The One With Team Exeter In Toronto

Reading Week, the week to catch up on reading and to write many many papers. Alternatively, it is the week to sack off all work and go to Toronto! Guess which one I did!



Monday was day one of Team Exeter's trip to the pseudo-capital of Canada and firstly involved experiencing the great North American tradition that is the Greyhound. Five hours on a coach is tough, furthermore, we had to visit the Greyhound-endorsed "restaurant" as our pit stop. The food was, erm, interesting. Although it did have a sign saying "God bless all who through pass through here" - how quaint. The sun was just about to set as we rolled into Toronto, taking a route through its back streets, which are less than picturesque. Our hostel turned out to be in a slightly undesirable area, but it's character building, and the dodgy lift was like being on roller coaster on a windy day. I'll be honest, my first impressions of Toronto weren't overwhelmingly positive. The streets are dirty and the air is heavy with smog; the smell of underground trains is universal and there was a bustling of all types of people. It was like being on the streets on London sans the palpable atmosphere, so it's probably much more accurate to associate Toronto much more closely with a city like Manchester or Birmingham. Gabby and I managed to bag free drinks at dinner thanks to an absent-minded waitress, which led to a discussion about the ethics of tipping and honest charging.



Team Exeter seems to have a knack for sniffing out great diners, such as Zak's in Ottawa. Well, night one in Toronto led us to Johnny Rocket's in Yonge-Dundas Square. My post-travel tiredness meant I had to nurse a "float" or as is more commonly known, an ice cream soda. Diet Coke plus vanilla ice cream equals a moment of nostalgic joy of birthday parties from yesteryear. Yonge-Dundas Square is essentially Toronto's equivelent of New York City's Times Sqaure, just on a much smaller scale with less exciting lights and advertising. I sound like I'm giving it a rough deal, but as a New York City-phile, nothing really can compare to it. On the plus side, I've never seen First Nations musicians and dancers going for it in Times Square like I saw in Yonge-Dundas Square. Gabby was tempted to join in, but reasoned that only one glass of wine wasn't enough to get her First Nations boogey on.

Proper wine tasting.

One of the awkward things about our hostel situ (apart from the killer elevator), was being in a four-bed room as a group of three. Less awkward for us than it was for Melissa the "Dutch" girl from St Martin's in the Carribean. One of post-colonial world's more bizarre results. She was really sweet though and some epic blood-red heels she was trying to get her feet in to, in preparation for going out. We could've joined her, but y'know, we're Team Exeter. We get our fun from eating too much rather than clubbing. Plus, we had an early start the next morning. (By early, we mean early by student standards).



Tuesday was wet and grey and wet and grey. And wet and grey. And Tuesday was the day we chose to go to Niagara Falls. Weather, why are you so vindictive? We also had a late-running tour bus, which meant hanging out in the freezing rain, and when the tour bus did arrive, it transpired our driver and tour guide was the most creepy man in Ontario, possibly the whole of Canada. His name is Louie. Team Exeter calls him Louie the lech or lecherous Louie. Boy, was he creepy and unnerving and his presence left you with that uncomfortable weighty feeling in the pit of your stomach. He also was a failed stand-up comedian and magician who had a laugh I'd imagine the Child Catcher had, not that he ever laughed, he was too busy stealing children. I actually feel genuinely uncomfortable thinking about Louie the lech. You can imagine just how unsettling it was being in a confined space of the minibus.



Once we had finally managed to escape the heavy traffic of rush hour Toronto, it was the long road to Niagara Falls. Our first stop took us to a wine distillery, as the Niagara region is synonymous with wine. And not just any wine, ice wine - more on that later! One of the workers took us throught the correct wine tasting process: first you stick your nose in it and inhale deeply; second you swirl it round to get the oxygen in to bring out even more flavour; third you take one sip; fourth you down it. (If you're a student and that's all you know what to do when presented with alcohol). This was fine and delicious with the white wine, but much less so with the red wine. I hate red wine. I think it's abhorrent. Plus, I just associate it with many many years of sour communion wine and now just cannot drink the stuff. It was pretty gross, even if it was vintage. And the last thing to taste, and we were charged for the privilage, was ice wine. What is ice wine? Well, it's wine pressed from frozen grapes. The clue is in the name. They can only pick the grapes in the dead of night so there's absolutely nothing to thaw them out, and five grapes makes about one teaspoon of wine. But boy is it delicious. It's super sweet and just has this phenomenal taste. It just tastes fabulously expensive. Team Exeter decided to buy the cheapest bottle between the three of us. It set us back 30$ - the 600$ was just a bit too much outside of our Student Finance England-funded budget.



