7th Day

Somewhat a day of rest. The day was split into three main sections: morning, afternoon and evening. They were split further, but basically it was playing video games and not much else for some time. By 3pm things started to hot up. We were going to skate then bowl (booking lanes was hard because they were all taken due to league something something) then, finally, ice cream. Awesome. Or Arrssom. Anyway. We spent an hour looking for the number of the parlour because the spelling was all wrong, and pretty stupid when we did find out. Caffé Demetré apparently. Before we left MarkAndBethany brought back sushi which passed the time. J ate a heel of a lemon with fish eggs as a kind of dare to prove his manhood, and kind of because he's just that kind of guy.

The menu's were loud (at Caffé Demetré). Food was good, only Becca ordered nachos while everyone else ordered ice cream. That was amusing.

We went from there to Casey's, but the table wasn't built so we went over to some bar called Moxie's. We offended a waitress ("Hi, I'm Laura, I'll be your server tonight") with misplaced irony. She didn't get that when I said 'Stella Artois here is rubbish' was meant in a kind of conversational convince me your lager is good kind of way. Not, your bar is crap. We exchanged bad jokes with Ramlin, who ALWAYS MISSES THE PUNCH LINE. But it was ok...she left.

She didn't pay us much attention because we wouldn't tip well, but she did like us playing cards (I anihalated Rob at cribbage) and there was a hand of blackjack she played in the end. Moxie's. Quite good. We'll probably go tonight after the wedding.

Day 6 the 6th

Someone's snoring. Ha ha. It was quite an uneventful day yesterday. We got up slowly. In slow motion if you like. Paced around eating left-overs from the night before. Mark wanted to organise play lists for the big day so I enjoyed watching him struggle with a mac. When it came to this is the first dance the file was corrupted. That was also funny. All sorted now though...kind of.

It was still snowing when we awoke, which was nice, and by 2pm Rob was anxious to get out and play, so we went to the park. We walked round several block a number of times putting the world to rights, me & Rob. James and J had decided to go hang-out at the mall. They got ex-foliated and, because they kind of looked homeless, had a lunch bought for them. Just as school was out I started playing with a snowball. It could have turned nasty. But I just dropped it at the advice of Rob.

The Maple Leafs game was on so we watched that for a while. Until it was over. It ended in an excellent fight. Brilliant. What else? James made chili and we drank beer. Then I got paint on my coat, thanks to Jesse. "Watch your step," he said. So we all stepped over the cans of paint and rollers etc. Jay said..."There's paint on the walls," to which Jesse replied, "Yeah, we've been painting the walls." Now that that was all put right we (J, Rob & I)left for a bar called Village Idiot.


Excellent pub. I made a quip about the different types of basses. Rob asked if I could play the double bass, to which I said yeah. Or yes. I don't remember exactly. I said "The upright bass is just taller with less pick-ups...a bit like a tall guy who's not very good at chatting up girls." It was aimed a bit at Rob but he proved me wrong. Ordering the beers the waitress noticed his "the Cheat" t-shirt. Etc.

Rob went crazy and ordered a raspberry beer, which J didn't want but managed to confuse the order and got one anyway. He seemed embarrassed about drinking a fruity drink so tried to make excuses for his order to the waitress. It was a feeble attempt at a pick-up but he gave her a tip at the end so maybe he's not so ajkslbgofyas.

Subway home. Rob led us through wrong exit. Walking around in snow. Being pushed over. Got home at 2.44am. Sleep.

The major fifth

So. It's a Sunday, we'd been drinking the night before, and we were slowly running out of coffee. It was a bad start. James didn't start his day with root beer like we all thought, but kind of compromised. J made coffee. It was cold out so we forced our way through the wind to Yorkdale where we walked inside to the subway. I handed the woman a $10 and she said 'I take it you want change'. I said, 'yes'. We rode the subway but Rob was out of it. He'd cured the hangover so he should have been proud of himself but he was in a bad way. No breakfast meant he detached himself in case he said something nasty.

