epidemic a little bit more. Yes you hear about it but actually going into restaurants, seeing all the portion sizes and the very limited healthy options (There aren't even any vegetarian options in the menu, my failsafe if I can't choose anything is to go straight for the vegetarian dishes), watching TV and just seeing all the commercials for the fast food chains (and not just the usual Maccas and KFC, but other chains that are exclusive to North American and Canadian shores), it really brings it home as to why there is such a problem with obesity, non insulin dependent diabetes and heart diseases. It's gotten to the point where I just want to stay home and cook coz at least I know what I'm putting in my meals. And I'm the only one here who has a green salad with every home-made meal (It's the wog in me and I wouldn't change it for anything) I just cannot wait to get to South America and Europe for a decent feed!

Down comes Andy from her soapbox! We all got home and retired to the telly and computer. I watched The Amazing Race and was happy that the blonde bimbos got booted off.

I have been doing stuff almost everyday since I arrived and tomorrow I'm on my own for a bit. I'm wanting to cook dinner for everyone but it's hard to accommodate people. I'm going to have a green salad with tuna and beans for me, possibly a macaroni tuna thing for Dave - and something for Judy...haven't figured it out yet. It'll be good to take it easy for a bit. I've decided to fly over to Chicago and get a bus to Madison as it still works out to be a pretty cheap deal - even with Air Canada - which is known to be the more expensive of the airlines. So very happy :)

Am going to go to bed and sleep in! Although I did sleep 9 and a half hours last night. I'll be hoping for more now! Thanks for letting me rant, it has made a world of difference. See ya later :)

Too much turkey = FATIGUE!

There are 3 of us who don't like red meat, so we counter that by having either chicken or turkey. Ever since I've arrived it has been turkey on the menu and it has been great. I hadn't eaten turkey in years as it is not readily available in Oz (or if it is, it's really expensive). As a result, we have all been really sleepy with the trictophan (I SO know that is the incorrect spelling, but it is the stuff in turkey that makes you sleepy). It's 8:30pm and I am WIPED! It could also be all the walking I'm doing, as well as waking up early. This morning we were told we were leaving the house at 8am, so I woke up at 7am to take my time. We didn't leave til 9. I was pissy! But eventually we left and got to St Lawrence Market just before 10. It's a market selling mainly food but also souveneirs, clothes and other stuff. Just like any other market. Similar to Queen Victoria Market in Melbs, but smaller. And I'm sure it's busier in the warmer months, but as today was the first day it felt like Autumn and not Spring, the crowd probably stayed home.

I tend to make the common error of not having breakfast before I leave in the morning because when my blood sugar drops, it really DROPS! I'm too full to have anything in the morning but when I do get hungry, I will eat and drink anything. Unfortunately my desperation for something to drink and eat took me to Starbucks. Bloody awful shit. The Japanese and the Aussies do a better Starbucks - and we don't even need a Starbucks in either of those countries coz there are so many top notch coffee houses that we don't need that inferior shit. At least it turned me off from coffee houses there. But that awful crap was enough to get my blood sugar back to a normal level and I was OK for a little while longer. We went walking along downtown Toronto and it was pretty deserted for 11am. We went into Dawn's workplace to get a map and we decided to walk in The Path, which I may have mentioned before, is a 27km underground pathway that takes you to all the shops and all the major landmarks downtown. When it gets cold in Winter, there is no need to even go outside and tolerate the cold weather: the Path will take you to anywhere you need to go. We walked from Union Station - the central hub to Eaton Centre. Dawn was in charge of the map reading. She's an ace with maps - and even she got lost a few times! Happens to the locals too. There are quite a few water features and sounds of the soothing water in the Path. That is because in Winter time and during peak hour, the Path gets crowded - REALLY CROWDED. People tend to panic and a combination of no windows and lack of fresh air mixed with people crowded together in a fairly confined space during peak times, people get crazy. The water features and the sound of the water is meant to calm them down. And I know it would work - I can vouch for it. I do use the sound of the ocean waves crashing to fall asleep and to also wake me up in the morning when I have to go to work. Even today when I hear the ocean, my first instinct is bed time! So I was all relaxed and calm when I was in the Path today. And also because there was nobody there - being a Saturday and all! We eventually got to Eaton Centre which is the main area of downtown Toronto at Younge and Dundas. I thought I was back in Japan - especially with the traffic lights. In Japan, there was a very loud sounding system for pedestrians. If the light was green, a loud alarm type beep sound would holler throughout until the lights changed. If I closed my eyes, I could have sworn I was back home crossing the road at Sendai station. You know how there are senses that can trigger memories? I know smell is the strongest, but I'd say sound would have to come second or third - tied with taste. It was a very nostalgic moment.

