Rodey on the Road

From this picture, I think you will all be able to see, that we will be mature, responsible travellers, revelling in the culture and history that is prevalent throughout the European continent. We will further our education by immersing ourselves in the arts, architecture, languages, culinary delights and geography that we have read about for years. We hope not only to broaden our horizons, but to gain a more intimate understanding of ourselves as men.

We might even hit up a pub or two while we’re there.

Alright, so yesterday me and eddy decided to go to Toronto to get the last few things we need for our backpacking trip to Europe. We ended up getting not only the supplies we needed (laundry in the sink kit, sleep sack, shoes for eddy, towel for me) but a taste of what it will be like to explore a big city that we are not used to. Granted there is no language barrier in Toronto, except when we were in China-town, but it was a good way to start. Our day started with us being late for our train into Toronto, we ran and made it before the train doors, but we didnt have our tickets. We decided then that it would be a good idea to run down the “up” escalator, and I got in the way of a man trying to catch the train. He was not pleased when he missed it. So we wandered down the street to Value Village, tried on a wet suit and some trench coats, and headed back for our train. Upon getting to Toronto, we got our all day pass for the TTC and headed down to the subway. Our first plan was to meet my friend Katherine, who’s attending a performing arts school in downtown Toronto and happens to be playing Juliet,apparently their casting just about anyone in Shakespeare these days (im kidding, she’s really good, go see anything she’s in). So in our attempts to negotiate the subway system, we realized we had no idea where we were going or how to get there. That is when we were befriended by a Western University student who was there to study for her medical entrance exams. She went further than her stop and walked us four blocks to the station we had to get in next and showed us the train to get on. I couldn’t believe someone would be that helpful to strangers, and she made our day because of it. We finally found Katherine, got the tour, and were sent on our way to find lunch. We secured some food, and hopped on the subway to go and get our gear. The shopping was a success, despite some confusion about sizes of shoes, and then we headed to a hostel to get a membership card. We ended up getting the wrong directions and walked about 10 kilometres out of our way, before we took a subway to where we had to be. We walked through the village on Church Street, and that was an experience in itself, and eventually we got our membership cards. We went to union station to wait for our train, and while we were sitting there, enjoying our danish, crossiant and cinna-stix, a man got arrested. He wasn’t even six inches away from me when the cuffs were put on him, and it all started out because he was eating a Mr. Sub sandwich in the cinnabon area. It all escalated rather quickly from there.

I think we’ll be fine in Europe as long as we don’t die.

45 days until I get on the plane and fly across the pond. I was talking to Eddy about the whole thing and we surmised that we have no idea what we are going to do. Our idea of ... [Continue reading this entry]