Saturday 30th July – Monday 1st August 2011
Monday night the house smoke alarm was going wild, BEEP BEEP BEEP “There is a fire in the Building” BEEP BEEP BEEP.... Went downstairs past an awful lot of people hwo had moved in under our noses. The ground floor hallway leading to back kitchen was full of smoke, and the same useless Asian lad was there looking guilty “sorry sorry.... cooking” (he had done the same thing a week ago). So we went back up to the flat, but then 15 minutes later the alarm was still going off. We decided to go down into the actual kitchen as this guy was obviously an idiot. The hallway was still full of smoke and the kitchen itself (with overgrown weeds growing in through the back door) was black. The oven was black where a frying pan had caught a light, the pan was filled with lumps of charcoal and the hob was black and the oven dials were melted. He was cooking soup and had forgotten about it. We moved the still smouldering pan out into the over grown garden and told him to keep the kitchen door closed until the smoke left the kitchen, even that he didn’t understand as tall one had to go back again and close it after him.
On the work front, Tall one still training doing more work now in the hostel, but still only given about 15 hours a week which he has been told will change next month? Small one still waiting to start work on 15th August, though all that’s still vague as the posters in the shopping mall say the new food court opens 1st Sept?
On Sunday had a walk down along the harbour, via an adequate hotdog to Ireland Park where there was supposedly a memorial to the Irish Famine and Immigrants. After a long walk in the sun turned out they hadn’t finished building it yet despite a sign reading “open in Summer 2011”. Walking through the parks looking for a much needed water fountain in the hot sun, found one only to see, in dismay that a tramp was using it to wash his socks, and was ringing them out next to the fountain after soaking them under the mouth piece...
Walked inland to find an Irish Pub found online as one of the best with music sessions on Sunday. Stopped on the way to look at a pointless ‘fort’ attraction with a marching band marching to no one. Got to the Irish Pub “Foggy Dew”. It was probably one of the better ones we have found in Toronto, but no live music. The Canadian bar man who launched his hand across the bar to greet us and ask what are names were, was playing Benny and the Jets over the speakers, so no traditional Iirsh Music here. He told us how he studied to be an actor in Yorkshire... Emmerdale perhaps? The two pints we brought came to $14.... we won’t be coming back.
Friday 29th July
Small still off work spent the day drinking coffee, cleaning the flat and getting a haircut for $40.... a regular little hosue wife. Meanwhile Tall one was bringing home the bread on his third day training at the Canadiana Hostel. The check in system was starting to make sense, and was given a morning shift to learn check out and in and also room checks. Was actually given some work to do this time and started to learn some things and piece their system and hostel together. All the staff and half the residents seem to be Irish, except for the French ones who seem to come up to reception and start speaking in French without checking if you speak it first... you’re not in Montreal now...
Told a story about this old boy named Steve staying their, who goes on about his bridge playing skills. He had been caught the night before spending 3 hours on their Hostel PC watching lesbian porn. The other story about him was that a young backpacker girl in the hostel was catching a tram at 10pm back to her flat, the old boy piped up that he didn’t want her walking to the tram stop alone and would walk her there. She awkwardly agreed and he went away for a minute and came back with an over night bag... she crept out and went to the tram alone after that.
That evening arranged to meet Matt Romot (ex Merlbourne, Corkman/Comedian) and walked up to Kennsington Markets. Sat in a bizarre, pit of a cafe and had some pitchers of beer out the front where we could watch the lunatics shouting on the streets. Matt told us that the ‘Canadian’ beer we had been drinking was shit and made us buy something else. He invited his Indian comedian friend to come and join us, who turned up annoyingly full of energy and enthusiasm. The two ‘comedians’ sat and rifted about a load of old rubbish while tall and small looked on. The Indian fella was on about “yeah they gave me no free beer! No free beer for a comedian... beer is like fuel for comedians, yeah! If you want a comedian to be funny give them beer, its like their fuel!”. Tall one was tempted to hand him the pitcher and tell him he’d better drink a lot more then. Apparently they knew each other in London as well, where Matt worked for a Dentist and the other fella worked in Debenhams.
On the way back stopped for food on Dundas street. The Russian newsagent couple were out on the street as they had setup a bizarre BBQ on the street to sell food to customers? We could see the Russian lunatic on the steps waiting for customers, but after the last strange and lengthy meeting with him we decided against it. Instead went into George’s BBQ takeaway on the corner of Pembroke and Dundas. Filled with local crack heads buying chips, we waited for our food (which was actually quite nice). The kitchen was run by about 6 members of staff, all a bit bizarre looking.