I had been waiting for a 'streetcar' to pass by at Younge and Dundas, as I had seen some tram tracks and was curious to see what the trams looked like. Very small! Afterwards we made our way via subway to Scarborough - which involved us catching 3 different lines. Dawn and Judy like to use scare tactics to warn you of things - but they go all out and give you the worst case scenario. So they were telling me to be careful of being pushed in line, watch out for psychos, etc. Coming from a big city myself, I know that I have to keep my guard and wits about me. And I find Melbourne is worse than what I experienced in Toronto and it got to the point where I had to block it all out and ignore what they were saying. If you listen to them, it feels like you are living in fear and that is no bullshit I want to be a part of. So I had to lay low and keep my mouth shut coz I know that they were just preparing me, but living in Melbourne is enough preparation!

The subways were quite clean. We had fun going through all the names of the weird stations. There was a guy who was not 'with it' and just kept talking to himself. He wasn't causing harm to anyone, he was just loud with his self-talking and bad ass rap 'singing'. The station that he disembarked was called 'Warden'. Dawn and I couldn't help but laugh our pants off!

The fact that the prices displayed are not the FINAL price tags that you end up paying has stopped me from buying compulsively, but they were pissing me off. I tried buying something that was labelled $3.50 and it ended up being $4 just because of the stupid GST and PST. Fuck man, just put THE WHOLE price including taxes so I don't have to get pissy! Honestly, that stops me from buying food too, as I had to budget for stuff. That's one stickling point of contention I have......:(

It took a while, but we got to Scarborough and it's just like any other big shopping complex. The only reason I bought a drink there was because they had the price up INCLUDING TAXES! That's how I'm gonna buy things from now on: if the price of tax is not included, I'm not buying it (Wish Andy luck everyone! She's gonna need it!) After some window shopping, we all got a lift back home via the local 'Zellers' (kind of like K-Mart) to get in, buy some towels and get out. It took 90 minutes because of the bloody staff getting it wrong. Got home and rested a bit before having dinner and having another early night. Tomorrow we are off to Niagara on the Lake. Not quite Niagara Falls, but still on the way and with lots of nice things to see.

It's been a week since arriving in Canada already and it hasn't felt like it at all. I've got to organise my time in Wisconsin. I've already checked out some cheap flights to Chicago, then I am catching a 3 hour bus to Madison - and the prices are quite reasonable. Just need to finalise the dates, as also we are going to Niagara Falls and staying overnight to see the lights on the Falls, as well as have Christmas dinner with the family before I jet off to sunny Buenos Aires. DAMN! Time is flying folks!

OK, turkey is making me sleepy...off to bed....nighty night!

Walking tour

Seems I've been doing a lot of that - walking! This morning we went downtown. We left the house at 10am and I got back at 1:30pm. Judy walked with me, then took the bus back while I went to explore downtown a bit more. Today was meant to be one of the last warm days for Autumn, so I wanted to take advantage of that. There were several murals around town that depict the history of Oshawa and they were all pretty cool. We ended up at the Memorial Park and I wandered around. That's the place where people come to pay tribute to all the people who fought on all the wars, etc. I was at the main monument reading about the history when a man came up and told me more about as he saw me. I told him that I'm Aussie and he gave me more of an insight about the Aussies and Canadians as an allied force. That was cool too. Turns out that he is a war veteran and we got to chatting about it some more, and me basically learning more history of war. One thing I'm learning is how patriotic they are - one thing that is severely lacking in Australia. We pay our respects and all, but you do feel that sense of pride everyday here, not just on Remembrance Day or ANZAC Day. It really hit me today as I was speaking to the veteran. So I'm hoping to get to Memorial Park on Tuesday for Remembrance Day. And Memorial Park is really beautiful. It is well maintained and aside for it being a place to pay respect to the soldiers, it's predominantly a place for meditation and peace - and you get that feeling instantly despite it being a place that was built to remember (and to arguably glorify) war. I spent a good time there relaxing, seeing the beautiful white grandstand there that is used during Summer for bands to play. They're getting stuff ready for Christmas as well - with REAL Christmas trees being decorated and squirrels jumping on them.



