Sun, Dec 24th

I had quite a busy week on the run up to Christmas so didn't get much of a chance to even think about Christmas. I didn't have any work for the week so I did make the most of my time off, mainly lots of sleeping. I got the gang I live with to agree to do a secret santa so myself and Angela went around to a few toy shops to get our presents sorted. I had to get Jamie's pressie on a $15 budget. I picked up a toy pool table, dart board and dart gun for him. I'm sure it'll be his best christmas morning ever.

On Wednesday, another one of our Irish gang, Melissa, headed home for Christmas, so I was out on Tuesday night with her to see her off. I'm keeping the spending down at the moment though so I didn't stay out too long. She's gonna fly back to Vancouver so i'm sure we'll meet up again.
After some skating on Wednesday I headed over to the Swap office on the way home as they had emailed me about having a Christmas get-together. There was a good turn out there so that was good fun. They had lots of free wine and food too so that was me taken care of for the night. Normally I can't drink wine at all but the wine they got went down nice and easy. I didn't have too much but def enough to get me a little merry. This party did help me get into the Christmas spirit too.

Friday was my day to stock up on booze as the off license would be closed for a few days for Christmas. I've been trying lots of different Canadian beers and have found quite a few I like. The latest one to tickle my fancy is a beer called Laker. You can get a six pack for $8 and it's 5.9% which is pretty strong for beer. I picked up quite a few packs of them to keep me going over Christmas. We started drinking quite early on Friday but ended up just staying in drinking for the night. Wise decision as the next few days were mental.

Saturday, myself and Glen decided to head out to the pub Angela works in. It's a super small Irish pub out by the beaches (as seen in a previous post). The pub is run by a Cork lady who's been living in Toronto for about 10 years now. You wouldn't guess that though, from how strong her accent is. Anyway, she wasn't there that night so it was just Angela running the bar. I really enjoyed it out there as you can chat away to pretty much anyone drinking there, they were all really nice to us. We had to head back downtown to meet Jamie then as he had just finished work. We had another wild night out in a club called Brunswick House. Met up with Angela then back home afterwards and we were up till all hours. This was a practice night to get me in form for the following few nights.....

Toronto's great subway system, on my way to get some toys for Christmas.

Our fantastic Christmas tree with all our pressies.
Good ol' Honest Ed's, you can get anything and everything in here, for dead cheap too. It's pretty famous over here.
Angela damn hard at work, damn hard.
Glen does some posing around the city
Another new friend of mine

Sun, Dec 17th

So, just did just 3 days temp work this week in the Directors Guild of Canada. It was the most mundane work ever and I loved it. It was the polar opposite to working in the bank. All I was doing was filing and stuffing envelopes with two other temps, one of which was an English girl who talked and talked and then talked some more. In fact she talked so much that we had to get a radio brought in to keep her quiet. Unfortunately that job is finished now so i'm back looking for work again. I'd say it might be hard to find anything though until Christmas is over. Speaking of which, it doesn't feel very Christmasy over here at the mo. The weather is abnormally warm and without the true meaning of Christmas, presents, i'm just not in the festive mood.

Kelly went back to Scotland on Wednesday so we went out on Tuesday night for a bit of craziness. We were drinking at home first and then went down to the hostel so Kelly could say goodbye to a lot of the people we've met since getting here. It was good craic and was a good send off for Kelly. Didn't get much sleep that night so went to work drunk in the morning. Not the first time and i'm sure it won't be the last. We flew through the work on Wednesday so I actually finished up at 1 so I went with Kelly to the airport to send her off. Really wish Kelly hadn't left as she's extremely nice and we had some good times together. I'm hoping i'll get to see her again soon.

On Thursday night I played a game of indoor soccer with Glen and a gang of Irish folk. There's loads of us over here, especially Corkonians. It was great to have a game as I haven't played in years but man was I in pieces after it. My poor legs were aching for days. I made the mistake of going skating the following day which really killed off my legs. I was lucky to make it home at all. My legs were in pieces. Hopefully i'll get a few more games of footie in before I head west. And lots more skating too of course. I can definitely see a difference in my skating now after doing it quite a bit over the last couple of weeks. Not sure i'll have time to master the backwards skating though, it's tough.

Over the weekend, I was out trying to look for work. I went to 2 more recruitment agencies so hopefully one of them will get back to me. On the Saturday night I headed out with a bit of a gang for our usual drinking session. Funnily enough, the loud mouth I had been working with earlier in the week came out with us too. She knows Paul, that I live with. Needless to say, I avoided her for the night. Typical night of carnage followed by Chinese take away afterwards. Living in Chinatown definitely has its advantages.

I tried out the ice rink at City Hall during the week. It's free too but not half as good as the harbour front one.