Tuesday 26th July – Thursday 28th July 2011
Small one had to amend his CV as on the header he had titled : “Curriculum Vitae – Conor Hegarty”. This had resulted in a few phone calls from prospective employers asking to speak to a Mr Curriculum Vitae.... presumably believing it was an Indian name and were slightly confused when an Irishman answered.
Small one had a few more offers, and turned down a lot. The food court role was his, but did not start for another month, and they also offered him the supervisor role there. He was also offered the role as a ‘professional sandwich maker’ .... who he will speak to today as the hours are better suited and it is closer to home and tall one’s hostel. It turned out to be a complete waste of time as when he walked in and spoke to the manager who had received his CV and request he came in, he was told that “if i had known you were Irish i would not have asked you to come.... i don’t hire people from abroad....” the guy turned out to be an arsehole, and small one complained that he should be careful what he dictates to people about who he wants to employ, and said it said in his cover letter that he was from Ireland. The guy just wished him luck and he left.
Small came back to the flat and they went to the supermarket on Carlton Street, brought a big bottle of Sunny Delight and walked back through the park to Pembroke Street, the park full of filthy beared old men with their shirts off, guts out, mumbling or shouting away to themselves (the tramps here compared to Sydney are very very loud compared to the quiet ones in Australia), Tall one did wonder if one of them pulled a knife would he have to give up his Sunny Delight? But, like most of the rough parts of Toronto you have the dirty tramps, crack heads and drunks in the foreground, but next to them are the white collar business men eating their sandwhiches on a lunch break or a couple of students necking, none of whom seem bothered by the tramps.
Meanwhile tall one had his second interview with the owner of Canadiana backpackers this time. Was taken for a coffee and had a very informal chat and this and that and was told to start the next day at 5pm. Went in Wednesday and shown around the enormous hostel, which had a bizarre system of having one main building with kitchen, reception, lounge and a tv room fitted with airplane seats. Sat awkwardly in a small crowded reception for 3 and a half hours he was shown the over complicated accounting and check in computer software, and reception was bombarded with constant enquiries from guests, from what it the weather forecast for now??, what’s the deal with Toronto zoo? Where is a good place to buy BBQ food? Can i book the niagra alls tour.... this was on top of constant phone calls and 18 check outs due just in those few hours that evening. Tall one was left to go home earlier than expected (the shifted should have been 5.30pm-1.30am), but did not think it was all that bad, it would just be very different to the somewhat sleepy 24 bed Corkman hostel.
Friday 22nd July – Monday 25th July 2011
Had a few days walking about. Small one turned down his busy kitchen job and the Senator Cafe offer. In total has handed out 100 CVs to date, printing off batches of 20 at a time. Compared to tall one who printed off 20 a week ago and handed out none, going for the electronic route. Tall one was confirmed for a meet with the boss of Canadiana hostel on Tuesday, sounds promising. Small one has 3-4 job interviews lined up for Monday-Tuesday, from bar/restaurants to cafes to food courts to counter work in a sex shop....
Weather has been relentlessly hot. Fire engines are out in full force, there were five outside our house this morning for no particular reason, dealing with a house a few doors down. On Saturday up on College street we counted 19 fire trucks and four by fours, again could not see what they were doing, it must have been one unlucky cat up a tree...
Plenty of weirdos still about. One little chap in Chinatown was playing a keyboard despite the fact he had no arms or legs... in fairness he wasn’t half bad, and seemed relatively cheerful. Dundas Square seems to have something on every weekend, with food stalls, corporate stalls and some rubbish music on stage. The flat is going well, starting to get into more of a routine, and pleased to be saving money and eating 3 meals a day at home. Canadian TV has a lot of adverts between news stories about the Norway massacre and Amy Winehouse dead, including some shameless adverts for lawyers saying “if you’ve been caught drink driving give me a call, as good people can make mistakes.....”.
Anyway. For now just waiting to both confirm jobs this week, and hoping to get into some sort of routine for however many months we are here. Looking forward to some hideously cold weather, sick off this heat....
