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.

Sun, Nov 26th

Righto, had a hectic week this week so i'll get straight into it. On Wednesday night, myself, Glen, Angela and Kelly went to the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). Its free on a Wednesday night so we're back enjoying the cheap student life. We managed to have a great laugh, which i'm not sure you're supposed to do in a gallery. We even had a go at origami in there. That was a disaster. There's a few more gallery's and museums that have free nights too so i'll try get to them too, in between the boozing of course.

Thursday night was the big night I had been waiting for, for a few weeks. Myself and Kelly went to see Billy Connolly. Needless to say he was absolutely brilliant. He was on for two and a half hours non-stop, no break. Couldn't believe it. Only felt like an hour. We were nice and close to the front too which was great. Luckily Kelly recommended we get there for the opening time as he started straight away, no warm up or anything. If it had been up to me, we would have had more drinks and would've missed half the show. Finally saw the king of comedy so am quite happy with myself now.

Friday night myself and Kelly headed out to one of the local pubs, Shoeless Joe's. She's been having a crap time trying to get out of a lease, so needed to go out for a few drinks, or really watch me get drunk. Works for me. It was karaoke night in there too so that was our entertainment for the night sorted. And no, I didn't get quite that drunk to take that step. Bumped into one of the other lads from my house too who was major smashed so we had a good laugh off him.

On Saturday I wanted to get the ferry on Lake Ontario (which is just a few minutes walk from the hostel) over to the islands. I didn't quite make it up as early as planned in the morning, no idea why, so I just decided to walk all round the harbour front. It's a really nice area and it was a nice day too so got some nice pics. The weather here is still really nice, it should be snowing by now but its actually still quite warm. Around 13 degrees these days, which isn't really cold. Seems I picked a good year to come over. Anyway on my trek I stumbled across a great ice rink, which I thought was class so decided i'd drag the rest of the gang to that some day. See Sunday, below, for more on that.

On Saturday night, there was a big deal for the turning on of the Christmas lights at City Hall. It was a pretty cool night as there was a concert, ice skating, light shows and fire works. The fire works and light show were very impressive. They projected images onto a building to make it look completely different. It was very well done. Myself and Kelly went to that for a couple of hours and then headed back to mine to meet up with Glen and do some boozing before we headed out. It was another one of the Irish lads birthday that night so we went and met him in a pub call The Velvet Underground. Myself and Glen spent most of the night on a pool table trying to beat these two Canadians, but they had the advantage of single vision, so we hadn't a chance. After that place closed we ended up back in the Hostel for a bit of late night wrestling and general arseing about. I almost got myself and Glen kicked out after I decided to rugby tackle him while he was standing on a couch and we both went flying over the couch and ended up lying on the floor. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. Well we somehow managed to make it home in one piece that night.

Sunday was a day I found a new hobby for myself. I dragged Angela, Glen and Kelly down to the ice rink and we spent most of the day down there. It really is so cool as it's on the lake and they have music playing and the ice is proper ice, not like the artificial crap back home. Its actually free to use the rink if you have your own skates, but obviously we didn't so it cost us $7 to rent skates for as long as you want. I'm looking into trying to buy a cheap pair though as i'd be down there the whole time if I could. I really enjoy skating and am getting quite good at it. Kelly's good too as she used get lessons when she was young. I'm afraid Glen and Angela were struggling a bit but they provided us with quite a few laughs as they flew into the air and landed on their asses. I was skating for a good 3 hours straight and would have stayed longer only the others dragged me away. As soon as I got off the ice my energy faded super quick. I could barely make it home without falling asleep. I've 2 months left in Toronto so really hope to try get some skates this week and head down there every second day. Good way to keep fit too. My goal for the next two months is to try and be able to skate backwards. Apparently its quite tough, but i'll give it a shot. No major plans for the week, but hopefully i'll have something to talk about by this time next week. I'll try not to make them all skating stories either.

Billy, still doing jigs at the age of 64

My day down the harbour front.

The wonders of the self timer option.

My new favourite place

At the light show they did a great job of painting and animating the old city hall with projectors.

The almost bring down the new City Hall with the amount of fireworks they use.
Some randomer crashes our drunken photos.

Glen and Dave re-invent pool

I get the gang to go for a bit of hungover skating.

And we're off.....

2010 winter olympics here I come

Glen realises, its easier to go around on all fours.

Myself and Kelly, still going strong after a couple of hours of skating.
Earlier on in the week, I was at a games expo and got to play the new PS3 and Nintendo Wii. The PS3 was very underwhelming but at least the Wii was a bit original, if tiring, as its all motion sensitive.

Sun, Nov 20th

Had a good week this week. 4 day week in work due to a bank holiday on Monday. The less I have to work in that bank the better. No sign of a new job yet but i'll keep an eye out.

On Tuesday Glen gave me a ring to say he noticed there were still some cheap tickets available to go see Guns n' Roses on Wednesday night and he was wondering if I'd go with himself and Jamie. Why the fup not, I said. So on Wednesday we wandered down to the gig. It was on in the ACC, the basketball stadium. The doors opened at 8 so we thought we'd go down at 9 and they'd be on shortly afterwards. We couldn't have been more wrong. When we got in there were a massive bunch of strippers on stage called The Suicide Girls. Pretty impressive. All gigs should start with a strip show. After them then there was a guy called Sebastian Bach, he's a big rock star over here. Pretty good but didn't know any of his stuff. We kept moving around the stadium and sitting in better seats then our own for a while until we'd get moved on again. So by the time GNR came on it was 11.30. I was already ready for bed at that stage. They played for almost 2 and a half hours with no break and they ROCKED. It really was great and a complete steal for $35. They played all the old classics and they place went nuts for them. For those who know them, the Trailer Park boys came on stage to sing a song too. They sang Country Road. Bubbles was hilarious. We didn't get out of there till 2 so needless to say we were all shattered and work the next day was a struggle. Well worth it though.

