I hope that by the time I am old and going senile and looking back on my travel memories, I am still the type of person who invites herself along on trips and shows up at parties she may or may not be invited too.
Thought I was going to say something different?
In April, I tagged along on a boys weekend in Toronto. Ok, I invited myself along during a green-beer drunk moment.
When my friends (M + D) were planning on heading to Toronto (one to see his friend who had just moved there; and the other, tagging along on his fiancé’s work conference) I jumped at the chance to join them. I can count the number of times I’ve been to Toronto on one hand, preferring Montreal over this big city. You may hear about it, they had a crack-smoking mayor for a while. But I needed a weekend away and my exams and my classes had just ended, leaving me stress-free with time on my hands.
We took the train to Toronto. Now, I’ve never taken the train in Canada. I’ve taken it everywhere in Europe but never in Canada. I figured I have a car so it’s better. But no. Business-class on Via Rail is pretty close to my ideal Friday night, the other being a nap and snuggle with my puppy. We (M and I) had a delicious meal, we had unlimited drinks, uninterrupted wi-fi, comfortable seats and a very quiet car. It was just perfect. By the time we arrived in Toronto, I was good and tipsy.
Wi-fi to watch the playoff game!
We settled into our hotel and waited for our friend, R, to arrive. We love him. That’s what I will say about him. Anything else would reduce him to a caricature- you really need to know him to realize he’s a real person. We headed somewhere for drinks and stopped by to get burritos at Burrito Boys. The place was amazing and terrifying at the same time. They just barked out your orders, it’s filled with drunks and R ditched us at the table to sit next to a girl. Thankssss.
To help paint a picture of our Toronto friend. At a garage sale, we took a picture of this and said we got it for him as a joke. He LOVED IT and asked us to buy it.
The next day, we headed to the ultimate summer activity – a jay’s game! Woot Woot! We stopped first for brunch and drinks on the rooftop patio of Wayne Gretzky’s which offered stunning views of the Toronto Skyline.
And then the excitement died. Apparently, the jay’s have a pitcher that is so delicate and fragile that the roof of the stadium must be closed to avoid any type of wind movement; sun-shining; slight bird-noise and/or kite flying distraction. I am serious. On the most beautiful day of the month, we had to sit inside a closed-roof stadium. Thanks Toronto. No tan for me that day.
Don’t let the light fool you! It’s not the sun.
After a quick nap and a stop for food at the Loblaws, we headed out again.
Now, R is a classy dresser. So I knew I had to pack stylish, but to remember I was crashing a boy’s weekend. I went with skinny sparkly jeans, a satin cami and a blazer. The blazer was for R – he had texted us earlier, so we blazin tonight?
This is our version of blazin’. This blog is PG.
We took an uber (my first!) and went to a bar called Office. The nachos were delicious; the drinks were strong and their music game was on point.
After a late night of chatting, I fell asleep. I’m not sure what the boys did. I need beauty sleep.
A quick brunch with all the boys the next morning, we headed back to the train station and went home. In Economy class. Worst. Ever. But I finished my book, Honeymoon in Tehran (fantastic read!) and enjoyed the scenery. I’m kidding about that too. We went past Barrhaven. Which I refuse to accept as a real place. Mostly because of a boy I dated. Which I should have avoided had someone sent me this article.