Wednesday 20th – Thursday 21st July 2011
Small one out again dropping off CVs, tall one came with him for the exercise. The weather has been dirty sweaty hot, with Monday being a record for Toronto at 35 degrees. Walking up to Parliament street where a lot of discount stores and supermarkets are nearby to our flat, past by two different tramps, unshaven, lying on the floor wearing these bright orange convict overalls??
Thursday, small one skipped his job offer to start at 7am in a cafe called The Senator (who don’t let people take photos of the interior or exterior). Small one instead went for the kitchen job at 2pm (which had more hours on offer). He met the manager and the chef, and was told he could be in charge of the deep fat fryer, Friday-Sunday evenings, and another two days in week...? Though still all a bit vague, but set to start work Friday morning.
Meanwhile tall one walked down to the Canadiana Backpacker hostel off Queen Street (about 30 minute walk). Had his interview with an assistant manager, which went well. A nice big hostel, lots of character, 200 rooms though.... Left and was told the owner would be in touch. But seemed promising. So, after small one handed out 60 cvs and had walked non stop in the record heat for 3 days, tall one had spent three days in air con sending a dozen or so emails.... bastard.
Tall and Small reunited in the baking hot record heat and went for a pint and an enormous foot high beef burger. Back to the flat to crowd around the air con, which now seemed inadequate... bring on the winter...
Monday 18th – Tuesday 19th July 2011
Spent the two days looking for work. At least rent was paid right up until 1st September...
Both tall and small wondered around town in the morning, small one even tried asking in The Condom Shack on Queen Street for work. On the way back they thought they saw a dead squirrel electrocuted on top of the restaurants electric name, but the waitress outside said he always lies there and minutes ago was tearing up their plants. Sure enough the squirrel began to breath again, and then we asked the waitress if they were looking for staff. Would have been better off asking the squirrel.
Back to flat and cooked some lunch. Food not too expensive here. Tall one said he was going to spent the day doing some online job hunts – and signed up and e-mailed job agencies for office work all afternoon. Meanwhile small one went around retails outlets, cafes and bars handing in CVs. He did get a promising offer from a sweet shop to be trained up to cook chocolate out the back, but never heard back. Tall one popped out to buy a few more bits for the flat and on the way back an old, fat truckie looking guy was riding up the middle of the road in an electric wheelchair, with his bruised leg stumps hanging out, cars were having to drive around him, but no one said a thing to him.
On the Tuesday same procedure as before. Small one went out in the baking hot sun and sweated his arse off walking around outlets again, while tall one sat on his arse by the air con and this time e-mailed hostels in the Toronto area for reception work. Tall one also applied for some work for small one online, including some very very lengthy online applications for Starbucks and Subway asking pages and pages of questions like “you are leaving work at the end of a shift and a confused customer comes in asking for help, do you: stay and help, direct them to someone else, leave without saying anything to them, tell them to go away....”. Finally tall one got a phone call from a hostel called Canadiania, which had good reviews online. They asked him to come in for an interview on Thursday. Meanwhile small one got a possible job as a cook in a restaurant in Dundas Square, and was told to “stop looking for work” and come back on Thursday to meet the chef to see if he was happy.... so not looking too bad.
Came back to flat and had a beer, small one tried to connect on Skype to his father and brother at the same time, it all got jammed, and no one could hear the father speaking, but he kept speaking anyway... Then on to the discount stores for a laptop charger for small one’s was broken. On the way back a bus had crashed into the side of a car at a junction, and all the local boys ran over to point and laugh in the drivers face.
Sunday 17th July 2011
Paid Mr Dennis his money and was told we could move right in but would have to clean ourselves. Managed to keep the towels from the old hostel room at least. Settled in okay, and headed out to buy some household items. Small one desperate to save every cent he could, and tall one thinking we are here for at least 8 months I am going to spend a dollar on teaspoons.... much to small one’s dismay who wanted to use dessert spoons for everything to save a buck.
At least we found some nearby discount stores and cheap supermarkets (on Parliament Street) just five minutes away, and we did not have to go to the one at the bottom of Sherbourne Street anymore which was next to the queuing, fighting gangs standing outside Salvation Army.
Saturday 16th July 2011
Looked for more flats online as still not sure about the expensive one next door – nice flat, really really rough area, and too much money. One e-mail was a clear scam who said $700 for 2 bed apartment, but he is in Manchester UK and will post keys express when we pay him deposit, and we cannot view flat in person, only see photos.... hmmm. Anyway, got one viewing this morning way over other side of Little Italy via Korea Town, just a block up from the low ceiling flat yesterday... so an hours walk in the baking hot sun.
