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Published: August 7th 2011
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Finally have a long period of internet access (in Quebec City!) and have about 3 blogs to write....so here goes! May have to start bullet pointing things. I apologise for the shoddy writing, but am trying to write these blogs quickly with as much info as possible!
We spent a lovely few days in Barrie with Sian, Brad & Owen, their amazing house and their half-awesome half-scary cat, Optimus. Brad met us half way on Monday afternoon and that evening we spent drinking too many rye and cokes and playing a lot of Guitar Hero, which is surprisingly hard. We spent Tuesday going for a drive around Barrie (beautiful scenic city on Lake Simcoe) and then going for a few drinks and Sian and Brad cooked us a delicious dinner on the barbecue in the evening. We spent that evening losing quite a few times to Owen at Mario Kart (not as good as we used to be!).
We got the 6.48am (!) train to Toronto on Wednesday morning and spent the first few hours wandering around the city and then went to the hostel to dump our bags around 11am. The hostel was great and it was a
shame we were only there for one night as the atmosphere was good and it looked like a perfect studenty type hostel to meet people and go out drinking! (Canadania Backpackers Inn). We then went on a boat tour of Toronto Harbour including a stop at Toronto Island (where we hopped off and had a walk around) and saw some awesome views of the city skyline. We then wandered around the city more and came across the Rogers Stadium and saw there was a Toronto Blue Jays (v. Baltimore Orioles) baseball game on that evening and decided to go! We bought our tickets (cheapest were $11, but we got the $22 ones for really good seats) and then went back to the hostel to rest our feet, cool off from the sun and get changed for the evening. We then went back out for the game stopping at a bar for a rye and coke beforehand (traditional canadian drink, we have learnt). The game was really fun and most of the entertainment came from the music and videos shown between each inning (not sure of the correct baseball terminology here) as well as the cheerleaders and mascots on the pitch.
Canadians and Americans do like to make a spectacle of their sport. The game was rather long and went on for 3 hours! The Blue Jays and we saw one home run which was exciting.
We then decided to go up the CN Tower as we wanted to go up at night. Luckily as it was 10pm the queue was really short so we were on a glass bottomed lift up there in no time. it was right about here when I remembered how I really do not like heights and began to feel rather dizzy resulting in me only spending about 5 minutes there when we got to the top and nearly fainting in a queue to go in the lift back down. Not very fun! Aled stayed up and I waited for him at the bottom, feeling very happy to be back on ground level.
The next morning the weather had taken a massive turn downwards and it was cold, wet and so misty you couldn't even see the top of the CN tower so we were glad we decided to go up the night before! My foot had also started hurting for some unknown reason
and we were dressed in summer clothes, so I looked a bit of a state limping round Toronto in flip flops in the rain. Nevertheless, we went for a good breakfast in a cafe recommended in our guide book, walked about lots more and then went to the Steam Whistle Brewery for a guided tour (as it was voted the top thing to do in Toronto on trip advisor!). It was very entertaining and informative, and for only $8 included a few free samples, a free bottle of the beer straight off the production line and a souvenir glass. We liked! We then headed to another place recommended by our rough guide, a bar with lots of different types of ales and beers and where Jeff Buckley had once played, so you can imagine how excited Aled was to go here. It was an awesome little find and it was good to rest our feet. We got the train back to Barrie early evening and went out for dinner with Sian, Brad, Owen, Chris and Dave to a delicious pizza place and then out for more drinks. We sound a bit like alcoholics in this blog at the moment.
Will be adding photos in the next few days when I can manage to upload them!!
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