.....Toronto

I arrived at Pearson airport at around 3pm where I met up with Sean! We stayed at a hostel downtown that looked like any old apartment building on a small residential street. Here we made friends with the reception man and the barister (coffee guy not a lawyer) on the corner. Checked out toronto's CN tower. Didnt venture up it though did get a nice view from the bottom. It was quite exspenxive and there were tiny little tourists buzzing around everywhere. Both Sean and I had beeen to Melbournes equivient so decided to save our money and watch a movie instead! I tried my luck at air hockey and lost badly before watching 'Get Low' starring Bill Murray and Robert Duvall. It was really really really good! We both left the cinema with a nice calm aura radiating off our skin.Within the same building as the cinema on floor 51 we sat down for dinner and a coffee/wglass of wine. The view here was magnificant. You could look over the whole city, have comfy seats, some privacy, a drink and dinner all for the same price as this CN tower business. We found ourselves reccommending the place to others at the hostel. It wasnt the cheapest meal in the world but it was decent food and compared to the tower...

We stayed an extra few days in Toronto as we considered buying a car. This all fell through but we dont dwell on such things. We struggled to find any accomodation and eventually had to settle for a motel for a night which cost wayyy too much; A lot of US citizens come to Toronto to party as the drinking age is 19 here. The rest of our days in Toronto were lazy ones cruizing around downtown at leisure and watching movies on the laptop. Sean got sick and was still jetlagged. Overall Toronto was a positive experience. For a huge city, I liked it. Alongisde large billboards, neon lights and skyscrapers were old brick builings, window flower boxes and fire escapes. Even the commerical centre of things was pretty alright; there were buskers everywhere (all with some sort of talent) and the people didnt seem so stressed or angry which was a nice change from Calgary.

We moved on from Toronto and caught the next bus to Kingston. Kingston is a university town (Queens University). Being the summer it was quite dead. When we first got in the place didnt look so promising as the place we were staying was on the town end of the main drag. THe streets were grey and ugly, and although there were enough shops and facilities to accomodate a large amount of people there seemed no one around! The next day we checked out and walked down the main street towards the harbour to see what we could do before getting on a bus to Montreal. The harbour and shopping streets were pretty cool. We ended up chilling on the grass in the sun with our backpacks and books. I'd picked up Ernest Hemmingway's 'To have and have not' earlier in toronto. We lost track of time and ened up missing the bus and waited around an extra few hours to get the next one.

got into Montreal around 11pm called around desparately to find a hostel. After the Toronto and Kingston experience we definately didnt want to pay for a motel/hotel again and was getting quite annoyed at the apparent lack of hostels on the East Coast. We called up a place in old montreal where the guy told us to come in despite having no beds (someone hadnt checked in yet and he said he'd see what he could do for us). By the time we got there the guy had checked in and he'd already had people sharing a matress sleeping in the hallway! So instead He offered us a bed at his house! This was the beginning of a five day stay under the hospitality of German Herman! Note: he isnt actually german, Columbian rather. Though he had the stragnest accent; Australian in many many ways as he'd spent a few years in his school days on exchange there, French as he'd done a year of uni in France, and Spanish (well, i think the columbian thing explains that).

I LOVE MONTREAL! haha.

we just kept on extending the stay! Quebec is something of a different wolrd than Canada! It had might as well be a different country. The people are noticably different; more relaxed and accepting, they speak a different language (though Montreal is largely bilingual), look different in body language and dress, even the architecture is different. The city is littered with majestic churches and iron statues. We saw a part of the botanical gardens,we got there late so it was no longer worth paying to get in, the Olympic stadium, climbed Mont Royal, watched a 'football' game, sat on a rooftop bar, and attended the end of the Tam tam festival.

We attemped to name all the flags at the Olympic Stadium (well it was rather Sean telling me each flag..). Mont Royal was beautiful. It sits in the middle of the city and is till coverd by trees, parlands and walking paths. A nice getaway from the bustling city below. The climb is nowhere near strenuous and on the way down you can eiher take to winding road down, or just run down through the trees as Sean and I did. Tam Tam festival was amazing! Every sunday through the summer heaps of people gather in the park at the foot of Mont Royal with drums of all sorts and just play! People of all races, ages, characters and prsonalities gather around and just dance, play or just chill on the grass. Everyone is accepted and there seemed absolutely NO dickheads or 'Canadian bogan' types there to ruin the experience. There were crazy dancers, hackysack extraordinaires, a saxiphonist, soccer balls and drums galore.

In Montreal we met a lot of people one of which was Nora the German vetinary student. She is studying in Princes Edward ISland (PEI) and needed to get there somehow. We all were itching to get out of the city and see some nature so together we rented a car and left Herman's house on Monday morning.

So I have another class to get to so I tell you more later

King Yin

Oh yeah! So if you ever plan on going to Columbia be sure to stay a few nights at a DN hostel. Herman is a part owner and he was telling us some pretty cool things they organise there. they hire local women there that are in some way disadvantaged (eg. single mums etc I imagine social services there are nowhere near as good as what we lucky b*****s get in Aust) and bring people to local communities to participate in their daily activites so that money goes straight to the people and the way of life is sustained and corruption avoided.

Do it.

love