I like BIG countries and I can not lie...

---

Finding cheap flights to Canada is a bit like trying to find a bus that goes to the moon.

And that’s not the only reason I’ve never visited before: I heard they sold their MILK IN BAGS. Good enough reason to never go anywhere ever again.

Due South had painted a nation terrorised by men fighting bears, and the Québécois exchange students we had at school were always full of 14-inches-of-snow-in-summer stories, and casual mentions of ‘that time a moose broke into the kitchen and ate mom.’

Canada just didn’t sound like my kind of scene. Especially as I have the climate preferences of a lizard, and if anyone’s going to get violated by a Sasquatch? It’s probably ME.

But it’s hard to remain unexcited about the land that burned down the White House (1814, bitches!), incubated Ryan Gosling (plus Reynolds, and no end of other fine men named Ryan I like to imagine) and who sits nicely on top of the USA without so much as suffocating the bugger with a gigantic pillow.

And so a Canadian friend’s trip home this summer felt like the perfect excuse to spring her and her massive country a visit.

I’ve been in Toronto for just over 6 days now. My first impressions?

I could get SO fat here, so easily, and so excitedly.

There’s food everywhere and I fully intend to eat it ALL. Harvey’s, Swiss Chalet, Wendy’s … I’m unsure how I ever managed to live without them.

Even the people look tasty. And MY GOD are they friendly!? They talk to you in the street, and everything’s ‘yes m’am’ and ‘excuse me miss,’ and I could ravish them all alive.Yes, they DO say ‘eh’ at the end of every sentence. Or at least every other sentence. But it’s entirely endearing and an emphatic nudge that they’re agreeing and relating to every word you’ve said, and always will.

They’re beyond polite and so SO accommodating. Just look at their customs forms:



Arriving by MARINE!? Burly man to carry you over the border? Why didn’t I opt for that mode of transportation!? It’s the only way I shall journey from now forth.



Sadly, there AREN’T moose in the street. And they don’t ride them to work. Which is disappointing for all involved. But they make up for the lack of moose by having more coffee shops than they have people.

This means that you’re able to obtain free wi-fi on pretty much any public street, as you’re never more than 15-feet from a coffee shop that’s radiating it out like some lovely internet Chernobyl. You can use your phone to check how shit the weather is back in the UK, and just how crap everything else is there by comparison, each time you stroll out on the sidewalk. Perfect!

Canadians really like BIG things. Their meals, buildings, and waterfalls are all of an exceptional size. Their CN Tower is half a kilometre tall!

For someone who loves to look down on the world (both literally AND metaphorically) I’m awfully afraid of heights. The glass floor at 1,151 feet gave me the sort of cardiac arrest usually reserved for moments when you realise you’re NAKED in front of everyone you know:





Even if it did allow me to pretend I was Zeus judging the mortals from afar for a while.

But just just in case you’ve forgotten how accommodating I said the Canadians are, – The CN Tower reminds you how they just want you to have fun and not kill yourself:









“We know you all fancy a climb over this precarious net, half a kilometre in the air… BUT DON’T!” … Even if like me, you’re the last person on earth that needs to be shown such a sign, and it’s about as needed as a “Don’t put this in your vagina!” caution on a knife.

Niagara <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">is just as big and as beautiful as you’d expect it to be:

And the Canadians really do have the better side. You can visibly see Americans on the opposite banks shaking their fists in frustration.





Though I refuse to believe Canadian friend’s theories that this is where Obama sits and plans his imminent invasion.

Even if it is a sensational place for a war!

They even remind you about the 1812 war on the menus, because North American carcasses is just what you want to read about over your lunch:





But enough blood. GO to a baseball game!



You get to sing, and shout, and wave your foam finger all about.

I’ve been to see baseball before. But I was 19 and watching it with other Brits: We didn’t know what the fuck was going on. We were just there for the beer… And exited pretty sharpish when we realised it was $12 a bottle.

You really need to watch it with somebody who understands the rules if you want to realise it’s anything more than little men running about a big field in tights with sticks.

So suddenly I’m a devoted Blue Jays fan. And will be until I visit another North American city with a baseball team, and decide I’ll support them instead.

Now I just need to grow a pair of balls and come back when it’s cold. 😊

---

Comments

[RyanGoesRoaming]

Ontario is a favourite of mine. Have you been over to BC? Incredible place. MUST find a way to get a Canadian wife/ visa!