Start spreadin’ the news...

New York! Take two! Got onto the bus with Jess at night no dramas, said a sad goodbye to Toronto and endured 10 hours of leg cramps and interrupted sleep only to wake up in the city that never sleeps! Unfortunately it wasn’t snowing or covered in a dusting of ice like I’d hoped, but it’s still New York.

I didn’t rate it that much when I first came, but I was super excited to be back. We taxied to the hostel then set out to Soho to start the reason we’d come (shopping). Spent a good few hours (and dollars) there, saw Union Square then caught the subway back to Columbus Circle, did some more shopping then trekked to Times Square and (surprise surprise) shopped some more, then headed to the Hard Rock Cafe for an early dinner – were told that it would be an hour and a half wait – so crossed to Planet Hollywood (essentially the same thing), got greeting by another mile long line, told the staff that we were only going to the bar for a drink, skipped the line and ended up sea-gulling a table and ordering food. Winning!

We then headed back to the hostel for an early night – we were unfortunately in different rooms which made making plans to get up at the same time difficult.

Day 2:

We rose early and bumped into each other on the staircase (our body clocks are obviously synced), had a cheap brekky at the hostel then caught the subway to Soho again where we got a psychic reading done. I really wanted to do it even though I don’t usually believe in that stuff. The psychic was pretty right on with everything though and said some crazy stuff. Was a worthwhile experience. Then we headed to Tiffany’s to meet Lauren from exchange. We waited for a good half hour for her to show up, got too cold and so went inside to browse. I ended up buying a ring, which I love.

We tried street meat (me a yiros, Jess a falafel), it actually wasn’t bad. Then we trekked for ages trying to find a Starbucks (surprisingly difficult) for the free wifi. We finally found one and tried to Facebook Lauren to find out where she was, but had problems, so we arranged to meet her a little later at a Starbucks in Times Square. By this time it was starting to get dark so we hiked ot the Rockerfeller Centre to see the ice skating and big Christmas tree. It wasn’t as spectacular as I thought it would be, but it was very shiny and colourful. I bought a ticket to go to the top of the Rock, and couldn’t go up for another two and a half hours so we headed to Times Square to try and meet Lauren. We ended up getting confused again and so I left Jess to go to the Rock and she went off to find Lauren. The top of the Rock was pretty cool, but cold. It was awesome seeing New York at night and the Empire State was visible which was pretty.

After another saga we FINALLY met Lauren (by about 9ish) and trekked for ages ending up at a Japanese place where the food was quite good and we got free wine.

Day 3:

Got up early again to quickly pack and then check out. Met another girl from exchange in the bathrooms, seems everyone’s coming here for New Years! Then once we’d checked out we subwayed to Columbia University, which was amazing...kind of looked like ancient Rome. And then walked through Harlem. Harlem wasn’t as ghetto as I thought it’d be but it was still pretty intimidating for two young white girls. There were people dancing in the street and music playing everywhere – definitely different out there.

We then caught the subway to the Upper East side to meet Lauren again, and we all went for the ‘best pizza’ in New York. It basically tasted like other pizzas I’ve had over here but was still tasty.

Needing to burn that off we trekked to Central Park planning on ice skating. We ended up walking along the road from one side to the other because we couldn’t find the entrance. Fun times. We finally found it though and were all excited...until we saw the line. It was HUUUUUUUGE and by this time I needed to do a few things before leaving so we unfortunately didn’t get a chance to ice skate there. Devo.

So we walked to Times Square and I bought a new bag because my suitcase was overweight, and purchased a few souvies along with it. Said a quick goodbye to Lauren and headed to the Hostel to grab my things (did a quick shop before), hauled my stuff down the subway steps got told the subway was delayed (by this stage I was pushing for time) so lugged my stuff back up the stairs and hailed a taxi.

Got to see Zach at the bus station and said a goodbye to him and then boarded. I didn’t have time/forgot to pay for my extra baggage but luckily my naive acting paid off and the bus driver let me go without paying for it. Phew. The bus was chockers on the way to Syracuse then most people got off so I had two seats to spread out on.