Headed out and stopped for a bagel and coffee in a cafe, where the whole 15 minutes we were their their fire alarm was going off and announcing that the fire brigade was on their way... no body batted an eye lid and carried on with service. Walked through Bloor Yorkville suburb and on through Korea Town, finally found this flat above a solicitors, and took some working out which door to knock on. Answered by a Canadian guy who seemed confused and lead us upstairs to a girl in a dressing gown who had arranged to meet us at this time. She lead us into her room which was very messy and we asked “is it you who are going then?”. She said no, that she was showing us her bedroom as we have to walk through it to get to the room to let... oh right. So in the corner of her room past the bed was a curtain drawn, and in their was a double room, no ensuite or anything, just a curtain between them. We said no straight away and left, as could not understand how you could live their using a strangers bedroom as a through fair, whether it be at 10pm when you get back from work you have to pass through as she’s shagging some bloke, or if you had to leave at 6am and sneak past her in bed asleep??? So, long walk back to hostel in the baking sun.
Back at hostel just went with the apartment next door assuming that lots of students move to the street next month as told by Mr Dennis, and so it can;t be that rough?? Can it?? Spoke to Mr Dennis who wanted $400 for us to move in Monday and stay till end of month, another $900 for August (then pay 1st of each month) and then $900 bond/depost.... lots of money. But, still we agreed.
Friday 15th July 2011
Stayed in flat hunting online until midday. Went to look at an apartment directly opposite us on Pembroke Street (no. 109 where Jay the Taiwan bank clerk said he lived). Arranged a time and stood outside for an hour waiting for this Greek woman to turn up. It was an interesting hour though... met a lot of the tenants. This strange bedraggled grey haired woman came up the path leading his very small Shitsu puppy, and without saying a word to us sat down on the door step and watched it eat the grass. She stayed there for the full hour, and said hello to the black fella who came in, who she told the puppy doesn’t roll on it’s back for just anybody, when he went to stroke it. After him came a woman who she greeted as “Hi Steffanie!” to which came a man’s voice exclaiming about her new puppy. Steffanie was a very unconvincing transvestite, in tight skirt and top on her very bulky manly body. She stayed and chatted for a bit with the woman, who told Steffanie that Friday night at 4am she had to phone the police, this was because she was awoken by a loud banging sound outside. The banging sound turned out to be a naked man down the side of the house breaking red bricks in half and putting them into the air con machine.... Steffanie’s responce was at least you knew he didn;t have a weapon on him, next time call me and i’ll go down...
Finally the Greek landlady turned up and showed us up to the 4th floor, a messy studio flat (which they call a Bachelor flat). It was $800 a month and came with no internet, and a years term. We left and did not take it. Though the current owner of the Pembroke Hostel 94, who is Chinese and answers to the name of Mr Dennis said he had a flat available. Turned out to be in 96 Pembroke street next door. It was again top floor, but actually very nice, spacious, separate kitchen, bathroom, big desk space, sky light, air con etc etc. Though his was $900 a month and came with internet. This was a lot, but compared to his HOSTEL which was $420 a WEEK for 2, $900 a MONTH for 2 in your own flat was much better.
Had one more to look at and walked for an hour up College street to Ossington Ave. It was a lovely street but the flat was a back, basement room which did not feel safe. A small Chinese man greeted us and laughed as parts of the flat had only a 6ft ceiling, so tall one being 6ft 3inchs wasn’t too handy in it. It was grubby, a fair size, good location (in Little Italy with lots of cafes for work, but long way from CBD), but no furniture at all. It was however only $650 a month for 2 people. We decided against it and went home.
On way back stopped at three different Irish pubs, each getting worse as we went. The first was alright, chatted to the Canadian staff and drank Canadian beer. Next one was big and empty with very military lined up tables and chairs. The staff were bored and had on 5 tv’s at once. One with UK Darts with Ted the Count Hanky losing badly, another with Baseball, and another with The Bridge on the River Kwai movie which the staff were engrossed in... Stopped in at Pogue Mahone’s which was a bit snobby, so left without a drink. The last one, Mickey Finn’s was served by an arsehole Canadian guy who charged us $2 more per beer than the others and kept the change and did not give it back. When we asked him for it he took it off the side of the till where he’d been keeping it. We left shortly after.
