Right, here we are; first post from Canada. I'll start, as is customary, with the flight. Not too bad (plenty of leg room for once), but no personal entertainment system. One bonus point though was the fact that the in-flight meals did not resemble the contents of the male toilets at Scream on a Friday night, in smell nor sight. So that's ok.

Arriving in Toronto fairly comfortably, we made our way to our lodgings for 3 out of our 4 nights here. On reflection, the hostel guide which Ben read on this here t'interweb should be taken down for recommending the place. Not good. Slight bonus was the view of the CN Tower from the balcony, but then that's like saying the food was good at Auschwitz. Which I'm sure it wasn't, but you get the idea. No offence intended, by the way.
We quickly dumped our stuff and headed for a local bar, where we had a pitcher of Steam Whistle beer each (said beer will crop up in the next post), and I got the guts to go over to a girl who looked like Ugly Betty, just to ask for her photo. She agreed, and we bought her and her friend a drink, the good sport that she is. I know that sounds bad; me going up to some random girl and calling her Ugly Betty, but I explained that it was a misnomer anyway and she was fine with it! Honestly, I'm not an uncomplimentary arsehole! Much.

Sunday saw us check out the 'vibe' (I'm not a yuppie, honest) in Toronto generally, and we had a trip to the Hockey Hall of Fame to boot. Don't call it ice hockey to a Canadian by the way, or you may get a funny look. Later in the day we got ready for our pre-booked dinner at the CN Tower restaurant, only to find that The Curse of the Towers had struck: Ben's wallet had been stolen. Basically, some shitheel must have lifted it out of his back pocket during the course of our wanderings in the city, meaning he had to cancel his cards and arrange what proved to be a laborious and infuriating persuit for money wired over by his folks. We were not amused. One thing can be said for the UK - if your wallet had been stolen over there you wouldn't have to go through the fiasco that we had to. Even if Britain is expensive and full of people who don't feel like getting out of bed to go to work in the morning, God bless 'em. Anyway, after cancelling Ben's cards we made our way to the CN Tower to beat the curse (2 years earlier our quest for a meal at the Skytower in Auckland was thwarted by (we believe) a mischievous batch of sushi), and enjoyed a dizzying ride up the tower - the world's largest free-standing structure - and a very nice meal.

I'm going to continue this later, as there is exciting stuff to say and I am presently too ill to do it justice. Watch this cyber space.

Right, here we are; first post from Canada. I'll start, as is customary, with the flight. Not too bad (plenty of leg room for once), but no personal entertainment system. One bonus point though was the fact that the in-flight meals did not resemble the contents of the male toilets at Scream on a Friday night, in smell nor sight. So that's ok.

Arriving in Toronto fairly comfortably, we made our way to our lodgings for 3 out of our 4 nights here. On reflection, the hostel guide which Ben read on this here t'interweb should be taken down for recommending the place. Not good. Slight bonus was the view of the CN Tower from the balcony, but then that's like saying the food was good at Auschwitz. Which I'm sure it wasn't, but you get the idea. No offence intended, by the way.
We quickly dumped our stuff and headed for a local bar, where we had a pitcher of Steam Whistle beer each (said beer will crop up in the next post), and I got the guts to go over to a girl who looked like Ugly Betty, just to ask for her photo. She agreed, and we bought her and her friend a drink, the good sport that she is. I know that sounds bad; me going up to some random girl and calling her Ugly Betty, but I explained that it was a misnomer anyway and she was fine with it! Honestly, I'm not an uncomplimentary arsehole! Much.

Sunday saw us check out the 'vibe' (I'm not a yuppie, honest) in Toronto generally, and we had a trip to the Hockey Hall of Fame to boot. Don't call it ice hockey to a Canadian by the way, or you may get a funny look. Later in the day we got ready for our pre-booked dinner at the CN Tower restaurant, only to find that The Curse of the Towers had struck: Ben's wallet had been stolen. Basically, some shitheel must have lifted it out of his back pocket during the course of our wanderings in the city, meaning he had to cancel his cards and arrange what proved to be a laborious and infuriating persuit for money wired over by his folks. We were not amused. One thing can be said for the UK - if your wallet had been stolen over there you wouldn't have to go through the fiasco that we had to. Even if Britain is expensive and full of people who don't feel like getting out of bed to go to work in the morning, God bless 'em. Anyway, after cancelling Ben's cards we made our way to the CN Tower to beat the curse (2 years earlier our quest for a meal at the Skytower in Auckland was thwarted by (we believe) a mischievous batch of sushi), and enjoyed a dizzying ride up the tower - the world's largest free-standing structure - and a very nice meal.

I'm going to continue this later, as there is exciting stuff to say and I am presently too ill to do it justice. Watch this cyber space.