See, I did start this post while waiting for the plane to begin boarding, but I knew it would be such a mammoth post, I’d wait until I had more time… but then now I’ve decided to do it as soon as I come back, with little sleep under my belt. I mean, to me, it’s still Sunday but in reality, it’s Monday afternoon. Blimey.

So what did I get up to? Well, let’s start from the very beginning, because it didn’t get off to the smoothest of starts.

I’m a stickler for time. I prefer to get places earlier and wait, rather than late and be rushing around. By the time the coach – delivering me and John (and Timi, who came along for the ride ) – got to Heathrow, we had only half an hour until check-in closed. You need to be there ASAP if you want to sit together or, indeed, to fly at all.

Turns out Air Transat like to overbook flights and be surprised when people who have purchased the tickets actually arrive to go on the flight. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time and they couldn’t fit us on. They gave us the option beforehand to opt out of flying, but we said no to that. When they told us they couldn’t get us on we had to miss it involuntarily. As none of this was our fault, we were in for some nice compensation. This is to the tune of €600. For anyone wondering, that’s about £517, US$844 or CA$937. In other words, that’s a lot of money.

We got free transfers to Gatwick, spending money to feed and entertain ourselves and a swanky hotel five minutes from the check-in desk for use the next day. We weren’t exactly complaining after all that seeing as the compensation paid for virtually half the trip. We’ll hear about that eventually, whenever we get it.

But anyway. We fly over to Toronto the next day (obviously) with extra legroom seats. Okay, so we’re in awkward-moment-range of the seat for one of the cabin crew right next to the emergency exit, but it’s nice to stretch your legs. Star Trek, The Jonas Brothers "Concert" "Experience" (those being air quotes) and a girly movie later, we land at Pearson. The customs guy asks why we’re all camping over Jordan’s house (apparently, according to John) and we’re on our way to the hotel.

Our hotel was the Toronto Marriot Bloor Yorkville which is situated on the junction of Bloor and Yorkville (I know, eh?) and right next to a major subway station. I mean, the hotel was pretty damn amazing, but we didn’t really get to spend much time in the room as we had so much stuff to do.

So we’d missed a day, but we had nothing planned for it anyway. We arrived on the Monday at early evening time. Had a quick look around, and zoned out asleep until the next day. It was Tuesday where we had our first touristy moment going to the CN tower and meeting up with Daylen and Natalie in Union station. Natalie apparently knows Toronto like the back of her hand, so she became honourary tour guide. We get a City Pass, which gets us into things cheaper. It means we have tickets to random places but… we’ll get to that.

After some serious queuing practice waiting to get up to the top of the tower, we have a little look round the top and through the glass floor, but seeing as a storm was coming in, we didn’t get to see much of the Toronto skyline. Shame, as I’m told it’s very prettiful.

Then we headed off to a baseball game at the Rogers Centre (or the Skydome, depending on whether your a Torontonian or not), watching the Toronto Blue Jays lose to the New York Yankees. 6-4 I think the final score was, but don’t quote me on that. It was televised, so anyone watching that on TSN would’ve seen me at some point. Woop!

From then on the days sort of merge into one. I can’t exactly tell what happened when, but I know that I took pictures at Jordan’s house next, so that must’ve happened after.

Jordan’s family live out in the middle of nowhere. I mean, seriously, less people live there than in Daventry. This means they have enough room to have an archery range going on, which John had a go on, and a pond or two. You could get lost if you weren’t careful.

We stayed the night over at this house, having a barbeque and a campfire just to seal any sort of ideal you’d have of spending a warm, summers night. We all (mostly) crammed into Jordan’s bedroom there, where me and Simon slept on a floor shared with ants. Eh, there was a sleeping bag between me and them.

Also at some point we went to the Ontario Science Centre with Natalie, which is basically a place where you get to try out science-y things for yourself such as the science of reactions or being a secret agent. Nice and kiddy. Love it. Unfortunately, my camera didn’t like taking pictures of the stuff since it was dark for the most part and blurred for any other pictures I took, so I gave up. So it’s best to ask John if you want to see pictures. He did take a lot (and I’m not joking).

