The first thing I remember is waking up early (by early I mean before eleven) via Maegan poking me. I took a look out the window and thought “what the fuck happened to the weather?” and went back to sleep. Consequently we missed our train into Toronto.
Maegan’s Aunt Sharon and Uncle Mike live in Oshawa and it was here where our ordinary day began. After being fed an excellent breakfast we were dropped off at the GO Train station in Pickering. I had never been to Toronto before, but today would change all that. My expectations were low but the city delivered.
On the GO Train (good name—it went) a man sat across from us with the word BUM written all over him. Seriously. Twice on his jacket and once on his touque. I can’t believe Americans don’t have a word for touque. They just call them hats. That’s stupid.
We had some trouble finding our way out of the train station and into downtown. It shouldn’t have been so difficult, downtown is very big and the train station, relatively, is very small. But we had difficulty all the same. And when we did get out, we were behind a pack of junior high kids. There is nothing, and I think Maegan would agree with me here, nothing more obnoxious and irritating than a big group of pre-teens. Tear gas maybe.
And so began our adventure in the big city. Well, it wasn’t really so much of an adventure as it turns out, mainly just walking around in the cold for several hours. We had a modest list of goals for the weekend which we set to work on right away by heading off to the CN Tower. Now how much would you expect to pay to go to the top of the CN Tower – the largest man-made free-standing structure in the universe? I’ll bet it wouldn’t be 19 fucking dollars. And when you get to the top you’ll be treated to extraordinarily bland views of:
A bleak early winter landscape of brown and grey
The polluted tides of Lake Ontario
Toronto’s homely suburbs spread out for thousands of kilometers in every direction
Me and Maegan thought twenty dollars for that was about as fair as getting raped in the ass on your birthday, so we didn’t go. I bought a root beer though.
Our next point of interest was the candy store. Maegan loves her candy. Loves it. The candy store had lots more than just candy though, like gumby toys and lite bright and all kinds of really tacky 80’s LPs and board games from back when, like Operation and LIFE. Ninja turtles. Curious George. Spiderman. You get the picture. I however did not. I don’t know why I didn’t take any pictures of the place (except the outside). In retrospect, some of the coolest things I saw in Toronto were in that store. Like seasoned insect larvae, candied ants, tequila worm candies and candied crickets. The sign read “Yes they are real and yes people do eat them”. Ew. I didn’t buy any of that shit, but I did buy $16 of chocolate covered espresso beans.
While walking down Queen Street, not long after we bought all our candy…
“You dirty son of a bitch, I was here first!”
Along with more incomprehensible yelling and screaming. We both hesitated, briefly trying to listen to whatever the fuck it was that was going on.
“That’s where I was going to you ASSHOLE!!!”
It turned out to be some old lady awkwardly pushing a small cart with a garbage bag full of… something. We both thought it was “funny, but kinda sad”.
Going to Much Music was another of our set goals. Complete failure. There was absolutely nothing to see. I asked the girl at the reception desk.
“Is there anything here we can see?”
“No.”
So we went to the gift shop and I spent like $9 on a postcard and a magnet, what the fuck?
On the advice of (Maegan’s Uncle) Mike, we made a trip to the old distillery district, not far from downtown Toronto. It was pretty. Pretty yuppy that is! We went into a home theatre store where perched on the wall, was a $54,000 TV playing Finding Nemo. A furniture store we went into was equally ridiculous. A set of old barn doors was on sale for $39,000.
The area was not without a certain charm, but it felt forced. These buildings which had been forsaken, now put to a better purpose, turning the wheels in the great machine that is the economy.
Afterwards, we went to a playground where I went down a slide and fell in a puddle. It sucked. My ass was wet and cold, and I almost got hemorrhoids.
After an excellent dinner at Maegan’s supernice cousins Andy and Tracy’s house, we went out to a nearby pub and got drunk. We laughed at a person of indeterminate gender, talked about Maegan’s period, I got hit on by a girl and introduced to some nice engineering geeks. And Han Solo was there. Han Solo is awesome, he left the place with like six hot babes. I always respected Han, but now he’s become a personal hero.
