Toron'do

Before anything is said - oh my god, canada is COLD. I wear everything i own and shiver, the locals are still wearing shorts whilst daring to mention the word 'mild' - and this is still the fall, first snow due 14th then onto -35 degrees! thank god i just landed back in NY! I didn't see a moose, and the handsome mounties must have been on vacation, but i didn't exactly go camping with the bears either (can you imagine!)

Landed finally after several cancelled flights due to weather in the apple, the flight was fine, especially with my good old friend who for the purpose of this blog we shall call Stelios. He is a very sweet turkish guy who has lived in NY since the 60's, but still struggles with english?! He kept me company and shared everything with me, ie - gum, hand sanitiser, tissues, pens, even offered me earplugs?! After a heartbreaking farewell, i found my way to toronto and to my hostel which was fantastically located and very very homely (thanks lonely planet). A very busy place, but plenty of common rooms and the first bunk i have slept in in years. Settled in quickly, and my roomies were great from the offset. seeing the dodgy weather ahead, i quickly made plans around the 1 day of sun that was due, which was promised for thursday, and then made short work of finding the pub!

So, thursday = niagara. Through the hostel, my day's tour consisted of 3 hours at the falls, a visit to Niagara on the Lake, and then onto 20 Bees winery, famous for Dan Akroyd involvement and icewine - (nothing like a slush puppie) The falls are truly stunning. The biggest waterfall i have seen to date, and the noise of the water is immense. The sun lied and didn't show its face, but it was dry... until you got to the walkway next to the nearest section of the falls. As the wind was blowing towards us, the spray provided about 100 yards of torrential rain until you get past it - very bizarre and left us soaked to the bone! 100 million bath tubs of water fall a minute, and 500 million bottles of beer fall a minute. The falls were originally located 12 miles further forward than at present, and have moved due to water errosion over the years. They have slowed this errosion with dams and resevoirs which re-direct a proportion of the flow at low season times, and when diverted, the dams produce enough hydro energy to power 30,000 homes. In other words - all move to canada when we run out of fossil fuels.

This naturally beautiful place was only further accentuated by the trees, they had truly turned and were almost flourescent. Then you walk a little further, turn around, and behind you is the strangest place you could ever imagine to be next to niagara - Clifton Hill. There is no other way to describe it than a mini vegas. This consisted of major high rise hotel chains, two enormous casino's and a street of horrendously tacky funfair attractions, all with a haunted theme!?! It was neon, loud, bizarre and covered in candy floss!! I later found out that the casino's were the driving force behind the hiddeous development, and they pulled in so much trade regardless of the falls that it made it a ready-made must visit for all the family. I will never understand americans. Sorry - canadians!

After getting soaked once again back to the bus full of frankenstein burger king (which is so much better tasting) we went onto niagara on the lake. We passed the smallest chapel in the world, it holds 6 people and has a two year waiting list! and arrived in a stunning village which looked like we were in switzerland with no hills. one cup of coffee later, we left for the winery and my first taste of icewine. Ontario boasts teh best in the world, and tastes like a glucose based desert wine. very very sweet, by this time we were all shattered and fell asleep whilst being stuck in traffic back home.

Friday, a large group of us decided to go to the Body world exhibition at the Ontario Science museum. This was created in austria, but has caused massive controversy over the world. It is made up of bodies that have been donated to science, and plasticised into exhibits. each body has been carefully crafted to show different elements of the body, from skeleton, muscles, organs, nervous system, and went through the heart functions and diseases. It was extraordinary. They were corpses, which was a bit gross at times, but done so carefully and cleverly that you were left in awe. It was also very respectful and tastful with many quotes, explanations and captions that were very tasteful. It was an overwhelming experience, but one which we all throughly enjoyed. (if thats the right words?!) They did however have loads of dead lungs from people, healthy ones, smokers, emphacima(?) and cancerous lungs - this was pretty harsh and haven't smoked since - although my eating has now gone through the roof again. Nicotine was great for some things eh!

Then came saturday. My whole want to visit toronto in the first place is the lovely sarah! She moved here 7 years ago from guildford and i have wanted to visit ever since, so when she picked me up from the hostel for the weekend i was thrilled! I had such a great time, and we spent hours catching up on many years of gossip and scandal! we visited the distillery complex, which had many quirky little shops and galleries, restored in a turn of the century style. We then visited the beaches, which is east of toronto and on the edge of Lake Ontario. As the smallest of the 5 great lakes i could believe when standing on the sandy beach with waves coming in this was a lake! I couldn't see any land on the horizon at all. we walked in the wind all the way down the promenade, and then retired home with wine to talk weddings - Perfect!

We managed to avoid Halloween entirely, being in a condo, there were no kids knocking either! The night before was crazy in the hostel, some of the costumes were so intricate, from astronaughts to paedophile priests, and the main drag next to our hostel was simply heaving with scantily clad girls being a 'sexy' variation of anything you could possibly imagine - steph you would have died laughing - there were cheeks everywhere! The drunken noise and arguing that night was definitely enough for me to enjoy missing actual halloween completely!

Sunday, after english muffins and coffee we headed back into toronto, and i got a full downtown guided tour all the way down to the harbour front which we hit at sunset. I had my first burrito - amazing. It felt like 7 years disappeared, and was great to meet her fiance!

Monday i woke up extremely grumpy and struggled down to the normal breakfast of cold pancakes and maple syrup (tastes great when its free!) Planning to go back to bed for a week, i literally got dragged to the Casa Loma with the Brazillian guy in our group. It was a small castle/stately house built by a king sometime before 1900 (you can tell how much attention i paid!) This was of course of less interest to me from england with stately homes and real castles galore, but Juliano was amazed at this place and we ended up having a great day causing havoc around the ground with our cameras! I was quickly kicked out of my mood, and enjoyed kicking leaves around the neighbourhood of the loma, which was simply ankle deep in red and gold leaves!!

Pretty much all my hostel buddies had left by monday night and my last day was spent finally hitting the CN tower. This has become my nemesis due to the cloud which enclosed it most days i had aimed to go up there. But the views were definitely worth it. The lake is indeed huge, and i am now not surprised i couldn't see a horizon! I also met one of sarahs family friends who had moved to toronto in the 60's from hull, she greeted me like a long lost neice and we had a great chat until she had to pretend she was working.


So - Canada, people are great, very very polite and extremely welcoming, they do have an obsession for planting cabbages and kale in flowerbeds everywhere - perhaps these are the only things that will survive the cold. There is a massive need for off licences - they literally had one or two beer stores accross town, which shut at 8pm. There was no where to pop out for cigarettes or beer at the early hours. They need a good old texaco! The people were also great, from our brazillian cartoon artist, the blond dutch girl who would literally not stop talking about herself, the crazy australian girl who blew all her cash on music gigs, the uptight german girl studying for her thesis and demanded a private room, chad the ex-army guy who got stood up on a date, and then scored at a hilton, and a wierd canadian guy who was apparently 'working' but wouldnt tell any of us his job and i swear was a hitman. The morning i left there was a beautiful sunset from the lake, and enjoyed a great taxi ride to the airport with a guy called willy from hong kong. Things just keep getting wierder....

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