Tantalizing Toronto!

Ahh, the big city. What an eventful way to enter the city of Toronto. Here we go:

I had to get up at 5 am to get to the airport at 5:30am for the plane at 6. Got there are 5:40 so had to quickly rush to get on the plane in time. Not too bad there. Got to watch a very impressive sunrise which I took a couple of pictures, but will have to wait to get them on the computer. From there arrived in the Toronto airport at around 9:30. I wanted to find an internet so I could look up the details of the people I'm staying with. Now, Toronto airport is friggen huge. There are 3 terminals, and I was in terminal 3. I asked around and they said that there wasn't any internet in this terminal and to go to terminal 2. So I hopped on a shuttle to terminal 2. Started walking around and still couldn't find any internet. I asked someone there if there was any places to get on the net, and she said no. So, I caught a shuttle back to terminal 3 because I knew that there was a place to get some food there, so did that and thought I would take one more chance asking the information centre if there was an internet place anywhere in the airport. She said that there was a place in terminal 1. Ugh, so again on the shuttle to terminal 1. Except for the fact that my brain does stupid things with numbers and I got on the shuttle that took me to terminal 2. Waited another 10 minutes and finally found myself on the shuttle to the correct terminal. After a bit of walking around I found the net. $2 for 10 minutes and the keyboard was a piece of crap that made it so hard to type on. But it was long enough for me to get the information I needed. Then with one last question at the info place I found myself on a bus to the start of the subway.

Met a girl on the bus from New Foundland and she was heading downtown so I thought I would tag along with her. After all, it's better to get lost with someone else to keep you company. So we aimlessly walked onto the subway and chatted for the ride into town. Once there, we spent the next few hours walking around the city and looking in various shops. The city is so friggen huge! Quite nice though. Very nice as a matter of fact. I like it quite alot, which is a surprise considering I had been building up in my mind that I was going to hate it - just because it's a huge city and you know me, I like my lil' ol' Adelaide. But yeah, for some reason I didn't mind it at all.

So at around 4:00 pm I thought I would try and get in contact with Paul, one of the cool people I was going to be staying with. However, since I have a non-existant memory and I didn't write down his name in my little book, I had no idea what I was going to do when I rang his office looking for him. Tried to find an internet cafe or something downtown, but do you think I could find one? Nup. So i thought I would risk it and ring anyway. Now, you'd think it would be relatively easy to find a payphone yeah? Well, I had to go into a subway station to find one. Did so, but only got his answering machine. Hmm, what to do? Well, I was told that he finished work at 4:30 so I thought I would just wait outside work for him. 4:30 came and he didn't - so I went into the building to his office trying to find him. Ran into a woman there who tried to find him for me. He left at 4. Great.

I was trying to figure out what I was going to do. I had their address written down in my little book, but not the directions how to get there. But luckily their street name is the same as the subway station name, so i assumed it wouldn't be too hard to get there. Did so, caught the subway again, and found myself on their street walking down to their house. All this on a very sunny 20-something degree day with full sunshine, lugging around a huge backpack and carring more bags, while on Cipro and being very photosensitive. Not a good combination. Oh well, let's just say that I was VERY relieved to be at the house and sitting down with a nice cool glass of water.

So Heather and Paul (the people I'm staying with here) are just the awesomest. Definately the best people to be in Toronto with (thanks Bonney for the suggestion!). For brunch (because I took so long to get my act together and get out of the house) I was treated to Grumbles, a very lovely bakery that serves some damn fine food. Had probably the most authentic steak pie I've ever had in my life. Good stuff! Then went walking to an op-shop that was huge and I found some nice purchases, for a very decent price. Then tonight was treated again to a fantastic dinner with some local brews thrown in. Very good stuff!

Phew! All that in two days. I'm pooped. Health wise - I'm feeling quite the same as I was the other day, so not much to say there. The Cipro is doing some stupid stuff with my skin, but that's to be expected. Othe than that, nothing to report on that front.

Rating - 6.9