canada1

As all of you now I'm currently away from my family and in Canadian territory doing a fair bit of tourism. I've decided to record my experiences in something other than pictures and videos. Mind you though, I could write books on just this and I would but I'm always either short on free time or more entertained doing something else.

Day before:

Well I had almost no sleep at all unless you count those 2 hours I spend under my friend’s bed. This was not one of my brightest idea considering I still had to pack my bags and find my passport. I got a taxi back home but not before leaving my wallet, I did(eventually) get it back which was good timing because that very day I received MY FIRST CREDIT CARD!!!! And $1000 IN CASH!!!!!....to spend in Canada.

Getting a credit card and money puts me in a moral predicament. You see all this money comes from my parents who gave it to me to spend and only asked a few souvenirs from me. Now I’m only going to be gone for a measly 24 days so I doubt I’ll have to spend it all but I feel the need, I mean is it ok for me to go nuts with the spending or is it customary to save some fixed sum? What If my parents want the remaining money back? No! I can’t take that risk. I shall go and use every single penny and then blame my reckless spending on high Canadian prices and/or compulsory gambling.

Packing was also a problem. Mostly I just pick the clothes I want and my grandma helps me fold it into compact shapes so that they’ll fit into the bag. It’s strange, when she does it, the shirts come out as rectangles but when I try it, I always end up with the shape of a ball. For some reason she decided that I was not taking enough clothes with me so she secretly placed about 10 kilos worth of clothing that was either A) not mine or B)full of holes. The limit for my bag was 20kg and my bag weighed 19.9kg leaving a whooping 0.1kg left for souvenirs.

Later on at night I got to my friend Ieuan’s house(he and his mom were still packing their bags) and spent the night there.


Day of the trip:

We had to wake up pretty early, we were expected to be in Gatwick very early and I slept most of the way there, Ieuan had been talking about how incredibly fun the trip was going to be and how he was planning on filming everything using the video camera he bought just for the occasion. Sadly(or funnily if you’re british) as soon as we got past security, Ieuan realized that he forgot it in the car. He was feeling down for a bit so we walked around the tax free zone of the airport looking at all the stuff they had to sell.

Lets see they had:
Booze, Cigars, Magazines, Booze, Electronics, Booze, Books, Booze, Booze and Booze
Oh and I also saw a store that was selling alcohol tax free.

As we walked downstairs, we knew we had entered dangerous territory. There was a lone stand with 3 people in funny shirts giving out cereal bars for free as a way to advertise their new products, on the other side we saw a group of hired hitmen going by the names “Snap” “Crackle” and “Pop” which I believe are the sounds your bones make when they get to you. What happened afterwards was just horrific and something I've had nightmares about it since the day it happened. As soon as they were close enough, Snap took out a pistol from under his belt and held them at gun point. Crackle then turned over their table and began to set fire to it while Pop took each bar, unwrapped them and then used his teeth to tear their chocolaty heads apart. In less than a second the scene was a mess and the perpetrators were nowhere to be found.

I felt sick to my stomach, why didn’t I see it coming? Just before the incident I took a photograph and although I didn’t notice back then, their bloodlust was patently obvious:



I mean look at them! Even Satan himself would probably soil his furry behind after seeing those eyes:


AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful after that, the lines were short, the airplane food was passable and there was no movie for me because Thomas Cook airlines hates my guts and gave me a malfunctioning monitor.

As soon as we got out of the airport I felt a big difference, it was too hot to wear a coat and the air was so fresh that my trademark British “it rains too much” frown I always carry around disappeared and was replaced by the Canadian “I’m too carefree to care, eh?” smile.

The car Ieuan’s mom had hired was a strange choice because it was a really small Chevrolet. I really don’t understand the logic of it. Now that we are in Canada, a place where each road is up to three times the size of it’s UK counterpart, we should be using big cars but instead we are stuck with something slightly longer than a mini.
In any case, we travelled around the outskirts of Toronto looking for Rick’s house who is Ieuan’s uncle. None of us had ever been there before and we only had the name of the street but after a few wrong turns we made it.

Rick’s house was one of those lovely one floor homes where you need to take a few steps up on a wooden stair to get to the entrance. Rick wasn’t there yet but apparently he always leaves his key under the front door’s carpet so we managed to get in easily.


Later on we went to a bar and saw some Canadian Indians, one in particular who was called “Ivan” had a very peculiar attitude, he would suck you in with stories about water and sharks but never let you say anything in return. After about half an hour of hearing him babble while politely nodding, a barmaid took pity on me and told me that the way to get rid of him is simply to say the magic words “shut up Ivan”. All I can say is that it worked!

Later on we had some Chinese noodles and Donuts(turns out I’ll be having quite a few of these in the future). We went back to Rick’s house when it got dark and I think I fell asleep watching a hockey match.

To be continued……