The greatest hostel in town.

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I guess that wherever you go in the world staying in hostels is a bit of a lottery, you'll have good and bad and standards will vary greatly. Well i have found that, the New York one was diabolical in every way. The one at Niagara was great, more like a B&B than a hostel and something we really needed after the nightmare joint in New York.

However the best hostel we've stayed in, and maybe the best in the world, i don't know, was the Canadiana Backpackers Lodge in Toronto. It was easy to meet people there and form friendships in a short time, maybe because of the atmosphere and comfortable classy communal area. They also arrange for nighly activities. Two of these were a table tennis tournament, in which a won one game and lost the next (but this loss was to Steve, a great guy mentioned in my previous entry, so it didn't matter. There was also a trivia quiz in which (get this) i was the joint winner and for which i won a t shirt (a Canadiana Backpackers Lodge T Shirt that i plan to give as a gift to the Malaysian-Australian couple (see previous entry) when we meet them in Sydney.

The rooms were clean, the staff were firendly and it was right in the heart of town. BUt the absolute highlight of the hostel?, It was the fact that at 9.30 every morning we got free pancakes! I think i developed a bit of an obsession about these pancakes, as i was there every morning waiting for them. But why not, there were free and on a first come first served basis so i made sure i was both first come and first served.

Forget about five star hotels, if you every go to Toronto stay in the Canadiana Backpackers Lodge, it is the best i've been to so far and i don't expect that it will be beaten throughout the rest of my trip.

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