Finally in my own space

Right now I'm sitting in my new room (which is amazing by the way) just waiting for my washing to be done. I'm pretty sure it's gonna take a while but that's cool. Today I'm just chillin which is a nice change. I don't really have a choice though cos today it's labour day in Canada. It's a good opportunity to unpack and get all my stuff sorted though. You have no idea how good it feels to finally just unpack all my things and just stay. Like, this is my home now (for the next few months anyways). So yeah, pretty much all my stuff needs to be washed which is kinda lame, especially since the washing machines here are kinda small and I don't have enough change to do another load.... (well, I do but I need a loonie and 2 quarters cos that's all it'll accept). I also didn't think about money for the dryer....

Anyways, here's a video of my new room. It's pretty sweet except like, my desk is slightly to big so the door of the cupboard in which my fridge/ freezer is concealed doesn't open fully. I had to move the desk across slightly (as much as I could anyway) so now my fridge/ freezer can open properly. It is also lame cos I have to open the fridge and freezer doors like, backwards so I have to lean over the door to get stuff....




Anyways, I thought I'd recap the last 10 days or so since arriving in Toronto (as much as I can remember anyways ahahaha). Ah, right, sorry, just had to check what my last post was about seeing as it's been so long since I did one. Ok, here we go.

So I arrived in Toronto on the train at about 8.30pm which was more or less right on time. I was kinda glad it was after stories I heard about it being as much as 12 hours late. On the very last day actually the manager I guess you'd call her told us that we'd be about 3 hours late because of a backlog in freight trains but apparently the engineers knew nothing about it so everyone was getting kinda antsy about that. It was ok though, it was just a mistake on the part of the dispatcher in Winnipeg.

Uhh, yeah, anyways, after picking up my backpack and meeting my sister at the station we headed down to the ferry to the house where we were staying for a few days. Our sister's friend and her boyfriend kindly let us stay for a few days which was cool. We were staying in the attic which was totally awesome except it creaked whenever we took a step. But this attic was like, the ones in the movies, y'know, like the ones with the pull-down stairs and everything! I was kinda scared going up and down the stairs though, mainly cos they creaked as well when you went up or down them as if they were going to break.

During the stay on the island we could'nt really stay out too late cos the last ferry was at 11.15 so we didn't really do much. We checked out the Buskerfest which was pretty cool. My sister and I also went to a Cirque du Soleil show for free and went backstage which was also amazing. It was the first one I'd been to ever so it was amazing sight to see. Apparently this particular show is one of the oldest running ones (like, 16 years) and now I'm like, super keen to catch another one the next time I can. We managed to score tickets and backstage passes because our cousin works for the show and we all happened to be in the same place at the same time which is kinda cool. Didn't manage to get a photo though which is kinda sad but it's cool I guess.

Oh, yeah, we also went to Niagara Falls which was simply amazing. The Maid of the Mist boat was probably the biggest highlight of the whole thing. The lowlight was most definitely the 'winery tour'. By that they mean a quick 15 miour of a winery's shop with a chance to sample either a small glass of red or white wine and an opportunity to buy wine. Lame. They whole thing was kinda quick though. 5 minutes in one place, 5 minutes in another. "Get on the maid of the mist and then come straight back to the bus - no time for looking in the gift shop. Just get the fuck out of there." (Ok, he didn't say that last bit exactly but y'know, thats what it kinda felt like). But as interesting as the history of the Falls is and how amazing the Falls actually are there are only so many photos you can take of itnute t! I must have taken one from every angle possible. We even decided to up the Skylon Tower which cost us an extra $12 dollars which was fine but like, we couldn't make up our minds about going or not (obviously we did). But working in a place with a tower back home we were all like (or I was anyway) 'You've seen one tower you've seen 'em all'. Which is probably one of the reasons I haven't been up the CN Tower yet (plus apparently it's like, super expensive).


Before and after the Maid of the Mist

My sister and I also went to visit some relatives who live close to Toronto. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before but originally I was meant to visit them on my own but I kinda dragged my sister into it as well ahaha. Take that, Lian! Nah, it was pretty cool actually. They were really nice and I finally managed to get rid of that bloody present I brought all the way from NZ. They took us out to dinner at this chinese buffet place which like, seriously kicks Fortuna's ass! Like, 6 rows of food and seats like, 600+ and chinese! We also went back to their place for haircuts which was awesome but we were there till after midnight and I was kinda tired. We had also missed the last bus back so they drove us back to our backpackers.

The next night their daughter and her husband took us out for dinner which was nice. They were supposed to be there the night before but had to take care of some things in their new house or something. Anyways, they were really nice too and were like 'if you ever want to go out or something then just give us a call'.

I think that was pretty much it until "frosh week" (aka O week) where I met a lot of other cool international students from all around the world (well, mostly from around Europe and Australia but y'know). I also managed to get all my uni stuff sorted which is good. After that things just turned into one big, 4 day party. The details of which I will not divulge at this point in time. So yeah, I've made friends already which is really cool. A lot of us are staying at the Primrose too which is REALLY cool. like, for those 4 nights I ended up crashing in my friend's room at the Primrose cos I was still at the backpackers until yesterday morning and it wasn't really worth going all the way to the other side of town to sleep. Also, the room at the Primrose is a LOT better than the backpackers anyways.

