A Day of HRH and H1N1

Happy Guy Fawkes night! Despite Canada being annoyingly English this is not celebrated here. For that I am grateful - I can at least inform all Canadian;s about this little tradition of setting things on fire and watching things explode in the sky why celebrating the death of a guy.

The day started off drizzly and chillier than normal. Got the subway as usual from High Park to St Andrews with the change at St George. Surprisingly got a seat on both trains! It brightened up as the day went on.

From work I can see University Avenue which is a pretty busy road through Toronto - North to South. Strangely police motorbikes kept driving down the street with their sirens on. Weird. Then at 10.15am there were more police motorbikes and cars - this was a motorcade! From work we ran into the lobby to be close to the road but not outside as it was chilly and you don't want to commit yourself to these things - it might be nothing. Then I saw it the Royal Car - a sleek black car with the Royal flags on the front. I saw Prince Charles and Camila in the back. They waved at us and looked kind of bored but politely making the effort. Wow so here was my first visitor from England! They made the effort to pop by and say hi! Well no because they drove on but it was a strange experience seeing royalty. In those few minutes as they went by everyone was silent as if holding their breath. Yes people say they don't like the moarchy but still they can't help but stop and look. It feels like you are upholding some kind of tradition. So that was the excitment of the morning. We then chatted about the experience - "Did you see what she was wearing, did they look happy?".

Went to lunch - in a town full of eating places its hard not to find somewhere to eat. Whatever you want it is here. Well not TGI's! I enjoyed a Wendy's Jr Bacon Cheeseburger. Back at work I heard sirens again. Weird the royals weren't due back in town - they went to Niagara and Hamilton. But at 1.40pm the royal motorcade drove up University Avenue. They were here again! This time it was just Camila. I guess she had left Charles in Niagara and decided some shopping was needed. They drove by much quicker this time. We all were out in the lobby again staring at the spectacle.

Charles and Camila rank second in the news on TV behind H1N1. Everyone is obsessing about it. Today at work I went to shake someones hand and they held back saying "are you sure you want to do that?". Well not now! But I wasn't scared! So I did and then they grabbed the hand sanitizer and cleansed their hands. Crazy! People have been lining up since 4am to get their shots. Canada is running out of vaccine apparently! Prisoners and hockey players have got the shot before anyone else. People have been fired because the vaccines haven't been given out quickly enough. If you sneeze - people look at you like you are evil and run away so as not to get the virus. Crazy, crazy, crazy!

So enjoy the bonfires and the hotdogs. Don't forget the hand sanitizer! The Mentalist is on TV tonight. Can't wait to see that.