Back down to the Harbour Front

Angela managed to get through the day this time without cracking her ass off the ice. A bit disappointing to be honest.
Santa turns up with Rudolph. Looks like Santa's been on the Atkins diet.
Toronto won't be the same without Little Miss Kell

Bye Bye Kelly

Sun, Dec 10th

Not much to update ye folk on this week. One major update though is the fact that I quit my job. I really couldn't handle it anymore, it was completely doing my head in. I just couldn't stand it and the work was just piling up and up. I handed in my notice on Wed and said i'd be leaving on Friday. They sure weren't happy with that. It was almost comical how pissed off they were in fact. Screw em, I don't have any regret. They deserved it. So back looking for work. I got a call to do 3 days temp work next week. It's just gonna be mundane mailing duties but that's exactly what I could do with around now. And its in the Directors Guild of Canada, so I might accidentally leave a few screenplays lying around the offices. I'd really be happy to just do temp work from here on out as its always nice easy work for a few days. Will see how it goes.

As for the rest of the week, same ol story i'm afraid. Went skating most evenings after work. Don't think i'm improving much these days. Maybe just a very little bit each time. I'm definitely getting better at avoiding people who cut me off, so I guess I have better control of the skates then I did. Still struggling big time with the backwards skating though. Not really getting anywhere with that. Also having a bit of difficulty with the skid stopping as whilst practicing that, you tend to fall over quite a bit. Still really enjoying it though and it's wearing me out so must be good exercise.

Even the weekend was relatively quiet. Just went out on the Sat night with Glen, Jamie and Paul as Angela and Kelly were still away on their trip East. After a few crap pubs and clubs early on we went to one of our reliable pubs which was great fun. Serious lack of photos taken this week as well i'm afraid.

Angela & Kelly came back a night early from their trip so they were back on Sun night. Kelly is flying home on Wed so we'll have to give her a send off on Tues night. Won't have any bother doing my temp work hungover so that's a plus. Will report if it goes that smoothly, next week.

Bye bye crappy Royal Bank of Canada (brown building)

Here's the infamous hostel where I spend an awful lot of my time/money (all the blue and beige building)

Down to the ice rink for another lovely day's worth of skating

Thought I was still drunk when I saw this fella on the ice. He had free chocolate though.

Sun, Dec 3rd

Had a much quieter week this week then last week. Didn't get up to much. Went out most nights but didn't really get up to much. Every Monday evening I go to the hostel on the way home from work to do my interneting – sending emails, looking for jobs and updating my blog. I have managed to sneak onto some neighbours wireless connection in my house but the connection is quite temperamental and I can only get it in the corner of Glen's room, so yeah, I still go back to the hostel to use the free wireless. I don't really watch tv over here (just one new show called Heroes, which is excellent) so I generally try to go out in the evenings to do something. Kelly is going back to Scotland shortly so I spent most of the week with her. Just went out to the cinema and pool n' stuff. Nothing major.

Since doing the skating last week I wanted to try and find a cheap pair of skates as it's actually free to use the ice rinks if you have your own skates. A nice Vietnamese girl in work helped me out by giving me a few names of places. I headed out to one of them on Friday evening with Glen. Play-it-again Sports. Second hand sports store that was quite a distance from out house. Well worth the trip though as I picked up a pair of skates for $30. A complete steal. I was delighted. That's my entertainment sorted for the next two months. I went skating for about 3 hours with Kelly on Saturday and then for about an hour and a half with Jamie on Sunday. Jamie hasn't been skating in years but he's very good and got back into the swing of things in no time. Met some people from the hostel on Sunday down at the rink and convinced a few of them to buy their own skates too as they loved it. I should be down there quite a bit.

I went out on Friday and Saturday night again. Didn't get up to anything too crazy this week though. It was Angela's birthday so I let her take over for the week. I got her a cake, so we all had that in our place, with drinks before heading out. Kelly moved into our place too for her last week. Herself and Angela headed East for a week on the Sunday so we'll have to have a night out for Kelly's leaving next Mon or Tues. I just about managed to get up to say goodbye to them in the morning. Fell back to sleep then till 3. Just in time to go skating with Jamie. We had light snowfall on the Sunday too so the cold weather is definitely on the way. It was quite nice skating while it was snowing.

No plans again for this week. It'll be my first week by myself in work and i'm dreading it, it's gonna be a complete disaster. Would really love for this to be my last week so will have to try harder for a new job. It's not a great time of year to be looking though. Glen and Jamie both managed to get new jobs during the week so they're happy out. Hopefully i'll have similar luck shortly. Well that's me for this week. Stay tuned.

My new babies

We celebrate Angela's birthday on the Friday night.

Yummy cake. The writing on it is a long story.

We enjoy the sunset on the ice rink on Saturday. Good way to clear the head after the previous night.

I take a pic of myself and Kelly while we're actually skating. Not as easy as it sounds. Especially trying to avoid all the other skaters at the same time.
Drinking at home on the Sat night before hitting the town.

Jamie's quite the skater, when he's not rolling around in pain on the ice.

Again, not very advisable to take pictures while actually skating.