For those of you who want to know the important details of my ordinary day, this is what I had to eat:
Breakfast: bacon, eggs, toast and coffee
Didn’t really eat a lunch, just a cookie and some candy
Dinner: barbequed steak and potatoes, asparagus and garlic butter and red wine
The first thing I remember is waking up early (by early I mean before eleven) via Maegan poking me. I took a look out the window and thought “what the fuck happened to the weather?” and went back to sleep. Consequently we missed our train into Toronto.
Maegan’s Aunt Sharon and Uncle Mike live in Oshawa and it was here where our ordinary day began. After being fed an excellent breakfast we were dropped off at the GO Train station in Pickering. I had never been to Toronto before, but today would change all that. My expectations were low but the city delivered.
On the GO Train (good name—it went) a man sat across from us with the word BUM written all over him. Seriously. Twice on his jacket and once on his touque. I can’t believe Americans don’t have a word for touque. They just call them hats. That’s stupid.
We had some trouble finding our way out of the train station and into downtown. It shouldn’t have been so difficult, downtown is very big and the train station, relatively, is very small. But we had difficulty all the same. And when we did get out, we were behind a pack of junior high kids. There is nothing, and I think Maegan would agree with me here, nothing more obnoxious and irritating than a big group of pre-teens. Tear gas maybe.
And so began our adventure in the big city. Well, it wasn’t really so much of an adventure as it turns out, mainly just walking around in the cold for several hours. We had a modest list of goals for the weekend which we set to work on right away by heading off to the CN Tower. Now how much would you expect to pay to go to the top of the CN Tower – the largest man-made free-standing structure in the universe? I’ll bet it wouldn’t be 19 fucking dollars. And when you get to the top you’ll be treated to extraordinarily bland views of:
Me and Maegan thought twenty dollars for that was about as fair as getting raped in the ass on your birthday, so we didn’t go. I bought a root beer though.
Our next point of interest was the candy store. Maegan loves her candy. Loves it. The candy store had lots more than just candy though, like gumby toys and lite bright and all kinds of really tacky 80’s LPs and board games from back when, like Operation and LIFE. Ninja turtles. Curious George. Spiderman. You get the picture. I however did not. I don’t know why I didn’t take any pictures of the place (except the outside). In retrospect, some of the coolest things I saw in Toronto were in that store. Like seasoned insect larvae, candied ants, tequila worm candies and candied crickets. The sign read “Yes they are real and yes people do eat them”. Ew. I didn’t buy any of that shit, but I did buy $16 of chocolate covered espresso beans.
While walking down Queen Street, not long after we bought all our candy…
“You dirty son of a bitch, I was here first!”
Along with more incomprehensible yelling and screaming. We both hesitated, briefly trying to listen to whatever the fuck it was that was going on.
“That’s where I was going to you ASSHOLE!!!”
It turned out to be some old lady awkwardly pushing a small cart with a garbage bag full of… something. We both thought it was “funny, but kinda sad”.
Going to Much Music was another of our set goals. Complete failure. There was absolutely nothing to see. I asked the girl at the reception desk.
“Is there anything here we can see?”
“No.”
So we went to the gift shop and I spent like $9 on a postcard and a magnet, what the fuck?
On the advice of (Maegan’s Uncle) Mike, we made a trip to the old distillery district, not far from downtown Toronto. It was pretty. Pretty yuppy that is! We went into a home theatre store where perched on the wall, was a $54,000 TV playing Finding Nemo. A furniture store we went into was equally ridiculous. A set of old barn doors was on sale for $39,000.
The area was not without a certain charm, but it felt forced. These buildings which had been forsaken, now put to a better purpose, turning the wheels in the great machine that is the economy.
Afterwards, we went to a playground where I went down a slide and fell in a puddle. It sucked. My ass was wet and cold, and I almost got hemorrhoids.
After an excellent dinner at Maegan’s supernice cousins Andy and Tracy’s house, we went out to a nearby pub and got drunk. We laughed at a person of indeterminate gender, talked about Maegan’s period, I got hit on by a girl and introduced to some nice engineering geeks. And Han Solo was there. Han Solo is awesome, he left the place with like six hot babes. I always respected Han, but now he’s become a personal hero.
For those of you who want to know the important details of my ordinary day, this is what I had to eat: