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Published: September 9th 2006
Lucky guy
Mum, can I bring home a souvenir from my travelsHi all,
I hope all is well with everyone at home. I wanted to catch you all up on the recent things that have been happening here and let you know what Ill be up to in the coming months.
Recently I went to my friend Julias home town, Guelph. She invited me and Mike there for the weekend as her parents were away for the weekend and we sensed another town to conquer. Guelph is a typical small country town. Fantastic views, hills and fields as far as you can see and big lake expanses where the locals sail and waterski and such. It was definately fun to get away from the city for a couple of days and see somewhere a bit less bustly. We ended up going out to a bar on the Saturday night. Judging by what Id seen of Guelph I didnt expect an action packed nightlife scene. Much to my surprise it was a great night. Everyone seemed to know eachother, except for me of course. That was pretty apparent everytime I tried to talk to anyone! I ended up driving home as Julia was a little tipsy and my nighttime driving skills
Island Party
Some of the lads on the island on the right, I mean wrong side of the road left a lot to be desired (just ask Julia and her cars curbed wheels). All in all it was a good weekend topped off by me and Mike donning the chef hats and whipping Julia up a meal as a thankyou.
Next was back to the city life and back to work. This has been a problem recently due to the poor results of sports teams I am an advocate of. I made a very big deal about the England team prior to the world cup and, well, you know the rest! The biggest thing here is that everyone seems to have a host of teams that they follow. As soon as one of them is knocked out they pick someone else and act like thayve been with them since day one. I think it has to do with thier team not being in the cup and the fact that everyone seems to have different nationalities in thier families. They didnt understand once England went out when asked who I was following I said no-one and that I probably wouldnt even watch anymore of the games. What befuddled me
Island Party
Me and Joanne, pilates instructor from work even further was the amount of people supproted conflicted teams. One gym member told me he was gonna get the shirts of England and Germany. I nearly told him he wasnt allowed to wear out shirt. I tried to explain to them that if your an England fan you have a part of your brain that signals your blood to boil at the sight of German shirts (and Agerntina, Turkey, and Portugal but thats another story). They didnt get it.
The main member at the gym that I share banter with is a Scottish chap. Of course, I struggle to lose any banter with him. He saw me after the cup with my England shirt on and asked if I wasnt to embarrased to wear it anymore to which I shot back the question of whether they even bother making Scotland shirts at all. Fortunately he found the funny side of it, as did the rest of the gym who had overheard.
Next was the member and staff party on the Toronto Islands held annually. A very prestigious event where everyone pretends to be posh for about the first ten minutes before sweating through thier suits on the dance
Island Party
I should not be allowed to steal peoples hats floor after having taken advantage of the open bar. The whole event is basically an unnofficial competition between the 3 gyms under the clubs name for the whole night. Who got the most hammered, performed the most ridiculous dance moves and eventually at the end of the night which club had been responsible for the most matchups of staff and members. Unfortunately I didnt even rank in any of these events. I had a crack at the dance move category (all of you from uni should remember the famous Carlton dance) but ended up punching one of my mates in the mouth in the process.
Then came thelast long weekend of the summer, Labour Day Weekend. This is an excuse for everyone to go out and party and turn up to work half dead on the Tuesday. We decided to go to a club called the Supermarket. After quickly discarding my shopping list having realised it was a giant Sainsburys the night got into full swing. It was a bit of an odd atmosphere. There was only Techno funk music the whole time and that soon got old so we headed out to find another place. Along the way
Island Party
Especially hats from drivers of karaoke vans we somehow stumbled across the idea of going to a Hotel called the Drake. The Drake was way to far to walk so we looked for a cab. Much to my surprise, the first cab was a karaoke van. Id never seen this before. All ten of us piled into what can only be described as a minibus draped in neon, and the driver, Mel, complete with a pink leopard hat and a blue leopard waistcoat, selected some tunes for us to blast out. It was the most surreal and unexpected cab ride but was definately fun and got us in the mood for a good night. Unfortunately, the Drake is an upscale place with a rooftop patio and little more than background music. The kind of place people go after a long hard day at the stock exchange to talk about the politics over a glass of scotch and a cigar. The night definately didnt go as planned and Mels van was nowhere to be found so we ended up going home on a very uneventful tram.
Thus unfortunately brings an end to the summer party season. Its been an awesome summer and Im sure the clubs will still be a hot scene but I fear the days of miniskirts and boobtubes will have to be put on ice.
The final really big thing of the summer will be the Toronto film festival that is happening this weekend. There are loads of big movie stars in town for the event and I know that there are loads of private parties all over the place. Vince Vaughn is having one and Sasha Baron Cohen has supposedly rented out the restaurant in the CN tower for his bash, and will be in Borat character all weekend. I may try to sneak in to one of these things somewhere along the line.