Walked back home (and bless my good memory - I made it back in one piece again) and we started baking, as I had wanted to learn how to make molasses buns (when we were living in Sendai, Dawn's mum sent her a care package with these buns - I tried them and fell in love instantly! SO DELISH!) And I'm learning how to make them - they are a similar recipe to gingerbread men, so we made them today. All good! I'm gonna try and make some truffles and I'm kinda hoping nobody likes them. Everybody is fussy here, so I'm sure I'll get my wish, and then the truffles will be ALL MINE!

Tomorrow we're all going into Toronto to visit the world famous St Lawrence Market. Whatever you can think of, it's there. Everybody recommends it and I've read up on it, and I'm ready for it. Can't wait.

And as I've been blogging this, I'm also helping my best friend with her wedding. She's got a date ready and the reception place - it's all set for next October. 3 months after I get back home, so it's official bridesmaid duties from July to October. And the bridesmaid dress is HOT! I'm gonna look fabulous. And my hairdresser friend is online too, so I'm getting prices and all that and sending them to Jackki instantly. So I guess I'm on duty now! This is excting. As long as I have known her, Jackki has always said, "I'm never ever getting married". Now she knows exactly what she wants for her wedding! I've always said that I wanted to elope, so hopefully that remains :)

OK, off to bed. See ya!

TURN AROUND!

That's my new game I like to play here in Canada. I have an obvious Aussie accent (well, obvious enough to stand out from the crowd, especially in a small town like Oshawa) and everytime I talk, people turn around to see who is talking. I know it's done in good fun and for a curiosity factor, but it makes me laugh to see a) how many people turn around and b) how many times the same person can turn around. So everyday Dawn and I are counting to see if I can break my daily record. Today's total is 23 and 1 person turned around 3 times. A new record!

This morning Judy and I took a really nice walk to their local gym. It's a workout in itself to walk there - especially on such a beautiful day. I didn't even need a jacket. I find it funny that it's been warmer here in late Autumn than it has been in the middle of a Melbourne spring. I'm working on my tan here! It took us around 45 minutes at a leisurely pace. We were going to see if we could get a deal for me to have a 5 week membership so I can go in anytime. Got shown around and it is a HUGE gym! The do classes, cardio stuff, circuit, swimming and aqua, etc. They were gonna get me to pay $24 a week (still cheaper than the one I worked for in Melbs) until we asked if we could transfer Dawn's membership to me for 5 weeks, which they agreed to at no extra charge. The gym membership has been paid off already and I did offer to pay my way, but was told not to worry about it. So more free gym membership! YAY! They tend to follow me everywhere!!!

Walked back to the house and I am slowly picking up on all the different bike paths and ways to get from one place back to the house. There are so many ways you can go about it and I'm taking advantage of the nice weather before it reverts to coldness on the weekend by walking everywhere. Had my trusty vegemite for lunch and decided to go for yet another walk after eating. I walked to the discount shop and satisfied my naughty chocolate craving and walked back to the house. Checked to see if any of my peeps were online, they weren't so I went out yet again for another longer walk - this time to Walmart, where I went last night by car. Here's something else I learnt: Road rules are weird to master here. At a red light, you have to stop, but if there's a red light and the road is clear, you can make a right turn. Some instances you can even turn left. I'm still trying to get my head around that one!

It was 30 minutes to get to Walmart and it was predominantly an uphill walk. Had to sit for a while, bummed a bit before making my way back when I discovered it was starting to get cold. Made it back in one piece! So altogether, I walked over 3 hours. No wonder I'm tired now!

On the second day I arrived, we all bought tickets to see an equestrian show that was playing at Oshawa. It was the "World Famous Lipizzaner Stallions", with horses (obviously!) but it was very interesting and cool. They went through all the main things done when doing dressage events, the origins, etc. If anything, I got to learn more about and appreciate the art (sport) of equestrian and all the things that go with it. It's here thatI played Turn Around with Dawn and it's here I broke my record. Quite funny!