Got into Toronto in the wee hours of the morning and was lucky enough to wait in the freezing cold (-2) for the airport transfer, and then was off to the airport ready to head to Vancouver!

The final stretch..

Once again the month has absolutely flown by. December was a whirl of exams, uni ending, goodbyes, well-wishes, tears and of course parties.

The Eaton Centre became very festive and put up a huge Christmas tree and ginormous reindeers all over the place. Store windows became a part of the ‘Winter Wonderland’ display where stores competed to have the most Christmassy looking windows. Lakes froze over and ice skating rinks popped up all over the place. Just down from our apartments what was a skate board park in Summer turned into an ice skating rink (which we ended up on many times before heading out). The Toronto Christmas markets opened and we were introduced to the Canadian world of Christmas. It rained almost non-stop and I had to come to the awful realization that not one pair of shoes I owned would keep my feet dry/were winter sensible.

Classes ending was quite sad. The beginning of the end in a way. I did quite well (2 A’s, 1 B and a C), and got an offer from my photojournalism prof to keep sending him my work and to keep in contact. My only exam was for Politics and it was multiple choice. Too easy.

One girl on exchange organized a flag signing for everyone, so we all have fun souvies to take home. We found out about Dancecave (a club/bar) and became frequenters there (or as much so as we could). Farewell parties started popping up and people started leaving either to go home or to start travelling. It became really hard to say goodbye to everyone though because so many things were going on at once.

Zach organized a music shoot for a girl on exchange who is a singer, and I got to do stills photography. It was great fun and kudos to Zach for organising everything, I’m sure the end product will look amazing.

As we realized we only had a week left here, we decided to finally do the CN tower climb on one of the sparse sunny days. It felt good to accomplish something we had been meaning to do since day one.

Christmas was spent with those left at Primrose. One the 24^th we had a traditional Danish Christmas and two Danes cooked for everyone which was lovely. On the 25^th we headed back there after doing a small Kris Kringle with Jess, Zach and I and had an Aussie Christmas complete with ham, turkey and chicken. It was great.

Then the 26^th we finalized packing and got booted out of our little homes at midday. Spent the day bumming around Toronto, got one last feed of all you can eat sushi then headed to the bus station to head to New York!

Parlez-vous anglais?

Zach, Jess and I left for Montreal on the bus at around midnight hoping to get there in the early hours of the morning. We got to the bus terminal no dramas after a few quick goodbyes to those we hoped to see later in New York and boarded after a small saga with not having the reference numbers for our tickets. I was lucky enough to draw the short straw and sit next to a stranger (didn’t call shotgun fast enough) but it was fine. We got to the middle of nowhere and the bus started making beeping noises. The driver pulled over and no one really knew what was going on. The driver decided to keep going but pulled over a short while later, turned on the lights and informed everyone that at 2am our bus had overheated, we were 2 hours away from help and would have to wait on the bus (it was too dangerous to go outside – I’m assuming bears) until a new one came. Most passengers decided to do the sensible thing and sleep (as annoying as the situation was, it wasn’t anyone’s fault) but a few lovely Canadians decided to moan and complain for the entire time. Good times.

We got on the road again at about 4am and got to Ottawa with no dramas. There we had a quick stop (where we spent the entire time lining up for the next bus) and then we were on our way again this time to Montreal.

We touched down at about 10ish and were completely exhausted. None of us had gotten much sleep but after a few wrong turns, a meal and a subway ride we got to the hostel but were too early to check in so we explored the main street (Sainte-Catherine), came back later for a quick nap, headed out again for some quick dinner and to buy some snacks (after heading back to where we had dinner because Jess left her bag there – luckily it hadn’t been stolen) for an intense game of Monopoly later on.

The whole city is beautiful, freezing (average -10 degrees) and it’s surreal being somewhere that looks completely European but is in the middle of Canada. The first language is French, so everyone talks to you in French until you give them a funny look and then they speak stilted English.