At some point during this week, too, we met Jaclyn and Rachel too. We played the Wii round Jaclyn’s house. You can see pictures on Facebook if you like, but I’m not posting them here. You’ll have to find the funnies, damn it.

Just thought I’d crowbar that information in there so that I could say Saturday was the day (and night) of Jaclyn’s 18th party at Devon’s (another guy we met) Nan’s house. She’s an awesome lady, too. She didn’t seem to mind teenagers hanging around en masse while she tried to get to the toilet.

We had good times there. Jordan didn’t think he could make it as he was spending time with his grandparent’s, but he did. We had fun times decorating cups in the kitchen with John and Tara. Tara is a friend from Jaclyn’s camp who hardly anyone else had seen before, but she was kind enough to give us a lift back to Toronto after knowing us for a matter of hours.

So after getting lost in the acres (and I mean acres) of land at the house, we got back, crashed some more. Then we went to Chinatown in search of backscratchers and things to burn gift ideas for Becky. It’s strange as when you enter Toronto’s Chinatown, it just suddenly feels like you’re in China. I mean, one step and you’re at this modern looking theatre and the next you’re in typical Chinese shops selling trinkets and good luck charms.

John spent a while looking through shops – which all seemed to look identical to the one before it – to find the perfect gift. Me and Simon were generally sweltering in the unexpected heat. Thanks to us being Brits, we dress for the worst case scenario. So we got out of Chinatown fairly quick as it was just getting hotter and hotter. That, and we ran out of things to look at. 

Next stop – Wonderland. Canada’s Wonderland is like Alton Towers, but with even longer queues for even shorter rides. $50-odd to get in, and it seemed like we were robbed. But meh, we had a few good rides going on. Especially Behemoth, which is a stupidly high rollercoaster while you’re being held in by what can only be described as one of those little plastic cars the kids play with. Ride it virtually if you’re that cool.

As the night drew on and the rides lit up, lines shortened and we had a go on a few things. We got a little wet on perhaps the shortest log flume ride ever. We dried off eventually, thanks to the sun and waiting in line in it for a long time before it got dark.

Then we had some fun times at Toronto Zoo. We saw all the fun little animals, but no seals. That’s a shame. Seals are awesome. Maybe it was too hot for them or something, because it was boiling that day. Again, we’d misjudged the weather from the morning, and being an hour bus journey back to the hotel, it’s not worth coming back.

We had another random day where it was just me and John, so we decided to use up the two places on the City Pass we didn’t really want to go to anyway – Casa Loma and the Royal Ontario Museum. Yeah, it lived up to expectations. Casa Loma is a giant house full of this stuff from this… guy… I was totally paying attention to the film they showed. All I noticed was that his grandparents were British. That was the most important bit.

Then on another random day, me and John went to the Beaches. Not exactly exotic, as it’s the beach to Lake Ontario which is sort of… dodgy looking in the water. But hey, it was a hot day and beaches are always fun, right?

Finally, our last day was spent at the world famous Niagara Falls. What a day to visit them too. 33C it was and yet again I decided to wear jeans. Fail.

We went on the world-famous Maid of the Mist boat and got nice and close to the falls themselves and at the same time got nice and wet.

There’s a few other attractions up there such as Niagara’s Fury, which is this 4D movie thing which shows you how the falls were made. You were supposed to get wet, but I didn’t. Shame. The gifts from the gift shop made up for it though. As always.

Then we came home the next day, after some rather epic goodbyes to Daylen and Natalie. We get to the airport so early check-in hadn’t opened. I wanted to get there early so we could sit together and get decent seats in general. But in the end, they upgraded us to business class for no real reason. Me and John were sitting together, but Simon was on his own in the row behind us. Annoying, but the free drinks, nice food, extra legroom and priority… everything is always a bonus.

I’ve now seen 17 Again and yes, I now see why you told me not to watch it.

But all in all, yes, it was an awesome trip to be well remembered. I just hope V gets Project Airmail okay, as I’m not going to be in the country to receive it being returned to me. Whoops.

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Tags: Becky, blog, Book, Facebook, game, Ian, John, May, place, Rachel, Sam, show, Simon, Timi, Tran, YouTube