Tomorrow is another beaut day and we're going downtown (I think to Oshawa Centre, which is another bloody long walk. YAY!) I'm getting more exercise at least! And I've been cooking some more and adding my own flavour to stuff. Tomorrow is burger night and I'm gonna see if I can experiment with some stuff...hmmm.....It's going to be an interesting time to cater to 3 people in the household who eat differently (2 people allergic to stuff and 1 who is a fussy fussy eater. I like the motto I have grown up with when it comes to food - "Just eat it and shut up!") Wish me luck!

I'm off to bed, it's another early start and I want to rest my legs!

Bye :)

The Amazing Race

I'm currently in a blog race with Chris. Now that we're in a closer proximity to each other, we've got similar schedules!

So today was a super easy laid back day. Was woken up to go for a walk along the neighbourhood and to find some squirrels! Yes, I know. I'm obsessed. There were none out there coz a dog was scaring them away. But at least I know my way around Oshawa. All the places tend to be in a round circle so you'll end up at the same place that you started. It's a very nice neighbourhood, I really like it. As it was another absolutely gorgeous day, I planned to go exploring some more later in the day. We went back home and I eventually had the place to myself, so ideally I was going for a walk. Got distracted when I realised that 3pm my time is the peak time where everybody else is available online - and they were all so happy to hear from me that it got dark by the time I wanted to go for my walk. I've got 6 weeks - there's no hurry at all!

When Dawn got back from work we made a beeline for The Future Shop (STILL can't get enough of that name) and Walmart to find a battery charger - one I thought I'd get from the first shop. They were all pricey and I tried my luck at Walmart and BOOM: Found a USB charger, so I don't need an adaptor. HOORAY! Only set me back $10 whereas the other one would have cost me $50. Very happy with that!

Tomorrow we're walking to the gym and we're going to see if they can do me a deal for me to go to the gym while I'm here. They know of me, so a deal will be made. Fingers crossed - I'm busting for a Pump class!

Well off I go to beat Chris!

Bye

Taking it easy

MONDAY: Day 3 in Canada and it's very laid back once again. I had a sleep in and my body was dying for exercise, but Dawn's mum didn't want me to get lost, so she came along with me for a walk around the neighbourhood in the late afternoon. It was a very nice walk. I saw squirrels for the first time running around the bike path near their house. If my batteries were working properly, I would have gone and taken photos. But I didn't bring my camera. I've got 6 weeks to take photos of the local area, so I'm not too worried about it. We went walking all towards where Dawn drove us the day before and it was so close I could walk it. Then I remembered the fact that Dawn hates walking anywhere, so I'll be forced to go out on my own, which is what I like anyway.
One of my blondie moments: We were walking along the neighbourhood and I saw a lot of police tape on the outside of the houses. It was surreal seeing it in real life as opposed to just seeing it in Law and Order. I then asked Judy, "How safe is this area?" she said, "It's a very safe and good area to live in" just as we walked past a 7th house with the yellow tape. I looked at her, pointed at the 8th house and asked, "Are you sure?". She then broke down in hysterical laughter and said, "They're just the Halloween decorations that people have in front of their houses. They leave them out for days just before the Christmas ones come out!". Yeah, but I laughed my butt off too! Got back and spent the rest of the time cursing hotmail for screwing things up. When I opened my inbox, I couldn't bring the page down to even write any messages, although I could still read them. I tried everything I could, even got Dawn to look at it for me, but to no avail. I gave up and decided to get a gmail account, and that was a hassle too just coz I couldn't think of any names for my email address, aside from "Spanish Help Desk", so then Chris helped me out for a thingscorp addy (Thanks dude, as soon as I sort out the 'outgoing' shit, I'll have it up and running). With that one, once again I can read emails but cannot send them, which was giving me more of the shits. After a bit of a whiny session (thanks Chris!), I finally changed email addys and am much happier. Bloody hell, last month it was myspace, this month it's facebook and hotmail. Please let it be all that changes! I wanted to go to sleep but couldn't, so I stayed up bumming a bit before finally drifting off. Although I had an early start, as I was heading off to Toronto for my first day trip fairly early in the morning.