Had a dinner in a cheap cafe/restaurant next to the Russian newsagents. It was very empty and the only customers were a pair of Chinese corpses and what looked like a black hooker buying takeaway. The 2 of us sat down at a table of four, which didn’t matter as the table cloth was already dirty and watched as all the locals in the Pembroke road area walked past with boxes and boxes of booze. Had our dinner, which the restaurant claims to be international food with a Caribbean flare? There was no flare in this place, it was Chicken bones served with old chips. The chicken skin on the plate looked almost muddy. Left leaving a $2 tip, still not sure what we are doing there? Back to hostel and ready for bed by 6pm.... How we are going to have the energy to work we don’t know.
Thursday 14th July 2011
Need to move out. This street is very rough. Lots of lunatics on corners talking to self, lots of homeless people, lots of large looking groups of black guys. Still also saw some black squirrels today. The rent here is one of the cheapest hostels $375 a week for 2 people in private (most others nearer $500) but compared to a room to rent for $280 A MONTH... we need to move out.
Went to Dundas square and queued for free orange juice samples, then was given some free sun flower seed samples which tall one choked on, perhaps they were not for humans? Back into the mall and went around various phone providers, Fido, Rogers, Chat-r, Wind, Virgin.... bored bored bored. Back and forth a lot round the mall and to the hostel to get the old phones to unlock. After all that ended up with fair package month to month, and small one keeping his iphone thing but losing the free facebook as it cost a lot more to have basic internet access (though can still connect when free wireless). While finishing the paperwork two girls from Athlone were arguing about their phone and offered us a room in their house with 7 other irish girls... no thank you.
Checked out some other hostels, all too expensive or had asked residents what it was like to be told unanimously “go somewhere else”.... Went down to the harbour which was quite industrial, but had a small park front which was alright. On to the tower and past a lot of baseball ticket scalpers. Up to Kensington Markets and were shattered. Stopped for a Canadian beer in a pub where the Men’s toilets locked from the outside not the inside, and the urinal had a single prawn among the cistern blocks to urinate on.
Heading back past a lot more lunatics, some very young and normal looking then you get closer and they are absolutely filthy and they are not talking on a hands free kit. Stopped for a pizza hut takeway, quite expensive pizza as well. While waiting went to the newsagent at end of our road (Pembroke) which was run by an old arguing Russian couple. In the fridge we only found large out of date milk or one small opened milk?? On our way out the Russians stopped us and interrogated us what we wanted and said he’d find us milk alright. He then cornered us and talked about irish cyclists from 1982 that shot out the start gates like an arrow! We showed him the Russian badge sewn on our bag to which he said it was about Stalin killing the independent freedom fighters... he didn’t speak to us after that and just argued with his wife in Russian. His wife asked us if we had come by earlier asking about the flat for rent. We said no and asked did she have a flat then as we were looking, her response was that no, they did not have a flat... We left quickly, and got the pizza which had a box with a bread portion bigger than the pizza.
Wednesday 13th July 2011
Up and still shattered. Breakfast in a diner on Dundas street eating next to four Canadian police officers. Had a fruit, yoghurt and granola thing, still confused about this price but then tax and tip on top afterwards. Headed into centre via a stop at an apartment block to ask for vacancies, but the little black fella at the counter said he did not know anything helpful about the building.
Printed off our super hostplus reclaim forms again, walked up Church St to the Australian embassy to get them signed off and verified. North Church Street is a large Gay village, decorated excessively with rainbows, from the street signs printed over rainbows, flags from lampposts, flat windows, all the pubs, bars, cafes, fruit stalls and butchers had rainbow flags and rainbow tinsel hung up. It was a surreal street...
Strange time in the Aussie embassy as well. A lone Aussie bloke sat behind a counter, which true to Aussie form was a half finished made counter. He was not very helpful either, typical lazy Aussie. When we told him he had to hand write on each of our 3 passport photocopies the declaration and not his stamp, he sulked and moaned for a good ten minutes. We still had to pay $31 each for the privilege though. Left and went to a gay Irish bar and noticed the Aussie guy had photocopied the wrong arrival stamp so had to walk all the way back. While tall one was away small one asked one of the bar staff in the pub if he could use their wireless. The bar staff stood and said “what?”, so small one repeated it, there was nor responce. When the barman was prompted by a manager he turned to small one and said “why can’t everyone speak the one you do”.
