hello

this is the first of our blogs, and 1 week down 25 to go or something like that. arrived in toronto safely after an 8 hour flight and finding our way to our hostel the canadiana, which was all a bit new and strange the size of the city was huge and over whelming but after we got booked in and up to our room to find we had two chinese tecno geeks as room mates laptops ans gagets and wires all over the place they where a bit noisey coming in in the early hours talking and typing but thy went after 4 nights to leave us alone. on the first night we crashed out about 9 (canada time gmt-5) and then woke up and where confused at why it was still dark behind the curtains at 8.00 so sleeped on, turns out that our window was at the end of a covered allyway and was dark so up we got up 8.55 to a lovely day and pancakes with syrup mmmmm looked round the hostel had a cup of tea and went out. confusion struck when we strugled to cross the road like compleat idiots but worked out the green go man means your just less likely to get run down. first day looking round town and getting lost. we got back to the hostel at about 2 ish and thought what should we do now, so decided to sit down drink tea and read and thought to ourselves this is really strange we're sitting down in the afternoon with nothing to do and thought this must be what retirement feels like.

the following week consisted of the zoo, CN tower, china town, walking round the PATH system, drinking more tea and reading. the zoo took bout two hours to get to and a lot more confusion but got there in the end and it is huge with 10k of trails to do so took all day to walk round got back late so sorted dinner and then bed

CN tower the tallest building in the hole big wide world it was big and busy and fantastic vews.

the PATH system is the largest underground walk way it was like a shopping center that was 24k long and spanned the city only problem was it was like a maze and when you exited it you where completely disorentated as to where you are or where to go so a few funny times of getting more lost and confused.

a whole day was devoted to walking around china town which ended up in us fantasizing about dinner. as yet we had only found a small shop that was really expensive so we thought we would splash out in china town. walked up and down the street going in every supermarket seeing which was the best but when it came to buying stuff couldn't remember which one was the best, so ended up just picking one, then we wanted some meat so thought beef would be nice but turns out you cant buy just a little bit you have to buy a cow!! so ended up with eating beef for a week!

we spent 2 days in niagara to see the falls. anyone that is thinking of going do a day trip! started off getting a 2 hour train journey which we were suitably impressed with the trains much better than england. got there and started to walk through the town to get to the hostel and everything was really run down, boarded up and deserted. thinking to ourselves this is rubbish. so found the hostel where we had to ring the bell to get in which is weird and a little man waved us in and vanished then popped out of no where behind the desk and told us that we had booked a room for 2 males!! and so he was worried that we would now have to share a room which we didnt mind but he seemed to which was wierd. had to leave a deposit for the key which we didnt have the right amount in cash and he didnt have any change so he told us not to lose the key!! he then showed us around the hostel skuttling from room to room as he showed us extra toilets in case the one in our room was busy!! got to our room and he showed us around it, bed bed toilet door, then told us again not to lose the key and he made sure we had it, which we both looked at each other to say well i haven't got it, and it turned out that he'd lost it in the office! had a 3k walk to the falls which was nice. when we got there it felt like something was missing, and it wasnt as good as we had thought it would be, anyway took lots of pictures and went in the tunnels behind the falls. it was now only bout 1ish and we thort what shall we do now. found the little town bit where they want to take all your money but we came up with a cunning plan!! in the arcade they pay out tickets rather than money which can be exchanged for gifts, here the plan came in to action as we screwed the system finding tickets that the machines had randomly given out or people had missed/left. we found 24 wow which we exchanged for a plastic turtle 2 plastic little action men figures and a foam ring whoop!! got dinner saw the falls at night and got lost getting back to the hostel which didnt help as it had got really cold. at the hostel there was only 2 other people staying there, so we played some cards in the kitchen where they leave the oven on with the door open to heat the place up. needless to say it was a cold night sleep. woke in the morning and found some free breakfast and thort again what shall we do now as we had 7 hours to kill before our train back to toronto, so back to the arcade!! (got a puzzle and 6 men)

got our train home (canadiana) and got a different room which was full of surprises.

opened the door and a strong smell hit us of sweat and aftershave mmm nice. then our roomie turned up a mexican!! there were notes on the door for him to see reception so he wasnt too happy. his stuff was everywhere so he had to pack up and move rooms. unfortunately he lost his visa and was trying to ask us if we had seen it by saying "black on the carpet" over and over again. didnt have a clue what he meant so he carried on packing and left. thinking to ourselves yes we have our own room and he has gone. there was a rattle on the door and keys being inserted so we thought this is strange then 4 big blokes came in shouting "visa visa passport visa" at us, thinking s*** we might get punched. we said "no" and they left, on reflection we thort it was funny that he got his heavies on us thinking we had his passport.

next day early start and off to airport for vancouver.