Suffering with a wine headache at ten in the morning was classy; I'm such a lightweight on what really amounted to just one glass of wine. Our second stop was at the scenic Nigara-On-The-Lake. I say scenic, I don't really understand its purpose. It's just a load of slightly pretty buildings charging extortionate prices. Team Exeter chose the ValuMart for a lunch destination and bought the classy picnic lunch of babybels and bread and crips. Never say we don't appreciate good cuisine. Actually, the babybels tasted vile. That's the weirdest thing about living abroad, certain things look the same but just taste slightly different and never really different in a good way. We looked great sitting in the back seat of the minibus with babybels and value bread. And finally, we were en-route to Nigara Falls.



Louie the lech made loads of jokes about the US border and what could happen to you if you crossed Rainbow Bridge straight into the hands of US border guards. Creepy, seriously creepy. First sight of Niagara Falls was so worth the hype. It's breath-taking, with water falling so vociferously against the jagged rocks below. In line for the historic Maid of the Mist boat ride, decked out in the sexy blue waterproof poncho, I couldn't contain my excitement. Mainly because Bruce Almighty is one of my favourite films ever and I was just so happy to be standing in the same place as Jim Carey/Bruce Nolan once stood. That and Niagara Falls is amazing! It's so loud and the spray is so strong you can't even see. My mascara couldn't stand up to the mist which meant I ended up looking like I'd just broken up with my boyfriend, so I took the opportunity to embrace the moment and belted out an Adele classic beneath the biggest falls in North America, in a plastic poncho, and with mascara on my forehead. That's one of those only-could-happen-to-me moments.



Matt the pilot and the Aussie became an honorary member of Team Exeter in Niagara Falls (he enjoyed the Adele moment too). The rest of Niagara Falls is not in keeping with the majestic beauty of the existing nature. It's tacky, a knock-off Vegas and just as cheap and plastic as those seaside resorts like Blackpool or Westward Ho! The newly-expanded Team Exeter went on a grossly expensive ferris wheel ride, which would have been stunning had the glass pod not been obscured by torrential rain! Why did we choose Tuesday to go? I was sad to say farewell to Niagara Falls though, but only the falls. I'd love to go back on a sunny day to see it in a different light, or rather, in light. But I've fulfilled a life-long wish to go to Niagara Falls which makes for one very happy Hannah!

Ignoring our instructions.

The best thing about getting back in the minibus was the knowledge that it would be just a couple of hours until we'd be rid of Louie the lech forever and ever. We were the last ones to be dropped off, and as such, it made it all the more awkward that we didn't tip, which Louie the lech protested about. Sorry, but we had no cash left on us and we had had to endure a day of creepy old man moments and the most distressing laugh I've ever heard. Fortunately, we managed to leap of the bus before he could slam the doors shut, trapping us with his lecherous tentacles. We had to run to Johnny Rocket's diner to recover from the traumatic experiences of the day.



More accurately, however, is that we ran to the Arts and Letters Club to listen to Prof. Mayne's poetry and short story reading, like the super dedicated students that we are, and he was genuinely touched that we turned up. And I have to say, I'm so so glad that we did. Mayne is a phenomenal writer, with such a gift for story-telling. He read one of his short stories call 'The Blue Couch' and it was both sentimental and humorous, and he read it charmingly. The emcee for the evening was also hot, which is an essential detail for you readers to know about. And the stereotypical post-grad writing student read out a poem which rhymed uterus with anus. It was so cliched it hurt.



Armed with a bottle of expensive and delicious ice wine, we went back to our hostel, grabbed some polystyrene cups (because that's the way to drink classy wine), and prepared to enjoy it. Then we realised it was corked. So we sent Gabby down to the kitchen in her pyjamas to get a corkscrew. Upon her return, we discovered that none of us knew how to use a corkscrew, so Lydia had to trek downstairs in her wonderful Smurf pyjamas to find someone to open the wine for us. Then we discovered the our expensive bottle was so small, its contents filled just one cup. It was lucky it was so scrumptious, otherwise we'd have been seriously hacked off. We slept well that night nevertheless, but I'm sure we'd have slept even better had we been able to get more wine. The price you pay for luxury eh.



Day three in Toronto was grey but not raining. I really should stop blogging about the weather, as a Brit abroad, it's so cliched. Anyway, our day offered cocktails at lunchtime in the Hardrock Cafe and watching Pitch Perfect in the movie theater. It actually hurts to write theater. Pitch Perfect is basically Bring It On but based in the A Capella club instead of in the cheerleading squad. We then managed successfully, (I say we, Gabby and Lydia), dyed Gabby's hair in our hostel without wrecking it and making the bathroom look like someone had suffered an especially violent mentrual explosion. After the cultural heights of Pitch Perfect, we rode on a wave of sophistication to the Art Gallery of Ontario. Once there, Gabby and I got our hipster on, taking arty-farty photos in the mirrors of one of the exhibits, and messing around with this glass orb which made us appear upside down. We enjoyed the Picassos and the Bruegal's too though. We're not total cultural Philistines! Wednesday evening provided more cocktails and Gabby discovered she has a penchant for beer in glasses as long as more forearm. What a lad!