So today I'm just hangin in my room, catching up on everything and stuff. Might be going out later to a BBQ then going to see The Dark Knight again which will be cool.

Right, I think my washing is done. I'll catch you guys later

Packing up my worldly belongings

Ok, there's a lot I want to cover this post so lets jump right in shall we?

I've been out all weekend going to parties etc (a 21st on Friday and a leaving party on Saturday followed by dinner with the family on Sunday). They were all actually super fun and it's really the first time in a long time that I could go out on the weekend and not worry about going to work the next day which is nice. Sarah's leaving party was good but I didn't stay too long, on account of my restricted license and that I didn't really know anyone there. It was then that it kinda hit me that though I'm leaving soon she's leaving sooner. She left this afternoon for Denmark but from what she told me on Saturday she has a lot of stops and transfers and whatnot. Luckily for me I only have one. Sarah, if you're reading this, good luck and god speed.

I finally also have a vague plan of what I'm doing in the first 2 weeks of my trip. I'm spending the week in Vancouver doing the touristy things and then going on a train cross country to Toronto where I'll be meeting my sister and possibly my cousin for a bit of a family reunion and then traveling with my sister down to Niagara Falls and possibly going to visit a relative who I still have no idea who it is. We'll then come back up to Toronto cos Orientation week starts on the 25th for the whole week and then the week after I actually start studying. I'll probably be kinda rusty after not having to do it for like, 3 months or so... so yeah, that's the plan as far as I know.

I also bought some travel guides to Toronto and Vancouver which will give me some ideas of what to do with my time so I don't waste any of it. Hopefully they'll be worth the price I paid for it...talk about extortionist prices. Gosh. If anything though they'll probably be a good souvenir of my adventure.

So I started to pack up all my things into boxes yesterday when I realised I didn't have any to put all my stuff in. So off I went to my local stationer looking to buy some boxes in which I could fit all of my worldly possessions. You'd think they'd be pretty inexpensive right? Wrong. Extortionists, the lot of 'em! It also started raining on the way to the car so the ink on my pretty blue boxes started running and I became 'Simon partially blue hand' which didn't make me feel much better, especially after all the money I forked out on those boxes.

So anyway, I get home and make up box number 1 which is right now holding my books/ folders from High School along with a lot of other paper. After filling said box I go to pick it up to move it (as you do) and the bottom totally falls out causing all of my stuff to fall onto the floor. Frickin' boxes. This was the one that bore the brunt of the rain as I was walking to the car so it got super wet, well, not super wet but wetter than the others. The sacrificial box so to speak. I had to go into the garage and find some tape to tape up my box but the stuff that I found didn't really hold it together too well. I was totally over it by then so I just wrote a note on it to anyone who wants to move it when I'm gone. You've officially been warned. So anyway, I guess the moral of the story is that rain (or water in general) is the natural enemy of the cardboard box.

All the other boxes are fine though. They're holding everything that they're supposed to but when I was picking them up I held them by the bottom just in case.

Who knew pretty much everything I own could fit into four boxes?

Below are pictures of how my room is right now. It looks pretty much the same cos most of the stuff that I packed away was hidden in drawers anyway. (click pics to enlarge)


1 - The boxes which hold most of my stuff
2- My noticeboard which has finally been cleared
3 - That's where all my DVD's were
4 - Contained a lot of random stuff. Past exam papers, payslips, work stuff etc.
Oh, and you can also kinda see the 'Mac's Brewery' sign that I stole from work (underneath No. 2). People kept looking at me weirdly when I took it home on the bus.


1 - This is where all my Uni books/ folders were. Also, the drawers underneath the TV have also been cleared out as well as the drawers of the brown desk by the door.



I've also cleared out my t-shirt drawer. There are quite a few which I forgot that I had including 'Without Me It's Just Aweso'. A lot of them are too big for me now so I'm having problems trying to sort out what to do with them. The problem is that I mostly like them i.e. what is on them but probably wouldn't wear them again. I took photo's of all of them so if I end up giving them away or whatever then I have them cataloged and whatnot. I WAS going to take photo's of me wearing them but it would have taken too long, what with the setting up of my tripod/ setting the self timer every time (my camera only gives you a choice of 2 seconds or 10 seconds the latter is too long and 2 seconds isn't long enough). All of them are all crinkly mostly cos they've just been sitting in my drawer for a long, long time. They also kinda smell so I'm gonna wash 'em before I do anything with them. I'll also post photo's somewhere/ sometime. Probably on Facebook.


Oh, yeah, I also traded in my NZD for CAD the other day. The exchange rate isn't ideal but it's not the worst. When I changed it was like 0.7347 CAD to $1 NZD so like, $1 CAD is roughly = to $1.30 NZD.

Right, I think that's all. Thanks for sticking with me throughout the ranting about boxes etc.

6 days left.