Day 2 in CA

Right gang, Friday went as thus. we woke up really early for some reason and since were up and wake so early we took advantage of the great possibilities a city offers and spent the morning watching the telly and flicking about on the internet. It was only about ten half ten that we then went out and began walking about Toronto, it is massive, really huge and though everything is essentially walking distance away it is still a fair stomp. We went looking for cell phones, which is what they call them over here, I think it’s a considerably cooler word than mobiles but I will stick to mobiles because I am stubborn like that, so we went into all the retailers for each network in the same way we would go in the o2 shop or the orange shop we went into rogers and fido and bell and also the carphone warehouse type deals like the booth. Anyway, so far I am thinking that in some ways Britain is far better than Canada. For one you have to pay for bank accounts if they fall below certain levels, the one we spoke to said it was free unless 2k was in it, shocking, but mobiles are proving to be a right pain, pay and go is really expensive you pay to receive calls which is mega crap, we could probably get a con tract, and I think we will, but we have to buy phones, ours would take a week to get unlocked and even then, they don’t all use the sim card gprs or what ever it is system, they have some other system which I havent quite got my head round as yet. The phones were getting offered are, for the want of a better word, utter dungers, snidey cheap crap which you wouldn’t pay 10quid for back home but they want more than 50smackers for over here. Its irritating as anything. But needs must so we will soldier on.

So we went into places to see about mobiles and also to see about web cams, we came back with nothing. Alas. So we walked all the way down yonge street till we got to king street, check a map and see where im at, we then walked what felt like an eternity along king st west to find the offices of the company who sort out visas. Swap its called, there office was pretty cool, computers, job and accommodation boards and a cracking aussie guy who worked there who set us straight on how things worked and how to go about getting a social security number or whatever its called, maybe social insurance number. Also he told us what bank to use because one in particular did accounts which were perfect for us and they had some sort of link up, Canada trust is what its called, we had already tried HSBC but the guy in there was a pure sleaze ball in a purple shirt who basically begged us to take the account and then take a credit card, desperate is the only way to describe it. After walking all that way to the swap offices we made our way back and stopped by the rogers centre. If you look at a map, were right up yonge street, the cn tower and rogers centre is down at the bottom and along a good bit, well we walked a good bit farther than that so we more or less stopped by the rogers centre on our way home. We took some snaps and went into the shop so I could buy a hat, it’s a nice old fashioned one and it actually fits me, first time for everything. In the shop we were in it was the shop you can access from the stadium at the game so we looked out the window at the field, was cool.

I forgot to mention that on our walk back we stopped in at a sports bar to see if the showed sky sports news in the morning so I could follow the killie score, we were met by a girl who thought we wanted a table, when I asked about the sky thing she went and asked and the owner, a smashing wee foreign man came out and showed me the tv’s don’t think they got sky incidentally, while I did that Natalie spoke to the girl who it turned out was irish and was here on a work permit (same as us!) she gave us some info and that, most of which scared the living daylights out of me, she spoke of her difficulties getting a flat and a job, yikes. Natalie took it all in her stride though but it had me spooked.

After the rogers centre we got a nice wee ice cream cone, which was only the second thing we ate, a hot dog off a street vendor was what we had earlier, well good for 2dollars 50cents.

Then we headed back to the hotel because drew was picking us up at 5 and it was just past three. We got back up at 4 so had a wee hour to pull ourselves together, from getting picked up at 5 onwards we had a fantastic night, drew and carol (drews wife) took us for dinner to a wee Italian restaurant near their house in mimico which is a sort of suburb of Toronto. There was a picture beside our table of big pussy from the sopranos visiting the place which i thought was cool as anything, a big plus in my book. From there we went to drews boy daves condo which is where we’ll be staying the next few days, it is cracking but more on that later. We then went to a box lacrosse game, which is basically lacrosse but indoor, pretty violent sport actually, I missed the fight that went on in it however because I was out having a cheeky beer in the parking lot with drew and carols oldest boy sean, oh, he is absolutely nuts by the way, a cracking guy but really, nuts. He is enormous too, built like the old brick shithouse kind of way. I should add that if you know what king of the hill is like that kind of what the people of this mimico place are like, it is a very close knit community and we also had a fly beer before the game keeping it low so the cops never saw! We met a fair few people and drew and sean introduced us to everyone, we had more beer in the bar area of the lacrosse arena and afterwards went out to the local bar called the blue goose which was a great pub. There we met more folk, some of daves buddies from school too. I also met a fella who recognised me as he was over in September and was on the garage bus to brechin to watch killie he even talked about the paninaro flag that got burned. Unbelievable. From there we went onto another bar called timothys I think and by the time that was over it was too late to go back to the city so we stayed in daves condo.

Natalie got a phone number and a card about a job last night too, drew tells everyone that were here with working visas and looking for work and a person he spoke to last night gave Natalie something, im not too far behind, drews second youngest mike thinks he could get me out landscaping so hopefully something comes out that. But Natalie has possibly got herself a job so we will find out, prob Monday if that’s a goer. I was pretty drunk last night if the truth be told, beer is strong here. All the people we met last night were fantastic, very friendly and willing to speak to and help us out however they could, it was really good actually, felt good.