Sun was on offer on Thursday as Team Exeter dragged their tired feet to Kensington Market for 9.30, only to discover that it doesn't open until 11, which led Gabby to introduce us to the concept known as the 'fail whale.' The Kensington Market area is run-down and somewhat seedy, and there's a lingering weed vapour which took me to Headache Central. There were also lots of fruit and vegetable stores which had an over-powering odour of stale fish. Once the stores finally opened, we found one which sold "Gay Spray" ("one spray gives you a lisping, simpering voice") and also had a British section which featured Congestion Charge Chutney. Nice to see that's still our impression on the world, post-Olympics!



Now, I'm not great at geography nor comprehending distances, as a result, Kensington Market took us seriously out of the way of where we needed to be. We relented to our sore feet and took the taxi route to the harbour. A short boat ride gave us a stunning view of the Toronto financial district skyline, complete with CN Tower, and we were soon on the gorgeous Ward Island. The fall colours were striking and vivid, and I attempted to make friends with the cutest dog ever, however, he just growled menacingly at me. The rejection was like a dagger straight into the artery in my neck. My advice for future travellers to Ward Island, or just generally to the Toronto Islands is to go on a weekend in the summer season, when you can actually go to the islands which have attractions on and when the one cafe on Ward Island will actually be open. Hence, Team Exeter remained on Ward Island for about half an hour. You can have all the land equivelent of the beauty of Helen of Troy, but if you don't have food for starving students, then you're just not up to much.



Back on the mainland and we found our way to Jack Astor's which came with paper table cloths and a pot of crayons to decorate aforementioned table cloth. Gabby showed off with a visual metaphor using an apple and a tree, Lydia went for the classic smiley face and I brought out my artistic brilliance with a weird bird and a distorted Canadian flag. The highlight was writing a plea to Anne Worth, our study abroad co-ordinator, who doesn't love her email reply button. Gabby in particular, is utterly distressed by her lack of contact. I just gloated that I got an unprovoked email from her a couple of weeks back, I'm seemingly special and obviously her favourite student in Ottawa, if not her favourite out of all non-Europe year-abroaders. The servers in Jack Astor's also wore shirts with such slogans as "you are the wind beneath my chicken wings" and "you had me at bacon." I appreciate the humour behind them. Next door to the grill was a place called the Loose Moose. I know it sounds like it should be a Canadian strip club, alas, it's not.

Very high up.

So the CN Tower is tall. And there's nothing more hilarious than grown men tentatively stepping onto a glass floor 115 stories up as little children run on to it and treat it as a trampoline. Gabby plucked up the courage to plank on it, whilst Lydia had to crawl on her hand and knees and looked like she was going to puke. I sat on it, having mustered all the bravery I could. I'll be honest though, the CN Tower isn't as great as the Calgary Tower, whose view is better and whose glass floor is much much better. The three of us ventured up into the sky pod which wasn't in a see-through lift as hoped. To be honest, the scariest part of our CN Tower escapade was the Himalamzon simulator where we pretended to be felled logs and I had to clutch Gabby's hand tightly as I got thrown down a vertical drop with water being sprayed at my neck. Oh, and I nearly got eaten by a crocodile. OK, a simulated crocodile. It was terrifying! We also got the delightful - sarcasm - 3D film about flying. There was an albatross and a Boeing. I didn't understand. And I don't think I want to...



And of course, we spent our last night in Johnny Rocket's with the boss as our waiter, who seems to have all the other servers in fear of him, as testified by the waitress who smashed a plate and tried desperate to evade his icy glare straight into her heart. I was scared by him, mainly because he snatched the ketchup away from me. Rounded off by Timbits, we settled down for our last night in the hostel, going to bed before Melissa had even started to get ready for her night out. What a party animal.



Day five, our final day, brought Greyhound-related disasters. After driving for half an hour, we stopped and realised we were right back at the bus terminal. Apparently, the brakes weren't working. Although we only discovered this after berating the driver seeing as trying to get an explanation out of him was like trying to wrestle lip-fillers from the TOWIE cast. Having queued with plenty of time in order to get seats next to each other at the back of the bus, our forced migration to a new bus meant Team Exeter had to be split up. Unitl Lydia got her angry eyes on and got people to move. Don't mess with her when she's hot and tired! And then it transpired the air conditioning on this new bus was broken. Of course, it had to break on a day when Canada wasn't being cold! Once finally returned to our beloved Ottawa, we traipsed to Zak's, because if there's one thing Team Exeter does best, it's eating.

And now reading week is drawing to a close and I have to do the study part of study abroad. But here's to the next adventure!