Day 2:

Woke up early and headed out to explore Old Montreal. The weather was below freezing so we got excited by the frozen puddles and lakes. We walked through the Christmas markets, headed to the waterfront, to a few stores and then to the Notre Dame. It was much better than the one in Paris – not so commercialized. It was absolutely stunning. After a quick break and defrost at the hostel we headed to some of the (apparently) best poutine in Montreal. It actually was quite good but the concept is still filthy (cheese curds and gravy on French fries). The restaurant gave us paper placemats and crayons so we entertained ourselves until the food came. Later on we went on a bar crawl the hostel organized and there ended up being other aussies we were on exchange with in Toronto on it too, but because it was a Tuesday the bar was pretty dead and the drinks were expensive.

Day 3:

Our last morning brought the delightful news that the city was completely out of water, so showers and toilet use were a no. Grumpy and discouraged we plonked ourselves at Starbucks and cheered up a bit after some hot chocs and food. We then started the hike up to Mont Royal for a view of the city. Again we were excited by the amount of snow and ice so it took a bit to get up. The top was a great view of the whole city covered in a hazy layer of fog and ice. After playing around up there we hiked back down and headed to the main strip for a wander. After a late lunch we were all exhausted again so headed back to the hostel for another game of Monopoly and then got some dinner and went to the bus station. We got there super early so we could get good seats, waited for around an hour and a half, the bus arrived...and we were in the wrong line. Ended up all sitting separately after finding the right bus. Unlucky. After another stop in Ottawa though we got to sit next to each other on the next transfer.

Arrived back in TO at around 5am, caught a taxi and collapsed into bed. A great trip overall but absolutely exhausting.

If only the good things in life lasted so much longer than they actually do..

And if only we didn’t have to say goodbye. These past four months have absolutely flown by and I can’t believe it’s all come to an end. Although I’m devastated to leave, there are definitely some things I won’t miss about Toronto:

·         Navigating through Chinatown everyday to get to uni

·         Bad customer service in retail shops

·         Realising that dress isn’t as cheap as we first thought because we didn’t add tax

·         Craving junk food only to open up my cupboards and find nothing remotely tasty there

·         The crazy lady at reception

·         The crazy cat lady asking for a quarter every time we go to Shoppers

·         Tipping

·         The cold

·         The constant smell of weed

·         Spelling things with a ‘z’

But of course, those things are outweighed by what I will miss:

·         The people

·         The city

·         The Toronto crazies

·         Ryerson

·         The Canadian accent

·         Living in my little hair infested room

·         Thursday student nights

·         Awesome profs at Ryerson who have had amazing work experience and actually care about how well I do

·         Canada

·         Travelling for a few hours to New York, Mexico, Montreal and Vancouver

·         The snow

·         Ice skating

·         Queen Street

·         “Believe in the Lord” Man at Dundas Square -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un2X_zqH79E&feature=related

·         Poutine

I can’t believe that soon I’ll be back in little old Adelaide, with all the same people who said bye to me just over 5 months ago. This has been the best decision of my life to come out here and I’m so thankful to my parents who made it possible. Posts about my last month here as well as my trip to Montreal will come soon, just thought this little reflection deserved a place.

See you all soon!

x

27 days left and I just wish time would freeze..

First snowfall in Toronto today! As I sit here doing homework (kind of), the school across the park is covered in white and little flakes are falling. ITS SO PRETTY!!!! I got a phone call from Jess as she was on her way to uni and she was so excited it was snowing. So i raced down in my pjs and a jacket and we tasted our first Canadian snowflakes!

The excitement lasted a while and we headed across to the park (after putting on a few more layers), but the wind was super strong and turns out the pretty snow was actually painful in our eyes. My feet froze but other than that it was cooooool.

Only just realised I’ve been super slack and skipped out on a blog post for the whole of November. So here it goes, I’ll sum up the month in this post..

Uni started wrapping up (sad), and soon we’ll no longer be students of Ryerson. It was unseasonably warm this entire month and some nights we just wore light jackets and were fine! :o.

I headed to Zach’s shoot early in the month for a documentary to do some work for photojourn. Was super fun and cool to hang out with film students. It was on a musician, so we got to see him jamming and then playing at a gig. Loved it.

A bunch of us heard LMFAO were coming to town so of course we HAD to get tickets. The concert was short and there were a lot of fluro-clad sixteen year olds around us. But it was fun - and they played sexy and I know it...which was all I came to see.

