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Published: September 6th 2010
The flight was fine, only seven hours, but we seemed to arrive fourty minutes ahead of schedule. When we arrived, we were sent to immigration, and the main problem we faced was that customs hadn't heard of the WWOOf organisation. Once they found out it was legitimate, they issued us with a stamp enabling us to stay in the country for one year, as long as we didn't work or have an education.
It was really hot - over 32 degrees. We got a coach from the airport into the centre of Toronto, and then found a taxi to take us to our first destination. The house we were going to was hard to find so we had to pay the taxi driver slightly more for helping us find it- that was okay, as we would have been completely lost without him. When we arrived at the house no body was in. We were worried, as arriving in Canada we realised that our English phones didn't work at all, so we had no way of ringing anyone, we just had to wait. For a student house it was really nice. Tall, wooden panels, and a front porch over looking the street with a couch on- something that everyone seems to have here. We sat there and chatted with the next door neighbours, until after a short while Jimmy and Andrew returned from band practice.
Over the next few days, Jimmy and Andrew became good friends, and embraced the fact that they could play tour guides for us. We walked A LOT around the city, we went up the CN tower (which makes the Eifel tower seem tiny), we went inside OCAD (Ontario College of Art and design, where most of the guys go here), we watched Jimmy and Andrew's band do a gig and we visited Kensington market - all the attractions of this busy city. The roads are manic, and the buildings are impressive, but in comparison to London, it has a very organised feel to it. The roads simply run North to South, or East to West, to the grid like layout makes the city very easy to navigate and get a feel of. It's exciting.
By Saturday morning, Jon (the main band member of First Rate People) returned from Winnipeg, and met us in the local diner. We drove from downtown Toronto to Owen Sounds, a few hours north. We arrived at his house, a beautiful old wooden house, which could be something out of 'little house on the prairie'. The wooden veranda surrounding the house looks over a woods, which is apparently one and a half acres of land that they have- which we have yet to explore. In the evening,Mary (Jon's mum),prepared a meal for us and her two neighbours. We ate tofu chilli, chicken, corn-on-the-cob, peas and rhubarb cake for desert, with tea - which Edd has started drinking! (Occasionally ,but he will be a tea addict by the time we return..)
Anyway, we recorded a little over one of Jon's songs in the evening, and the next day he took us to a beach by the great-lake nearby with two of his friends,and afterwards we went to a drive in! It's exactly like you'd imagine it. We watched 'Scott Pilgrim' which is set in Toronto, so it meant that we saw all the sights of the city from the directors perspective as well.
At around half past three in the morning we returned (from a lift off Becky, one of Jon's friends) and collapsed into bed. Here we are this morning, writing our first blog entry, not knowing where this journey will take us. We may return to Toronto this week, and then head North to the first farm, but we are undecided. The recording of an album seems unorganised, and once we come to a joint decision we will make our next move. We will figure out how to put photos up soon... Until next time, Ruby and Edd X
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Alex
non-member comment
Phew!
Glad to hear you're both okay and getting into things. Hope you get some recording done, but if not, get some writing done!