We found a Timmy's and relaxed. We could quite see the outdoor ice rink but we could see into a steakhouse. Fun. J (left) complained that he'd asked for a cup of coffee and got one. Only the one he wanted was the white edition and he wanted black. Something about iPod's I wasn't really listening.

None of us knew where we were supposed to be later. The wedding rehearsal was today and we needed to be at 'a church' (not right). Preferably the same one as everybody else. James staggered over the street to see if he could get onto some internet to discover where the thing was. Which he did. Then J though "I only have US dollars and they're worthless in this freezing country' so he went to get them changed. $60 (US) = $63 (CA). He came back and thought he'd been screwed over by an old Indian lady. Turns out, fortunately without the need for immediate confrontation, the US dollar was the thing that had screwed him over.

The rehearsal was a success (it involved me pressing play about 15 times) and everyone was happy. Rob's got some good photos of that.

Mark made a decision to pray before we started, which was a good decision, but as the Holy Spirit established Himself I couldn't help realising something.

We went to 'the grandparents' for beer and pizza. I was going to go to church.... but beer and pizza. There were present givings speeches, and about 1000 people. No...20. The after party was at Mark's place. On the way there we made a decision to get some stuff. The three things we decided on were beer, coffee, and cigarettes. On the way to the (closed) Beer Store the snow (which had been changing the scenery like some kind of crazy Shakespeare play) caused Mark's Oldsmobile to do a couple of donuts in the parking lot. Darn rear-wheel drive.

We played SNES and Ramlin (below-left) kicked everyone's asses. Although she seemed to refer to her Luigi lives as a small army claiming' Mario's taking all my men!' but it was ok when she'd lost the excitement. I was rubbish at it. As was Rob. We were in the team 'I grew up without a games console thank you very much' and that seemed good enough for us. There was dancing and singing and hats.






Oh, yeah. During the rehearsal J got confronted by the church pastor for going off to play video games with one of the staff's kids. There were plenty of replies he could have said like 'That's rich coming from you' (only the priest was Catholic) but decided to go with a good apology, and came in hanging his head saying 'I just wanted to play Gamecube. What's wrong with that?'

The realisation was one of loneliness. The past few days have been quite hectic and that meant little or no time with my Master. It's a basic truth (stolen from Rob Rufus but very relevant to me); if I don't spend time with God everyday I feel lonely.

Day 4 (Pt. 2)

This'll be short, I promise. It was Mark's stag night so we had to go out. We planned on going to Smokeless Joe's the original no smoking bar in Toronto. The law's changed now so it's not original. What is original is that they have 400 beers from all over the world and when you sit down you're handed a menu sorted by country.

It was full so we went to the Duke of Argyle bar; it was trying to be English in a Novascotia kind of way. After picking an anti-social seating arrangement (all 11 of us sitting in a line at the bar) we moved to a table at the back. A waitress who can only be described as a 'marry me, by the way my names James' (the best man's standard) kind of girl kept filling our glasses. We left hoping the bill was settled. Rob's beer count was about 6 1/2.

We then went to a pub called Jeremiah Bullfrog. James and Alex were left behind, and when we told them where we were James thought it was a practical joke. During our time there I saw a guy taking cocaine, and a very tiny girl dancing on the bar to which no one was paying attention.

Rob was onto 9 beers by the time he left. We got home and he wrote an interesting blog. Well done everyone.

2 falls. One dies. (Day 4 Pt. 1)

We went to the falls today. They're OK.




















































































































Matt
















The Crap Falls

















The Good Falls

When In Rome...

...Orange Wednesdays

Third day...man

What happened? The morning was made up mainly of folding. Mark's dad motivated us by describing the process of assembling the order of service was like poker. We had coffee and laughs of a plenty. Then we ate some deep fried fingers and rushed downstairs before Mary got back. Because of all our hard work 'The Parents' took me, Rob and Matt to Tim Hortons.

The chili was good but it went right through me. Interestingly the toilet is lovingly referred to as Steve. I went to see Steve, right after James. All was dandy, until Steve exacted his revenge on me...I ran out of the toilet 'Emergency, the toilet is flooding.' Rob 'Fix it' Littler was the man to stop the water and the floor of the apartment had it's first clean...ever. Needs must.