A few days later, we headed off to see Jamie Oliver. Expecting him to cook up a storm I was suuuuuuuuuuuper disappointed when I realised I'd paid money to come see a Q&A sesh. We got his cook book though - not that it'll do me much good. Hey Mum! I found your present.. :)

Jess, Jon and I went to a Ryerson hockey game. Which was AWESOME. The crowd was a disappointment. But ohmygod! Hockey players are so tough! That night we headed out with other Australians to a place called the Mod club – good night that was.

The next week me, Zach and a whole bunch of exchangers went to a Marlies hockey game (team just below the Maple Leafs) which was pretty cool, and I could finally cross “must see hockey game” off my Canadian bucket list.

We also had an ABC party which was organised by RISExC (Anything But Clothes) in a hostel that is close by. I wore a garbage bag. Highlights include: stuffing a whole bunch of people into Jon and Camellia’s room for pre’s, Zach covering the washroom in paper towel, and losing costumes on the walk home.

Toronto also has a big outdoor ice skating rink set up, so the day after ABC we headed out on that. Turns out I’m not a natural ice skater. Who knew! That night there were also fireworks and carols, quite cute.

Last night we had a flag signing, which Eliza came up with. We all got together armed with Canadian flags and markers and signed away! It was such a good idea, but really helped to sink in that we are all leaving soon :(

The weeks have gone so fast here and it’s so hard to believe that I’ve only got 27 days left in this city! It’s so sad, and I’m definitely not ready to go back home :(

Halloweeeeeeeeeeeeeeen

We were told that Halloween (which actually fell on a Monday) would be a huge party right through from Friday – Monday night. So, us excited Aussies gathered together some cheap costumes and got scaried and fake blooded up on Friday night where we were heading to our first pumpkin carving and then out on the town.

At the pumpkin carving we were the only group dressed up (around 7 of us), which was slightly awkward, but shame on everyone else for not getting into the spirit. After some hectic pumpkin carving (we made ours into Harry Potter) we headed to some pre-drinks at Neill-Wycik and then most of us went the uni bar to get our festive on.

Again we were the only ones dressed up. SHAME ON YOU TORONTO. But we had a good time anyways.

Saturday we woke up nice and seedy and headed to all you can eat sushi...which kept us full for the rest of the day. That night I stayed in but the others headed to Neill-Wycik again for a party.

Sunday a group of exchangers headed to the Toronto Theme Park called Wonderland where they had a Halloween Haunt thing on. I don’t even know why I got tickets because it was the scariest thing EVER. I was terrified the whole time and couldn’t bring myself to do one of the haunted mazes they had set up. Although while we were waiting outside a clown maze, this freaky looking guy started eying us off and so we moved, then he started chasing us (the workers were all dressed up in costumes) it was the FUNNIEST thing. Camellia got chased and was screaming so bad hahaha hilarious!

We went on a lot of scary adrenaline rides though, which I loved so that was fun. It was cool to be there at night though.

Monday we dressed up again and headed to a parade on Church St (the gay district) to see some trannies and what not dressed up, then we went to Primrose where everyone was having a party and then heading out for a guys birthday. The four of us who live at the Alexandra didn’t go out after Primrose but. We headed home after getting a bite to eat and then crashed into bed. Turns out the 31^st wasn’t such a big party after all.

....but what if we get attacked by a bear??

One mention of Algonquin National Park by Shauna a few days before the weekend and we were off on a spontaneous road trip to the outskirts of Ontario. Kudos to Jess for being 21 and driving on the wrong side of the road for 5 plus hours!

It’s basically a nature park in the middle of nowhere that people head to to see the fall colours. We couldn’t leave food out or in the tents or anything because of bears!!! :o

It was freezing, we camped, we built a bonfire (well, the boys did anyways), we ate cold food, it rained, it was pretty, we didn’t see a moose, we didn’t see a bear. Pretty much sums up the whole trip. We went there to see the fall colours. It was amazing. Much time was spent bonding in the tents and around the fire.

Highlights include: cranking the Biebs through the park to make our presence known, Jess unknowingly running into the boys toilets because she was so busting to pee and taking a random detour to a country fair and finding a field of pumpkins!!

