Tues, Jan 30th

Just thought i'd do a quick post for my last day in Toronto. Jan 31st I fly to Vancouver for the next part of my adventure. I had a great time in Toronto but I'm definitely ready to move on now and see some more of Canada, or even more importantly it's time for some skiing. The plan is to stay in Vancouver just for a few nights and then head north to Whistler. It's Super Bowl weekend this weekend so I wouldn't mind to stay in Vancouver for a bit of craic but I really just wanna try to get a job in Whistler asap, so will have to wait and see.

For our last few days we've been saying goodbye to Toronto in style, been on quite a few pub crawls and saying goodbye to a lot of the friends i've made. Also, been stocking up on ski gear so trying to pack everything back into my bag has been a nightmare. It's gonna be a major struggle getting to the airport with all my bags. I'm going with the two lads I live with so hopefully they'll be able to drag me along with them. So that's it for Toronto. I'll do a post in a few days with all the latest news.

My last day working in the call centre. Woo Hoo

The cheap Rainbow cinema I used frequent quite a lot.

Some random pictures of snowy Toronto

Last night on the booze in T.O. with Glen, Jamie, Paul, John and Stevie

Wed, Jan 17th

As you may have guessed, due to the lack of updates, I haven't been up to much for the last few weeks. I've no cash at the mo so am staying in most days. I'm also back at work in the good ol call centre. Yup, same one I was working in when I got here first. After one day working there I was ready to quit. It really is a struggle to force myself in there everyday. And the hours some days are really awkward so it'll take up my whole day and I don't make it home till after midnight on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. But i've gotta stick it out for two more weeks before I head off west. Did I mention I CAN'T WAIT to head over now.

I've absolutely no plans for the next two weeks either. I do hope to go up the CN Tower some day alright before I leave but I'll have to wait till I finish work and I also need it to be a clear day or else it's just a waste. I also intend to buy a lot of ski gear in Toronto as its way cheaper then it will be over west. Whistler has been voted the best ski resort in the whole of North America for the last six years so obviously it's extremely popular and attracts a lot of rich folk so they can afford to charge crazy prices for everything. That's why I gotta get a job that will sort out accommodation and a ski pass for myself. Don't worry, i'm sprucing up the resume as I speak. Throwing in a few new referee's too, Barrett for one.

It has finally started to snow properly here, which is great. It really is still a novelty at the moment so am really enjoying it. It snowed pretty heavily just for one night and it's lasted almost 3 days now. So different to back home when its gone after a couple of hours. Hope to make my first snowman shortly. Will try get some nice pics too if I get the chance. They have the main streets cleared of snow first thing in the morning so I need to get to a park or some place.

So yeah, don't expect much gossip outta me for the next two weeks as I struggle to get through work. But once I head west, I should a few stories to tell.

Another lovely evening at the rink

This is the stadium I went to see the baseball a few months back

Here's my house, looking all wintery

And the street we live on, St Andrews st.

Tues, Jan 2nd

Continuing on from my last post, the Wednesday after Xmas was actually a quiet day for me, after the last few days of partying. Just went to the cinema and went skating. Back to Thursday which was another party night, but we stayed in most of the night to keep the spending down. To be honest, I can't remember what I did for half these days as over the last 2 weeks all the days have just run into each other. Oh well.

Friday, was another big night for us. We had bought tickets a few weeks back for the basketball. The Chicago Bulls were playing the Toronto Raptures. It was another great game, really enjoying the basketball. The atmosphere at the games is great. Unfortunately the Rapture's lost again. I think I may be bad luck for them. If I lived over here i'd definitely follow the basketball and its so cheap to get the tickets too if you get them in advance. After that we went back to the hostel for a few drinks and games of pool with a gang from Brazil. Then we moved onto our favourite club, The Underground. I met a nice Dublin girl in there who's been living here for a few years and is a professional golfer, scratch handicap and everything. I told her I could be her caddie due to my vast experience.

Saturday was Angela's last night in Toronto before she flied off to Banff (another ski resort), so we went out for some drinkin and dancin and then had a full blown party in our place to celebrate. Craziest night ever that i'll just leave to your imaginations. Then multiply it by ten.
I'm glad we had such a good night that night as New Years Eve was a big let down. Mainly because it was lashing rain outside which was unfortunate as it really hasn't rained much since we got here. After some drinks at home we went to City Hall where there was a fire works show on at midnight. The place was jammed but everyone had umbrella's so we couldn't see anything. We just found a dry spot way back, waited for midnight and once the fireworks were done we headed on.

