1000s of Islands, Glass Floors and Pub crawling!!
Trip Start
Sep 14, 2010
1
5
54
Trip End
Jun 11, 2011
Where I stayed
The Hilton Garden Inn, Toronto
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Thursday, September 23, 2010
So we got up early and left Montreal.. The drive was pretty long so we had quite a few stops to break up the journey. The first of which was for our cruise around the Thousand islands.. There are over a thousand of these cute little islands (some are a bit bigger) and these crazy rich people have bought them and built homes. It's pretty cool, and some of the homes are beautiful. One in particular was Boldt castle, the guy that built the Waldorf Astoria in New York shaped an island in to a heart for his wife and then started building a castle on it for them to live in. Unfortunately she died before he could finish it and so he left it and then he also died. The castle was finished and is now one of the most famous islands, with loads of tourists wanting to see the stunning architecture! Another one of the dudes that had a home on one of the islands tasted a dressing in a local pub, liked it, took it back to New York and so the Thousand Island Dressing was born!! Interesting huh??! You learn something new every day.
Next stop was for dinner.. Nothing major to tell other than it was the birth place of ice hockey, but I've forgotten the name of the town, sorry guys!! Next we had a Surprise stop at Canada's big apple!! It was an Apple pie factory/cafe/gift shop/farm/crazy golf/massive red concrete apple!! Very random, but we did get a few cool photos!! After this very exciting visit to the big apple, we continued on to Toronto. When we got there we had a quick tour of the city from Kris then headed over to our hotel - the Hilton Garden Inn.. Very posh!! Best hotel so far!! That night we pretty much just dropped our bags and went out for dinner. We ate at a pub called the 'Loose Moose' and it was great. A proper pub with rugby, soccer, baseball AND basketball on display on lots of TVs plastered all over the wall.. there were also at least a hundred women's bra's hanging above the bar, which made me feel like I was in Coyote Ugly - was pretty cool!!
The next day we started out well by doing some laundry - fresh clothes YAY!! Then we headed down to the CN tower - which was amazing!! It was erected in order to give Toronto better radio signal, with a massive antenna on top of it but it's also got a pretty awesome observation deck and glass floor!! It's taller than New Yorks Empire State, and the top deck actually moves slightly in high winds! When we were stood outside on the deck the wind was so strong that it was difficult to walk without being blown backwards. We got some pretty cool pictures, especially on the glass floor which was pretty scary. The views were beautiful - definitely glad I went up!! Once we were back down on ground level we walked past the Baseball Stadium of the Toronto Blue Jays and walked up Spadina Avenue to have a squiz around some of the shops.. That led us to the University which was gorgeous. Lots of grass and old buildings, and a great view of the city. Me, Kate and Laura decided to try out Toronto's answer to Times Square. It was pretty cool and we found ourselves back at the hotel.
That night was the Party Pub crawl.. What a night!!!! We drove around the city in a proper yellow school bus, being guided by local man Vince that felt the need to play silly games and sing in order to make the journey more fun. Our first pub was an Irish one that had a live band - it was great, and I requested 'Galway girl' which proved popular amongst the rest of the guys! A few drinks and we headed to our next destination which was a club - pretty good but pretty expensive too, we had a boogie and then headed on to our next pub, Crocodile rock.. I loved it here! It was packed, great music (Summer of 69, Bon jovi.. Finishing up with the Elton john classic - you guessed it, Crocodile rock). Live in the pub, the AFL grand final was showing for our Australian tour members, which was fun. Apparently two teams called St kildas & Collingwood were playing! I struggled a bit with the rules, but found it very entertaining when the game ended in a draw!!! No extra time - they re-play it in a weeks’ time. How silly!! When leaving the pub I found some nice lollies, which I thought would be nice to hand out to our entire group! This went down very well... We made it back to the hotel at about 3ish!! Awesome night. Me and Kate had a great giggle.
The next morning we cruised down to Niagara Falls :-) yeah!! First stop - the Maid of Mist boat trip.. Such an awesome experience! We all trudged on board with our blue ponchos on, laughing and joking - cameras in hand! Then the boat starts moving towards the Falls - people are posing for photos! Then all of a sudden splash.. the spray hits us, for about ten minutes it was constant hard rain hitting against you and throwing you about. I can’t believe how close we actually got to them, good times!! After seeing the immense beauty of the falls and its surroundings in the gorgeous sunshine, we took a walk up towards the Streets!! Oh my god, its horrendous! If Barry Island was ten times bigger and one million times more tacky and run down, that’s what it would be like. There were a few cool shops like Hersheys, Harley Davidson, MGM.. But then in between them there were haunted houses and random rides. It was quite a shame to see how commercialised it had got and how run down it was, however nothing could spoil how beautiful the actual Falls were!! Whilst waiting for the bus two of our girls, Jess and Kat witnessed a pretty romantic proposal. A very sweet man asked his unsuspecting girlfriend to marry him, which we all thought was pretty cool! We made our way back to the hotel, past the Toronto FC stadium whilst there was a game on - was good to see some soccer!! That night we ate out at a pretty random buffet, consisting of Spag Bol, Chicken breasts, Vegetables, mash and gravy. Was pretty nice though...
The next morning we headed out of Toronto and indeed Canada - hope I get to visit again soon!