Hola Mexico!

So Thursday night we didn’t sleep as we had to be up at 2am for a flight to Mexico! (via North Carolina) We got to the airport at some crazy hour, then were told that our flight had been delayed by 2 hours. The first thing to go wrong for the trip. Had to go through US customs in Toronto, so we spent 3 hours of our lives that we’ll never get back lining up for line after line to get through customs. We made it eventually and slept on the trip to NC.

North Carolina was...interesting. We flew into Charlotte and the southern drawl was so bad. Think ‘Hey yaaaaaa’ll wanna get some fooood?’ At that airport I invested in a travel pillow and a blanket. Best. Decision. Ever.

Our flight to Cancun was cruisey. Jess slept most of the way, I was too excited. We got in and it was HOT. So nice. Although we felt out of place in our jeans and cardis.

We got through Mexican customs with ease and then found our shuttle and were headed to our resort with some loud Americans. 

Our resort was amazing. We met up with 7 other Australian girls, had a few drinks, went to the beach and had some sushi for dinner. LUXURY. Our deal was all inclusive so everything was free. Amazing.

On day 2 we had a tour planned to do adventure stuff and see some ruins, so we planned to get up at 6am. Plan fail. My alarm went off an hour early (time difference), so I turned it off thinking Jess’ would go off. Turns out her phone had gone dead. So we woke up to a phone call from the front desk at 7.25am telling us our tour was there. We were supposed to leave at 7.15am. Whoops. We ran around pulling on any clothes we could find and flew down the stairs. We made it in time regardless. Just weren’t winning any friends that day.

Despite that mishap, the tour was so awesome. We drove about 3 hours to the jungle and went abseiling. We then hiked for a bit and went zip-lining through all the trees. After that we headed to a river and did some kayaking, then hiked again through the jungle. We were told to look out for cougars and tarantulas. WHAT!! We arrived at an underwater cave where we were blessed by an old Mexican man, then headed underground. The water was beautiful and not that cold, surprisingly. Apparently it is some people’s drinking water though. Gross. After that we headed off to have a traditional Mexican lunch. The food was beautiful and made by cute little Mexican women.

We then headed off to see some ruins, which were amazing. They’ve been standing for thousands of years and there was a human sacrifice bench and everything. We saw where they used to play ball games and our tour guide explained how the loser of the game was fed to the lions. We walked through the jungle to see a famous ruin (or could catch a bike taxi for $10) but we got lost and so had to turn around and walk back.

We headed back to the hotel and had our first dinner with the girls, then showered and headed back down to have our second dinner. Lol. We were hungry okay!! That night we had a few drinks at the resort bar, which had an acrobat spinning around in the air. Was quite cool. We ordered room service that night just for fun as well. We asked for everything on the menu but they said ‘No no! That too much!’ Damn.

The next day we spent lazing around at the beach (BEAUTIFUL!) and in the pool. Which had a swim up bar! We met a few Americans there and one guy from Toronto. Crazy! Then one American came up to us and said he could tell we were from Adelaide by our accents. Now THAT was weird.

We had another free lunch and then headed to the shops to find some souvies. It was a cool little outdoor mall with a river running through it. We then headed to dinner with two of the other girls, we planned to go out into the city but chicken out so stayed at the resort bar. It was so dead but we made friends with the bar tenders so it ended up being fun.

Got up early to have a huge brekky then say goodbye L. It was so hard to leave the beautiful, warm beach. But we go to our shuttle right on time (thought it was later than it actually was) and our flight out of Mexico was all good. UNTIL. We flew into North Carolina needing to connect to Philedelphia before heading back to Toronto and because the US is crap at life, we had to go through customs (even though we were in transit). That took FOREVER. Heaps of flights came in at once so we were waiting for the good part of 2 hours. Anyways, it took so long that we missed our connecting flight and the only one we could get put on was for 9am the next morning. This was at 2 in the after noon. SO we were told we wouldn’t get accommodation because the delay wasn’t the airlines fault, but because we are poor we couldn’t afford anything ourselves, so night at the airport it was! We were starving and so ordered pizza to the airport, then bundled up (thankgod for the travel pillow and blanket) and camped out.