I'm covered in so many bruises I must have had a good time whatever it is I was doing. I was sliding down another bloody hill, that's what I was doing. I have many bruises. Sliding down an icy bumpy hill on a thin vinyl disk sounded fun from the top was fun halfway down and caused laughter at the bottom but that doesn't solve my sitting problem. But, as the emo song we were listening to on the way to the slopes goes, "I'd rather feel pain, than nothing at all'. I disagree. On a scale of 1 to silly I disagree 10.

Proverbs from this week include 'When in Rome, Orange Wednesdays'

And the phrase of the week is 'I'm putting my fut down, on her face'

More to follow.

The Second...day

It was quite amusing yesterday, I have to say. It was, perhaps, the most ridiculous thing I've done in a long time. Get up at 7 (which my body clock told me was 12, and told Rob's body clock it was 7) breakfast at 10 (or 3) and etc. etc.

It snowed. It was good snow. Packing, not powdery, wet and good. We had an unscheduled snowball fight. It did seem to be the first port of call after breakfast, washing, sitting watching 'Danger! Something Something'. I got Rob in the groin, entirely by mistake, because I cannot throw accurately at all. Then Rob got crazy and started shoveling snow on Bethany. We were debating whether to start a fight with the kids in school across the road...they were behind railings so we were safe, but we decided against it after seeing their pinpoint accuracy against each other.

Here are some snowmen. We contemplate making a larger one dressing it in Mark's clothes passport and all, but we just didn't have time. Maybe today.









We were briefly shown Yorkdale, or 'The Dale of York' a 'small' shopping mall in the area of Yorkdale. I had some excellent Greek food from a fastfood place with kebab meat that tasted good without having to have two beers first. My coffee cup point at this point was just 2 cups.

I saw Downtown Torana; Toronto to those who have good accents, and found out it was a crazy crazy history laden city. Jacob (our tour guide for the day) showed us all the sights. While waiting for the Subway he told us things like, Toronto used to be nicknamed Hogtown because of it's pig exports, and there is an island 2 miles each way in the middle of 'Lake' which (was iced over and bubbles controlled the thickness - we watched for maybe 20 minutes) - the island - is made entirely of garbage. All the extra materials that came from building Downtown, like foundations for buildings and that kind of mess, was put onto a landfill, now owned by the government. And people live there. What is this place?

Jacob walked us through Chinatown to Kensington; Matt thought of buying a hat, but he couldn't get further than that. There's an amazing cheese shop in Kensington which is so good you walk in there looking for a type of cheese you like and they don't just show it to you they give a piece to try before you even say your definitely going to buy something. We bought Stilton and crackers for Mark and Jacob didn't buy his favourite because it just wasn't quite right.

After a quick regroup back at the pad we shot back out (with snow pants this time) and hit the slopes and spent a couple of hours throwing ourselves down natural ice slopes with vinyl under our asses and the attitude, that appeared to me, of trying to injure ourselves. Even though we'd all become seasoned pros, all except me that is who managed to dismount half way down every hill, Father Hardy stepped up and showed us all how it's done. He couldn't see because we took his glasses so I was well put to shame.

We headed out to Casey's for some nosh. We were seated by a waitress who was convinced none of us were English but just putting the accents on...crazy lady...and we watched the Maple Leafs lose on a shootout for the second time in two weeks.

Walking back was horrendous...so cold.

Today I'm on my second coffee and it's only 9am.

Thank you.

Day one and one half

I've started writing this at 7 in the morning. And I feel great...ish. It's snowing outside and its -1 Celsius outside. The snow outside sure does make everything look good. If I'd known I would have thought of that as part of my wedding 'costume'.

Kramer the cat is playing with a bell on a string and I'm typing with the lights off because (almost) everyone else is used to being 5 hours behind the real world. Matt's up as well, but he arrived yesterday so that's ok. I'll let him off.