So, with an eye to the future Ill tell you know whats in the mix for Fagin from here on out.
I am currently 9 months into the year visa and the visa is absolutely, no exceptions non-extendable. I have also exhausted every option for staying here
(bar marriage which was brielfy entertained). So with this in mind I went about looking for something else that would help me stay in North America. I looked into an agency called Alliances Abroad which provide opportunities for on the job training in another country for 6-18 months. I had places all but secured in California, New York and Seattle but they fell through due to the positions being more to do with actual work than to me actually being taught anything while I was there.
This brought me back to searching for options to stay in Canada. After revisiting the marriage thing, I settled on coming back to Canada rather than staying here continuously. I have filled in all the required forms for a permanent residency application and am still waiting to recieve my police check back from England (heres hoping that big box of Cubans got to the headquarters in time and are enough to cover up the basketball teams impact at away games at uni).
The residency application takes between 10 and 15 months to process so you need to put as much into it to set you apart from everyone else. It comes down to the finest of details aswell such as marital status, age, education, job (I am getting a letter from the gym to tell them a personal trainer job is waiting for me). There is even a section on your pets and whether they will be accompanying you to the country.
So, with my current visa expiring in December and the residency not being issued until at least next September I will be home for before Christmas and be there for a while next year before coming back here.
Before I come back to England I have decided to take a good holiday as there are a few things I really want to do over here that I have not had a chance to as yet.
I was going to take a holiday in the summer down to the States but it never panned out. My mate Mike from work also wanted to go as he is yet to fly on a plane or even leave Canada so he said he wants to go with me in December.
The plan is to go to Montreal on December 6th. It will be cold enough to freeze your eyes closed but will still be good fun. Vanessa, a girl who worked on the front desk at the gym in the summer goes to Uni there and said she will put us up for the week. We will leave there on the 13th and fly to LA. Ive always wanted to go there. Im not sure why, maybe the lure of celebs, weather and money. The main reason for going there was to tick 2 more players off of the list of basketball players I am yet to see play (I have been told I can have tickets to a couple more Raptors games before I leave Toronto from gym member Burce aka Ticketmaster). You see the Lakers are playing the Houston Rockets on the 15th. Kobe Bryant is the Lakers big star and I havent seen him play before as he had already played in Toronto before I arrived. Houstons main star is Tracy Mcgrady and anyone who knows me in basketball circles knows he has long been one of my favourites. The seats didnt come cheap at 50 quid for seats in the upper bowl. I am happy with that though as when I looking for tickets I stumbled across some courtside seats. A bargain at a mere 500 quid a game!
We will leave LA on the 17th and rent a car to drive to Las Vegas. I was lucky enough to go to Vegas as a youngster but not as a legal adult. This time I plan to experience all Vegas has to offer. I will send out a blog once I get home to tell you all about the trip but as you know 'what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas' so that may be left out of the eventual write up.
Before we leave California were gonna drive to Laguna Beach for a visit there. You see, MTV has a reality show by the same name and Mike is simowhat addicted. It is based on high school Juniors and Seniors and the trials and tribulations they face growing up and living the tough life they must lead as the kids of rich parents who live by the beach. I feel sorry for them really. they face such daily dilemmas as 'I cant get my beemer in this colour because my sister already has it', aswell as another one for which an answer has eluded great minds for centuries 'how am I ever gonna live down the embarrasment of having a pimple?'. For anyone who has seen an episode of Saved by the Bell, this is the real life version. Anyway, Im yet to see an unattractive girl on the show so I happy to visit. The one thing to be careful of however is the driving directions. You see, Mike is not a good navigator (a few people from work went to Ottawa for the weekend -a 6 hour journey- with Mike navigating, and it took 11 hours to get there) and I still need to get used to driving on the right, er wrong, (well you get what I mean) side on the road. Having looked at a map we need to go past both Inglewood and Compton in order to reach our destination and Id like to do it with all 4 wheels still on the car. You see, we figure that in order to make an impression on the type of girls that recieve Mercedes and Porsches as gifts for passing thier driving tests, us driving a rental micra wont do. We also realise that there is no other way to arrive in Vegas than with a convertable. With that in mind we have decided to rent something like a Mustang or the newer, faster Nissan 350z. We figure that this may be enough to at least turn head somewhat.
Well, that just about wraps up this edition. I hope you are all keeping well and I will see many of you at Christmas. I will be back on the 23rd of December and I will try to write another entry before I leave Toronto but expect one shortly after Christmas.
Take care
Stu
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Duncs Dad
non-member comment
I remember your scooter!
Looks like your still having a great time. It's a good idea taking the long way home. I bet your family can't wait to see you. If you can bring home a souvenir like the one in the photo for me that would be great. See you around Christmastime.