Still Alive and Kicking It...in Canada

Well, after a 'short' year and a half hiatus on the blog, I'm baaaack!! Whether this is exciting news for anyone other than me, I doubt it, but my brain is craving a workout and I'm in the mood for exercise.  It's been much too long, and much too much has happened in this time that I'm not going to bother filling in the details of where I've been because it would create a never-ending post that probably wouldn't be very interesting. Suffice to say, I'm still me, still travelling the world, eating too much, spending too much, and loving every single minute of it - except, of course, the minutes where people piss me off. Naturally.

So...let's get to the point. Right now, I'm rebirthing my blog from Toronto, Canada, ironically the place I visited for the first time in my last entry which seems like a hundred years ago. I arrived two days ago, and it was Canada Day - not as great as Australia Day in my opinion, but then again maybe I'm biased. I made the effort to get out of the hotel (ok, fine, my overactive imagination forced me out of the hotel because it listened too closely to the rumours that the hotel is haunted and I got creeped out), and made my way down to the beach to watch the fireworks.

One thing that hasn't changed since my last post is my complete and utter failure as a tourist. As always, I couldn't find where I wanted to go - even with a map - and I ended up stranded at a park where, thankfully, there was Canada Day stuff happening such as Poutine and a very average Rolling Stones cover band. Honestly, 'Honky Tonk Woman' will never again sound the same to my ears. I felt the first drops of rain and decided to bail, but wouldn't you know it, when I got lost looking for the streetcar stop I needed, I accidentally stumbled across the beach that I originally wanted to go. So I stayed and watched the fireworks...alone. Slightly depressing considering it seems to me that Canadians are the coupley-est population on the planet. Anyway the fireworks were pretty cool, although points to Australia Day for setting the fireworks to music - better luck with that next year Toronto! If I remember nothing else about this day, I hope I'll remember the way the sky looked at the end of the fireworks - like there was ribbons of liquid gold floating through it - so pretty, I love those crazy explosions! And then came the giant fail.

Failure by numbers:

75 - the number of minutes I had to wait to get on a streetcar back to the hotel.

47 - the age of 'Brad', the odd individual who tried to chat me up. He tried to impress me by estimating my age at 32 - not cool - and by telling me his life story, including the part where he was institutionalised for schizophrenia between the ages of 19-36. Nothing against schizophrenics at all, but if any of you are reading this here's a dating tip - get to know somebody for more than 30 seconds before dropping that bomb on them. I chose to politely decline his offer of a beer and phone number.

30 - the number of hours I had been awake for at this stage. An early wake up in Dubai, a 2 hour flight delay, a 13 hour flight, and the time spent in Toronto kind of got away from me.  This is also the number of seconds it took for me to fall asleep once I finally got on that blessed streetcar, which led me to get a little lost on the way back to the hotel.

However, find the hotel I did, sleep I did, and a very uneventful couple of days have followed. Heading back to Dubai tonight to begin my vacation - back to Canada I come to spend some time with my baby-making ex-roomie and her hubby, hooray!! 

I'll wrap up by saying welcome back to my life, and thanks to the people who encouraged me to reboot this baby of mine. I promise I'll try do better this time around!