Today I think we're going downtown. It sounds so funny, but apparently 'Downtown' is so large there are two Chinatowns (constantly at war with each other) Little Korea, Little Italy, and the longest road in the world with lots of 'crazy' shops on it. It doesn't stop in Toronto, though; it goes all the way to Boonieville. Which means a place where 'Boonie's' are, or, to you and me, nobody. You can drive along it for 11 hours, so it's not really something to do for a day. More like two weeks. I won't be.

Bethany's dad, Jesse, sure does tell a good story. I learnt about how he felt ignorant 20 years ago because he didn't realise the town official wanted a bribe, which meant he couldn't put all the windows in he wanted to in the apartment I'm staying in, ice fishing, and various other stories. He's Italian which makes the stories sound like they're from the old movies. Plus the stories themselves sound like they're from the movies as well. If I told them in my good British accent they wouldn't sound like that, though. I'm going to try to some work on that while over here.

Everything this side of the pond is so big. The cars are big, the lanes are wide, the houses just cover all sorts of land, the cooker is bigger than anything I've ever seen (about the same size as an industrial one in Britain...for 2 people?!), and then, obviously, Canadian character. They're quite a lot bigger.

Mark does seem very pleased to have a few of his favourite people with him in the week leading up to his wedding. Very pleased, indeed.

That's enough for this morning. It's all a bit disjointed but that was yesterday in a nutshell.

The Toronto...and it's crazy ways

About 4 hours ago I arrived in Canadia. It's a crazy place. I'm in awe of the fact that this sprawling city is so massive to drive around you need at least two days. Being driven around in a ridiculous 80s style American movie car is also incredible. It's the make 'Oldsmobile' Absolutely brilliant. I also just met a guy called Duncan is the most enthusastic man I ever met. 'Hello, I'm Toby' I said. He said 'Magnificent! Duncan. Fantastic!' I didn't know what to say. Spending 8 hours sitting on a plane does mean that I'm getting bored with writing this already.

The word of the week is Flamboyant

Faith

How many of us trust Jesus? Some of you may think of Jesus as a myth, or a fraud, perhaps a good person. Then there are those people who think God is a figment of imagination created by some to keep their own litte world spinning, as long as it doesn't bother anybody else. People with those views need to stop making excuses and start to take responsibility of their life; it's not a very long one and a decision about Jesus is rather important. I realise this may be intrusive, but I believe this is the most important decision you will ever make. Is Jesus who He said He was? No, then why has it affected millions and people who say they would never believe turn to it helplessly feeling it is the only way to save? Yes, then stop messing about an follow him!

I'm not going to explain the full process; it would take a lifetime in itself. Jesus died to save sinners. He died to take the punishment everybody else deserves. Now He is alive proving all His work was not in vain.

If the Christian faith is true, then all other religions are false. But if other religions remain, the Christian foundation must be used so that conflicts do not arise. It is the only faith that claims to be the only way while at the same time being the only faith that does not come to condemn others, but to love them. If it is true then why do those without the faith do good things; it doesn't help them in any way and they should seek satisfaction. If it is false, why do people do good things; this life is meaningless.

I'm not trying to persuade anyone, I'm trying to make you think.

I expect everytime I take a step for the ground to take my weight. I expect the sun to rise tomorrow. I expect Jesus to be coming soon. Do I trust with my whole heart? Only He knows, but I want to continue my life with Him, because without Him I would be empty, lost and with no hope of rescue. He found me, He saved me, He filled me, I did nothing, I deserve nothing from Him, but my faith in Him is reckoned to me a righteousness which gives me assurance in eternal life. I can't wait, but I want everyone there with me. It will be amazing. Fact. Don't mess about with delaying the decision, we are like dust. What's 80 years? We're like dreams, dreamt and forgotten. We're like grass, and who remembers one blade of grass on a lawn. Number your days. What's my point in all of this? Think, there's not long left. I'll be 40 before I know it. I have my final hand-ins soon, and it felt like I only got to Leeds a month ago. Have I really been here for 3 years? Was I really at high school for 5? Who cares about the little things, when the perspective needs to be the end, which we all know is coming. That will put your priorities in order. Ignoring death only means it surprises you more, but it doesn't need to.

Decision time