Our flight out the next day was one time, thankfully. And we finally got into Toronto and home. We missed classes and lost marks for not handing up assignments though, so thankyou US Airways. I will not be flying with you again.

2 months in and it feels like 2 weeks..

26^th Sept - 2^nd October

ANOTHER WEEK GONE! Crazy.

Monday – Nothing of quality. Mondays are boring in Toronto. I have my photojournalism class. Again, I sat in the wrong seat and was picked to be the model for the day. Good times. I had a DSLR right up in my grill for half the class while my T.A (teacher) took pictures to blow up on the big screen. Awesome.

Tuesday – Feature writing day! For this class I have to do an assignment on a place and interview people etc. I had SO much trouble getting the rights to access a homeless shelter so ended up changing my idea last minute. We have assignments due every week for it, so that was slightly stressful. I feel like they have more of an idea how to make sure students don’t leave assignments to the last minute here. Like, they have progress reports. I think it’s really effective. Met Shauna for lunch today because she was a bum and missed the lecture. It’s a good thing she came to keep me company otherwise I would’ve been a loooooooner.

Kickboxing was tonight as well! We paired up and used the hand things that you punch. My knuckles were a bit bruised after, but it was fun.

Wednesday – Critical Issues day. We formed groups for an assignment that’s due soon. We have to plan a documentary for an issue in journalism. Too much work for my liking but fun all the same.

Thursday – Thursday is usually the day we go out but this week it just wasn’t meant to be. After class we bummed around in Camellia and Jon’s room watching 16 and pregnant. It made us sleepy and hungry so we stayed in haha.

Friday – At night Zach made the trek over and the five of us pre-drank in Jess’ room, played kings and bantered. Around 11ish we headed over to Shoeless Joe’s (a sports bar) – IT WAS FREEZING! There we met the other exchangers and a million other Aussies to watch the grand final! It was so weird having so many Australian accents around, made me definitely not want to come home – I just love the Canadian accent too much! We bailed before the end of the match, got some poutine and went home. Clearly we are not true Australians.

Saturday – I spent the morning tracking people down for interviews for my feature story. I got a few and only got rejected once. Success! At night we prepared for an event called Nuit Blanche, which is an art festival where a whole section of the city gets shut down and various art pieces are displayed. It literally runs from 7pm until dawn and the art pieces are big walk through things. The coolest thing I saw was a pre-recorded 90’s sitcom thing was being shown on a wall outside and inside they were filming and one person was playing the part of the dad and it really looked like they were actually part of the show. It was freezing and by 1.30am we headed home just to de-frost. BUT it was amazing to see.

Sunday – Laaaaaazy day. Spent the majority of the day at the gym and shopping lol. The weather is SO COLD. Feels strange to think that under two months ago I was in 45C heat. Miss it.

Oh and! Happy 20^th  for today (Sunday) Evie! xxx

10 things I wish I’d known before coming on exchange

1.       Living alone is easy

2.       Not getting into Neill Wycik or Primrose is not a big deal

3.       Everyone LOVES Aussie accents (Canada, we love yours too! Keep talking!)

4.       Alcohol is not cheap (damn you cheap America. Damn you.)

5.       Making friends is easy

6.       Frat parties are not that fun

7.       Thursday night student nights are fun

8.       Noodles really are the diet of students

9.       Canada isn’t a large open space with snow and bears

10.   Marijuana is EVERYWHERE.

My week! 19^th-25^th September

WOAH. The weeks go quickly here. I’ve decided to start doing weekly posts just so that when I go home I can try and remember what’s been going on.

P.S I’m mainly writing this for myself now. I think my parents will read this, but for the rest of you feel free to be like ‘whatevs Soph, no one cares.'

Soo it was the third week of classes (that feels crazy) and it feels just like home. Everyday I’m like ‘oh man, I’m so behind. Tonight I’ll do so much homework!’ Never happens. Photojournalism is fun. Maybe I’d like to be that type of journalist. I don’t know. My T.A showed everyone’s pictures in class (we have weekly assignments – this week’s was to show a picture that shows ‘weather’), mine got okay reviews so I was happy. Jess and I headed to the gym after class, feels so good to be working out again!

Tuesday was my feature writing class. At the moment we’re doing a place profile, so I have to find a place to do a story on and then find characters and people to interview and blah blah. I hate things like that cause everyone else clearly ahs a hometown advantage, the only areas I know/can easily access are the ones around me. Oh well, this area’s interesting anyway. Ohh AWKWARD, during today’s lecture I hadn’t really eaten brekky, so of course my stomach went crazy and was all ‘blerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghheghrghehgh’ for two hours. Good times.

That night was my first kickboxing class night. Even though I’m awkwardly uncoordinated at fighting (who knew?), it was actually a ton of fun! And a good workout.

Wednesday is critical issues in journalism day. Quite an interesting topic. We talk about Iraq and journalists who have been killed. To be honest it makes me want to be a foreign correspondent. Our world is so messed up. We had a pop quiz! Not so fun.

Thursday was my first politics class. BORING. So boring. Like, SO boring. Now I remember why I like journalism.

Thursday night we went out to Mick E Fynnes (pub) because it was student night. Turned out being kind of hectic. It was fun! But way hectic.

Friday I was too hungover to go to my politics lecture. Sorry mum.

Saturday I bummed around and went to help Zach shoot a scene for a commercial he’s creating. I ended up being in a crime scene and drawing chalk around an ‘X’. So cool! After that I went shopping because I had to find clothes to wear to a ‘P’ themed house party! Party was fun, until a guy fell off the balcony. Awks. He’s fine though, but it was a bit of a downer (obvs).

Oh! P.S! Zach and I dressed as paintings to the party. So we were all in white then another girl came as a painter and everyone ended up painting us. It was such a good idea! Kudos to Zach for coming up with that one.

Today (Sunday) I headed to the markets because it’s a happenin’ place on Sun you knowwwww. There were lots of buskers out (today was a BEAUTIFUL sunny day) and dancers and such. Did some housewifely duties and made a nutritious dinner and now off to bed to start it all again tomoz!

Nighty night x

RYERSON, WE GOT THE SPIRIT!

Being ‘welcome week’ at uni, Friday was spent skipping classes and joining a MASSIVE (like, over 2000 students massive) parade through downtown Toronto and getting on a ferry and riding over to the Toronto Islands. The parade was epic. Like, stupidly epic. Thousands of students chanting and yelling – each faculty had its own shirt and its own chant...I got stuck with an early childhood education shirt, oops.

RYERSON, WE GOT THE SPIRIT, RYERSON, COME ON LETS HEAR IT, NA NA NA NA NAAAAA NA NA NA NAAA, HEY! HEY! HEY!

The day was spent pushing in lines to get free food and drinks, chilling on the grass and in the beer garden. The island was set up like a music festival with a main stage and everything. The amount of school spirit here is amazing.

At night we headed to the uni bar, but it was packed and after an hour of waiting in line we bailed. Unfortunately that meant we walked into a bar that was completely empty. But we made the most of the situation and scored free entry and cheap drinks.

On Saturday, heads weren’t too sore but the day was spent doing dismal housewife duties. At night we headed to Primrose (student rez) for a ‘Jungle Juice Party’ – basically everyone brings a drink and pours it in a tub, making a big mess of alcohol. Ended up being kicked out by the Don because too many people, too much alcohol...you know how it goes.

This morning (Sunday) we woke up nice and early to head to Niagara Falls! Amazing place well worth the early wake up. Did a tour through a nearby hostel with some other Aussies, jumped on the maid of the mist tour and got saturated right under the falls. Epic.

Headed to the Hard Rock for lunch, then to a whirlpool – where 4 Canadian lakes merge into one. It was cool to see but was pelting down with rain when we were there, so we were absolutely soaked. Then we headed to old town Niagara, which is set up in an 1800s style with horses and carts etc. They have the world’s best ice cream there too (legit). Delish. Then we headed to a wine tasting, but by that stage we were all too tired to enjoy/appreciate what we were tasting.

Amazing day and properly exhausted. Uni starts for reeeeeal tomorrow (only attended two lectures and one lab (tute) last week...oops), not so keen to get into study mode.

Until something exciting happens,

Adios.