TODAY: For the first time since working in Melbourne, I had to get up at 7:30am. Was prepared fairly early and ready to go out into town with Judy. I had the trippiest flashback moment EVER when we were at the bus stop. This girl was at the stop with her back facing towards us, and I could have sworn it was OLYMPIA! Seriously, this was dead ringer time again: she had the short straight hair, had the beanie on, bag across the shoulder and resting on the hip, jeans with runners. She had the same posture, same height and build, same mannerisms. Then she turns around and has the exact same pair of glasses Olympia does. I was just looking at her and kept looking at her to see if it was her. My jaw just dropped. Even on the bus I kept asking myself, "Is that her?" I wanted to take a picture of her and talk to her to see if she sounded like her. I'm sure she did. But I chickened out. She lives in Dawn's area, so I may bump into her again sometime.

I also learnt something else today (it seems I'm just learning new stuff everyday. Cool!): Canadians who are not living in Toronto are over-prepared for the cold all the time, even if the weather is meant to be beautiful. For example: today was 17 degrees and that's very high for this time of the year. Usually it would be snowing, but it was like a beautiful Autumn day, similar to Autumn in Melbs: the sun was out, the leaves are still falling. I look around to see what they are wearing and it's this: a beanie, a heavy duty goose down coat more suitable for skiing rather than just shopping at the corner store (I feel so gay for saying corner store: my heart and my gut says 'milk bar' but my adaptation tool that I use frequently when I go overseas says 'corner store', or 'grocery store'); Heavy duty boots, like ugg boots but more practical, very warm pants that are once again more suitable for the skier and not the local just living an hour out of town. I thought to myself, if ppl back home had this weather, they would still be wearing board shorts and thongs (for your feet, let's straighten that up right now!) It was a really interesting observation, considering that it gets much colder than this, you would think ppl would take advantage of a lighter layer just before the cold sets in. I know I did! I just had 4 layers as opposed to my usual 7!

And something else I learnt: they are quite loyal about Rememberance Day, which is next week. Everybody is wearing the poppy badges and you get hassled downtown if you're not wearing one (hassled to buy one, and if you say no, you are being unpatriotic and you are questioned over it, etc). So before we left the house, I was given a poppy to pin on me so we wouldn't get hassled. Fair enough. I was wearing my leather jacket and didn't want to put it on there, so I put it on my bag (It was quite prominant. I didn't want to have a Seinfeld moment - the episode about the AIDS walk and Kramer won't wear the AIDS ribbon, even though he gets hassled about it quite a bit, until the 2 thugs he is scared of yell, "WHO, WHO DOES NOT WANT TO WEAR THE RIBBON..because I am wearing the ribbon, he is wearing the ribbon, we are ALL wearing the ribbon, so why aren't you wearing the ribbon". I was laughing to myself all the way to the city thinking it would be funny if something like that happened to me, because I would have just let rip with something! Anyway, Judy and I were walking to the CN Tower and this guy stops her and says, "You've got your poppy badge on the wrong side". It was on her right lapel. He said, "It's meant to be on your left side, above the heart". I looked at him and thought to myself, "WTF, at least she's wearing one, go hassle someone whose not - like me!". She was very polite and diplomatic about it and said, "He's probably a veteran himself". Still, I don't think it was such a big deal- like I said before, at least she's wearing one. I had to remind myself that I wasn't in Australia or Argentina, where I can get away with being a bitch by saying I'm a local. I think I could write a whole Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm episode about this. Maybe Curb, so I can write "Fuck" in the script repeatedly! Or just get into a fight with this guy like Larry and just go on and on and on...and let it be unscripted and uncensored. Yeah, Curb Your Enthusiasm. But I betcha it happened to Larry David, which inspired that Seinfeld episode. Too funny!

After the bus ride, we caught the train from Oshawa that takes an hour to get to Union Station, the central hub of Toronto. It was my first day out and people were asking me for directions. I thought that was sweet, but then I handballed them straight over to Judy! I'm still getting the 'turn around' whenever I am talking. I speak to Judy, they hear my accent and they turn around to see where it comes from and try to figure out where I'm from. Still funny! I got that a lot at the Dollarama! It really was a gorgeous day as people were outside and had short sleeves - kind of like Londoners when they get a pale glimmer of sunlight: off with the jumpers! Seems like I have brought my Melbourne weather with me up here and it's awesome! We went towards the CN Tower, which was the main thing I wanted to do in Toronto that wouldn't have too much walking: I'm saving my walking tours for when I'm on my own. I could spend the whole day walking, but I didn't want to burden Judy with it. She stayed downstairs and I went up and it was good. Something I can cross off my list! I wanted to take a photo of this but I wouldn't have been allowed to: when you go through security, you walk through this silver cubicle pod, you stand there and air is sucked out from the sides and blows all over you. I really wanted to take a pic because it is almost identical to the one used in that episode of Doctor Who, where the Doctor and Rose are in 2 separate elevators and are being 'disinfected' at the hospital with the evil nurse cats: they get showered with water, then air dried as if nothing had happened. This security measure was so cool! Next time when I'm in Toronto I want to ask a security dude if I can take a picture of it, very futuristic!

The CN Tower is the largest free standing tower in the world. It's quite an impressive tower. You have the observation deck (where I met an Israeli girl travelling on her own), you go higher and you have the glass floors (I met a Japanese guy who had the Canadian accent down packed!) and then you can go even higher on the sky pod. Just like Tokyo Tower really. The only thing that would have been nice is if they had signs that had the major landmarks and buildings in Toronto instead of people just looking aimlessly at buildings and stuff like that. EG: Tokyo Tower had signs that told you where Mt Fuji is located, etc. They had told you that you can see New York on a clear day, but not which direction, bla bla bla. I'm not gifted with "East West North South directions" To me, everything up is north, so it would have been good to have that. Right at the top I met an English girl called Violet who came to Canada just for a week from Plymouth. She got a good last minute airfare deal, so it got me to thinking about going to Madrid for a week, coz I did find a cheap ticket there. Well, my boyfriend is not going to read this, so it doesn't matter! Anyway, Violet and I were on our own and we were taking photos for each other, as we knew quite well the perils of going to these great places on your own and only having photos of scenery and none with you in them! All up I spent 2 and a half hours at the tower - thanks to the people I've met! Afterwards me, Violet and Judy went out to lunch at The Pathway, the 27km underground path that takes you all over downtown Toronto. When it's too cold or too hot to walk on the street, the underground path is used a lot as it takes you to all the places you can think of. It's an undercover galleria that is very well maintained with every shop you can think of: I found The Body Shop! We had greek food and I befriended the owner, who asked me where I was from and told me he wish he could go back to Melbourne! I so wanted to speak Greek to him, but the only words I know, I wouldn't say to a guy I've just met unless I'm trying to pick him up! After we ate I said "Yasu", which I thought meant 'Thank you", but I think it means hello, coz then he said 'Adio", which is goodbye (Adios en Spanish). Best Greek food ever: the chicken wasn't dry like it normally is back home - I'm in love with this place: Opa in the food court. Try it!

Back to the pathways: Everybody has said, "I dare you not to get lost in the pathway". And my sense of direction is quite good (apart from telling me to go 4 kms north west. Just tell me left or right!!!) so I am up for the challenge and have been ready for it since I've been reading up on Toronto. But again, that'll be when I'm on my own. Something to look forward to! We said goodbye to Violet, met up with Dawn and went home. Fell asleep on the train (and they are clean here in Canada!), got picked up at the station by her Dad and we went to a family restaurant. Their menus are so bloody huge. And something else I've learnt: they don't write up all of their prices: they don't include the GST or PST, so if something says it's $3.99, don't be fooled. That's what's been tripping me up and pissing me off (Violet too!) You've got to at least add $4, which is a pain. But at least it's stopping me from buying stuff compulsively.

Tomorrow is an easy day. I'm going to go for another walk in the neighbourhood. I need to buy a battery charger and hopefully we'll get it soon - before Saturday as me, Dawn and Judy will be going to St Lawrence Market, the world famous one. I like to go when it's crowded, but nobody else does :( but at least we're going on the weekend when it's all happening.

I'm gonna go and rest. And I can comment on MySpace again. After some thought and some sooki la la moping from my man, I have opened up a comment only myspace account. So my blogs will still be here, but I get to comment on all of yours again. I've been missing that and perhaps being out of the loop because of it. Now I have quite a few blogs to comment and catch up on: exactly a month's worth. YAY!

See ya later.