mickle: great; large; much.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Sunday, July 30, 2006
I'm older than I used to be
It was my birthday yesterday, and for the first time in my life, I was spending it without anyone I really care about being there....It made it seem kind of less special.....
Obviously being here means that I was in charge of deciding what I wanted to do, which isn't always the case.....
During the day I took myself off to Niagara Falls.
Two hour coach ride, 30 minute walk at both ends to get to the coach stations, plus a lot of walking around the falls meant that I felt a bit tired towards the end. I went on the Maid of the Mist boat tour, which was cool, and there were plenty of rainbows to be seen in the falls themselves....I did try to go on the cave walk behind the waterfalls, but for some reason, at 3 o'clock, the next trip was at 6, which was useless, so I headed back to the coach station (30 minute walk) thinking I could get the 4:30 coach, only to find out my ticket was for Canadian Greyhound and not US Greyhound, which meant another hour wait, great, although it meant I got to use my new iPod more.....
In the evening, three of us had a lovely steak at Tom Jones Steak House, which kinda blew our daily allowance budget (well, it was triple the daily allowance budget), so I guess I'll have to cut down a bit for a few days.....
And then, I though we were going to go to Fez Batik, but it seems that Albert (who was one of the guys I was out with) spoke to my best friend at home who convinced him we shouldn't go there as I am married and maybe I shouldn't be going to places where I might be tempted by girls (you know, as I'm here on my own), don't know what she thought I was going to do.....Anyway, I'm sure I'll just end up going next week instead.....
Instead, we went to the famous (outside of Toronto I don't know) Horseshoe Tavern to see a couple of bands play, Wank Punter and the Mudmen. The first lot were an eclectic bunch, a lead singer with an afro, a japanese guy with a bandana, some kind of ninja type in a mask, a cowboy, the keyboard player was wearing stupid glasses and, oh yeah, two girls cavorting around playing dominatrix games and generally just fondling each other whilst waering their underwear.....
The second lot were your average rock band, except they also had two bagpipe players flanking the lead singer, which was great, as I'd never seen a bagpipe played live before......
long day though, I forgot to mention that we were up playing pool til 2 the night before, which meant in reality I only got three hours sleep, oh well, better make the most of it whilst I am still in my twenties
Obviously being here means that I was in charge of deciding what I wanted to do, which isn't always the case.....
During the day I took myself off to Niagara Falls.
Two hour coach ride, 30 minute walk at both ends to get to the coach stations, plus a lot of walking around the falls meant that I felt a bit tired towards the end. I went on the Maid of the Mist boat tour, which was cool, and there were plenty of rainbows to be seen in the falls themselves....I did try to go on the cave walk behind the waterfalls, but for some reason, at 3 o'clock, the next trip was at 6, which was useless, so I headed back to the coach station (30 minute walk) thinking I could get the 4:30 coach, only to find out my ticket was for Canadian Greyhound and not US Greyhound, which meant another hour wait, great, although it meant I got to use my new iPod more.....
In the evening, three of us had a lovely steak at Tom Jones Steak House, which kinda blew our daily allowance budget (well, it was triple the daily allowance budget), so I guess I'll have to cut down a bit for a few days.....
And then, I though we were going to go to Fez Batik, but it seems that Albert (who was one of the guys I was out with) spoke to my best friend at home who convinced him we shouldn't go there as I am married and maybe I shouldn't be going to places where I might be tempted by girls (you know, as I'm here on my own), don't know what she thought I was going to do.....Anyway, I'm sure I'll just end up going next week instead.....
Instead, we went to the famous (outside of Toronto I don't know) Horseshoe Tavern to see a couple of bands play, Wank Punter and the Mudmen. The first lot were an eclectic bunch, a lead singer with an afro, a japanese guy with a bandana, some kind of ninja type in a mask, a cowboy, the keyboard player was wearing stupid glasses and, oh yeah, two girls cavorting around playing dominatrix games and generally just fondling each other whilst waering their underwear.....
The second lot were your average rock band, except they also had two bagpipe players flanking the lead singer, which was great, as I'd never seen a bagpipe played live before......
long day though, I forgot to mention that we were up playing pool til 2 the night before, which meant in reality I only got three hours sleep, oh well, better make the most of it whilst I am still in my twenties
Far and Away
I'm sat in my hotel room in Toronto writing this. I'm here on business for 4 weeks, and this is my 11th day. It's a nice suite in the SoHo Metropolitan, it is about the size of my flat at home, which is nice. The view outside is not to pretty. I can see some dustbins, and the hockey player on top of Wayne Gretzky's restaraunt spinning around. There are some people on the running machine in the gym, and some other random skyscrapers in the distance.
This is my first time out of the Country (England) on business, and by far the longest I have had to live on my own. I spoke to my wife earlier and she is struggling too, as it is her first time on her own in our flat since we moved in three years ago. It has to be difficult for her, she doesn't have any friends around where we live as she works in London, and we live in Watford only because that is where I work, so all our family are not within 10 minutes like before (although they are still within an hour away, I can understand that it is not the same, you can't just "pop" round somewhere quickly). Here though, there are 4 or 5 of us from my company, so it's a case of going out every night with people I know, which stops me from feeling alone, except for today (it's a Sunday).
One downside to going out every evening for a meal is that I'm definitely starting to put on weight. My metabolism isn't the best anyway, I need to be more restrictive in what I eat, we'll see how it goes for the next few weeks...
Toronto feels an OK place, nothing special, although I am close to the main areas so that at least gives me plenty of scope to decide what to do.....I'll have to do the usual touristy things, go up the CN tower, take in a 'ball game' erm, and maybe some other stuff too......Caribana next week, and also a week of dragon boat racing.....I'm working until at least 7:30 in the evening most days, and sometimes up til ten, so it's not as if I'm getting bored or anything.....
This is my first time out of the Country (England) on business, and by far the longest I have had to live on my own. I spoke to my wife earlier and she is struggling too, as it is her first time on her own in our flat since we moved in three years ago. It has to be difficult for her, she doesn't have any friends around where we live as she works in London, and we live in Watford only because that is where I work, so all our family are not within 10 minutes like before (although they are still within an hour away, I can understand that it is not the same, you can't just "pop" round somewhere quickly). Here though, there are 4 or 5 of us from my company, so it's a case of going out every night with people I know, which stops me from feeling alone, except for today (it's a Sunday).
One downside to going out every evening for a meal is that I'm definitely starting to put on weight. My metabolism isn't the best anyway, I need to be more restrictive in what I eat, we'll see how it goes for the next few weeks...
Toronto feels an OK place, nothing special, although I am close to the main areas so that at least gives me plenty of scope to decide what to do.....I'll have to do the usual touristy things, go up the CN tower, take in a 'ball game' erm, and maybe some other stuff too......Caribana next week, and also a week of dragon boat racing.....I'm working until at least 7:30 in the evening most days, and sometimes up til ten, so it's not as if I'm getting bored or anything.....
blogs
I'm not entirely convinced that I should have one of these. I wouldn't consider myself to have the most interesting of lives, although I do get out and do things fairly regularly (mostly football and concerts). Maybe nobody will read this, maybe the only people who do will be people that actually know me. If that is the case, then they will probably know about everything I will write on here and it won't be of any interest to them.....ah well, to those who don't know me, hello, I may never write another one of these, or I may end up writing hundreds........
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