We tried an Irish bar that was close by but headed after one drink as the place was dead. Then we decided to just go back to the hostel as it was close and we knew we'd know a lot of people. We had good craic for most of the night with the usual gang and then right at the end of the night I was chatting to one of the girls working there when the barmen came over and dragged myself, Glen and Jamie out and told us we were barred. It was crazy as none of us were too drunk and had done nothing. I always thought that barman was a dick anyway so he really proved himself that night. Outside he was trying to get stuck in me and was saying i'm always in there walking around with a big smile on my face. Couldn't help but laugh when he said that. Wanker. I've no intention of going back there now giving them anymore of my money. I have everyone's numbers in there that I hang around with anyway, so we'll still meet up.

And that about sums up my crazy Christmas. Must say I really enjoyed myself over all and it was good to experience Christmas out of Ireland. I had been mentioning to most of ye that it's still not cold over here. Well it turns out it was the warmest December ever in Toronto. I sure picked a good year to come. It will be a big shock when I head to Whistler though. Finally just at the end of the year I saw my favourite movie of the year. Children of Men. Loved it to pieces. It was actually out in the cinema's back home the weekend I left home, but it just came out over here last week. I've been dying to see it and it surpassed my expectations. Classic.

The gang party at home

The Bulls come to town

Brazilians should stick to the soccer

Ahhh, Glen........ your pants?

More craziness back in the house

Glen and Jack hit the bed together

Very wet New Years celebrations at City Hall

Partying with the ladies on New Years..... just before getting barred.

Bye Bye Angela and her moose hat.

Tues, Dec 26th

Ok, trying to sum up what I got up to over the last 10 days is gonna be a tough one. Hands down the craziest week and a bit of my life. Really should have done a blog posting for each day as so much happened. It was mental oriental. I took about 100 photo's too so will have to try pick a few to sum it all up.

First up was Christmas eve, which I wasn't expecting much from as it's one of the better nights back home, with all my friends, so I didn't think that it could compare over here. We planned to just go out to the small Irish bar that Angela works in for a few drinks and see what happens. It was complete madness as soon as we got there. There were plenty of Irish lads in there all day. There was this one crazy bastard from west Cork who was without doubt the craziest lunatic i've ever met. He kept everyone entertained for the night with his ramblings. We ended up having a lock in the pub till around midnight. Angela even brought me behind the bar to teach me how to pull pints, so I was the barman for quite a while. Funny. Around midnight then we all headed back to a house of a couple of Tipperary lads for a party. Again, absolute madness here. Singing, dancing and lots of drinking. No idea what time we left here it's a Christmas eve i'm not going to forget anytime soon.

You can probably guess that we weren't in the best of conditions on Christmas morning. Not eve sure what time we got up. Think it was around 9, so we were all pretty fuzzy headed. We all had lots of calls to make home so hence the early rising. We did our secret santa first though. Lots of funny presents all round. I got a slinky and instructions for lots of drinking games from Glen (like I need more of a reason to drink more). It was definitely good to have something to open on xmas morning. The others had some gifts from home too, mostly clothes. We all headed to the hostel then to make our calls home. I was on the phone for hours. I had to catch everyone early before they headed out for the day. When we got back from making our calls Angela cooked a big ol Irish breakfast for us, which was just what we all needed. (Note: it's impossible to top a proper Irish breakfast, everything over here tastes different, especially bacon which just plain sucks). We probably all ate too much as we had our xmas dinner booked in a hotel for 6 but none of us were really hungry by then. Turns out it all worked out fine though as the dinner was extremely poor. The servings were shockingly small. When the bill came we still tipped quite well seeing as it was Christmas but I did write on the reset that it was the worst xmas dinner EVER.

After dinner we had an invite to go to a house party for another Irish guy, (Stevie) who actually lives quite close to Glen back home in Tyrone, and who were we to refuse an invite to a party. We had bought our drink well in advance so we picked it up from our house on the way to Stevie's. All the public transport was still running on xmas day so we had no problem getting around. In fact, seeing as we live in Chinatown you wouldn't have guessed it was xmas day at all as all the shops were still open. Was definitely strange. We got to Stevie's around 7ish and the party was well on the way already with a good mix of people from all over. Needless to say we partied till all hours and all crawled home at some ungodly hour.

The day after xmas is called boxing day over here as well and they go mad for their sales. I wanted to try and get a cheap webcam for myself so went round some of the shops. Picked one up for $9 which is crazy cheap, so I was happy with that. We weren't sure what to expect from that night as we weren't sure if it was like home and everyone goes out. Turns out it was nothing like home. Most places were closed. We started drinking at home first to keep the costs down and then headed to lovely sounding pub called Philty McNasties. There was a gang of Irish there again so we had another great night.

Ok this is getting out of hand, i'm gonna stop here and will fill ye in on the rest shortly.

Barman Brian

My first Guinness, not half bad, eh?

Lock-in at the pub and the party's started on xmas eve

The party continues back in the lad's house

Its sing along time

Xmas mornin and it's pressie time

My fab presents

Lookin all civilised at our xmas dinner

Not so civilised later on

Yet more sing alongs

"Boxing Day" provides yet more carnage

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.