I had a quieter weekend then most and only went out boozing one night. Went to see the new Bond on Friday night with the gang, very good by the way. I watched footie for most of the day on Saturday with Jamie. They show 3 live Premiership games every Saturday, which is great. Myself and Jamie decided to start drinking at 1, which may not have been our best idea ever. But to be honest I lasted very well for the night. And managed to spend less drink that way too as I had most of my drink at home. Another great night had anyways.

On Sunday I headed out to pick up a few things and go see the Santa March. Yeah, I said Santa March. Its basically like our Paddy's day parade but instead of everything being green, its red. Not really a big fan of parades anyway so can't say it did much for me. There was thousands of kids lined up the streets that seemed to enjoy it though. Well that was all I got up to in the last week. Think i'll have my last month in Toronto in January so i'll head West to Whistler at the start of February. I've got Billy Connolly on Thursday so will report back on that next week.

The gig before, it kicks off

The lighting at the gig was amazing, not really demostrated here.

Axel rocks out on the piano, don't try this at home kids.

We sneak to a better, closer spot.

The Santa March

Mon, Nov 13th

It's a bank holiday today so am off work, woo hoo. Spent the morning in a recruitment agencies again though. Sick of doing all their tests. Hope i'll hear from them soon though so I can get out of the crappy bank.

Well I mentioned on my last post that i'd be having a quiet weekend the weekend just gone as Glen and Jamie would be working. Well that didn't quite go to plan. On the Friday I went to see Borat after work with them, very funny by the way. Afterwards I persuaded the lads to go for just the one drink. Well you can probably guess the rest. 1 turned into twelve and we all crawled home. Glen had to be up for work at 6 so got less then 5 hours sleep, the poor fupper.
They were adamant then that they wouldn't be going out on Sat night as they both had work on Sunday morning but turns out work was canceled on Sunday for them so Saturday was another night of carnage. We started drinking at home again first and then headed down to Kelly in the hostel. The place was packed, as always and we were in great form so had a hilarious night. After seeing Borat the night before I thought it would be a great idea going around high-fiving everyone. Think I managed to high-five every girl in the city. Also managed to break a snooker cue off a guy, which sounds a lot less then it actually was. We also ended up playing baseball with ice late on. Needless to say I ended up with a lot of cuts and bruises after that night. Lost my camera case too but was lucky enough to find it in the hostel the following day. Another blast of a weekend so, but still no money saved. Maybe next week eh.

Myself and Kelly also got tickets to Billy Connolly for the end of the month which i'm delighted about as I thought it was sold out. We got the last pair of tickets going. Can't wait, been wanting to see him for years. Been trying for Hockey tickets but they're proving almost impossible to get, unless you wanna spend $200. Well that's all for now. Jagsermash.

Myself, Kelly and Dave, perfectly sober on the Friday night.

Gary's still able to play pool even after I break the cue off him. Those Liverpudlians are hard as nails.

I do my best with what's left of the cue. It doesn't help when you see two of every ball too.

Thurs, Nov 9th

Just a quick update on the weekend just gone. I had planned to take it easy on the boozing this weekend as money is super low at the moment after just paying rent and switching jobs. Rent is quite steep as our location is so good. I pay $520 a month for what is basically just a room. Don't think I'd be bothered paying that much if the folks I live with weren't there. It's great having them all next door. Always someone to hang out with. Anyway, back to the boozing. Glen and Jamie finally managed to get jobs on the Thurs, after only 2 months of being unemployed, lucky bastards. So obviously we had to go out and celebrate, which happened to last all weekend again, that seems to happen quite a bit. I am managing to conserve my money a bit better by doing lots of drinking at home before we go out and also looking for places that you don't have to pay in. So yeah, 2 more great nights out on the town. Its the same story after every night out with us, we either end up in the local pizza joint (Pizza Pizza, Canada's biggest pizza franchise) or else going for the healthy option and getting a hotdog from one of the street stalls. Mmmmmm hotdog. I can usually only tell which one I went for the following morning because i'll either have mustard all over my clothes or pizza stains. Money well spent.

On Sunday morning I managed to drag my ass outta bed to go down to the hostel as they were having a little day trip to a basketball game. I went with Angela and Paul from my house and Kelly. Because we were going with a gang from the hostel we got the tickets at a reduced price which was great. I was still pretty worn out from the night before but by the time we got there I woke right up. It was brilliant fun altogether. The Toronto Raptures vs the San Antonia Spurs. The Raptures are in the NBA too so they play all the big American teams. The Spurs are a really good team but the Raptures put up a really good fight. It really was a brilliant atmosphere. The stadium was amazing too. And don't get me started on the cheer leaders. Even the mascot was amazing. Some of the tricks he was pulling off were amazing. Samuel L Jackson was sitting court side. All the players were going up and hugging him and chatting away. I'm starting to think he's stalking me at this stage. That went on for about 2 and a half hours and we all loved. It's action packed the whole way through. If I could afford it i'd go every week. Will def try to get back for another game sometime. I'm really planning a quiet weekend this weekend as both the lads are working, so i'll see how that pans out. Mightn't have much to write about in the next week.

We arrive at the Air Canada Centre (ACC) for the basketball......

....just a tad early. Cool place though.

Game on.
And here come the cheer leaders. Woooo hooooo.
Tha mascot succeeds in a 360 dunk in mid-air. Very impressive. And if you've got your magnifying glass you'll spot Sam Jackson in the top right in yellow
Come on the Raptures
We lose 94-103. Boo. If we had scored 100 points everyone would have got a free slice of pizza. God dang it.