Then shopping again looked at more phones and brought one of those amazon kindle electronic books. Met up with Matt Romot from The Corkman, Melbourne. He’d left after we had and was now working for cash in hand in Toronto, riding round on a rusty bike he'd found and sleeping on people’s sofas. His job was as a free tour guide round city and only got paid from tips. So he asked us to pretend we were on his tour and at the end give him $20 each to get the other people to tip high... Well there was only one other person on the tour, a backpacker. But she did cough up $5, but only after we have him our money (which he shortly gave back once she was gone). Anyway, back to Church st for another expensive meal, then back to hostel via a strange Bicycle protest who were cycling slowly down the main road protesting the lack of bike lanes.
Tuesday 12th July 2011
Up and out for breakfast, the hostel / house was empty and still no Chinese man to collect our money. He said he’d be back at 11am, then phoned back and said 12....
Went out for breakfast and saw a lot of the side streets in the area were pretty rough. Walked along Gerrard street and down the main street Yonge. Got to Dundas Square the main centre, big lights, trams, video adverts, sky scrapers and water shooting things...
Had breakfast in a little diner thing, still not sure on this added tax or added tips thing. Small one ate healthy, tall one ate sausages... the staff were a bizarre mix of middle aged dishevelled men in un tidy clothes, and smart young people in uniforms... didn’t know who to speak to.
Walked round to the other Chinese hostel (there is a LOT of Chinese, all the street signs in some areas have English, French and Chinese translations) we had looked at that was cheaper but had very bad reviews. Stood at the door while this little Chinese woman spoke to three checkins of a French Family. The French spoke no English and she spoke very bad English so it took a very very long time. Shoes off at the door for us and took us a good ten minutes to tell her we just wanted to have a look round to see if we wanted to stay next week. She said we could not see a room as all full of guests at the moment, but then decided to show us the room with the French had just checked into. So after the poor french’s long confusing check in they had her open the door on them and have us walk in. We said to them just being shown around, they didn’t understand a word... so we left confused and may come back next week.
Went to the old town hall and then got directions to the new town hall. A very short process to get our SIN (tax) number, which would be posted out in card form in a week, but we were given the number on headed paper to use for now. Had a lunch down past Hard Rock cafe of a very nice chicken salad and a dark ale (the place was part brewery or something). The waitress turned out to originated from Athlone, her mother lived down near Mulligans.
Then stopped to open a bank account in TD Bank. Sat with a Thaiwan young guy called Jang who sold us this naff package, having to pay $8.45 a month in fees unless you had a minimum balanbce of $2,000, and could only make 25 transactions a month for free after that 60c charge... great. Turned out he lived on Premrboke street a few doors up from us and gave us some tips off some areas best avoided. Got one bank card there and then though.
Back to hostel to pay the China man. Back out again for some shopping, small one brought some shirts from the children’s section.... aged 11-12. While in there queueing for the changing rooms a girl in a yellow dress came out and asked tall one for his advice on it. He said it was probably best not to ask him. On there way downstairs a woman in a long blue muslim like outfit got the bottom of the dress caught in the escalator. Smal one pressed the stop button and other people went to help. Five minutes later going back up they noticed she was still stood there stuck and now nobody was helping her. Left the shopping mall after buying a coffee. A black woman came up to smallone and asked what his medal was “oh its St Christopher carrying the baby jesus”. She then wanted to now what part of Ireland he was from.... Before leaving the mall shopped round for a decent mobile phone or sim card, still no luck. Subway on the way back and now hiding in the room with the fridge, CNN News and musty spell.
Monday 11th July 2011
Teary good bye to small one’s mother and father that morning. A cheap taxi over to the bus stop and a standard bus trip over to Dublin airport. Checked in fine, but then had to go through the Australia preclearance immigration, which meant we wouldn’t have to go through at the USA end.
A lady in a booth was very abrupt speaking to us one at a time, never mentioned the Esta visa we brought, unless it was all on her screen with no problems. They scanned our finger prints, took photos of us and told us to verify a photo of our checked luggage which you could barely recognise. Small one then got a grilling as last time he entered the US for 2 weeks they did not stamp his departure and he could not remember the exact date of leaving, so off he was bundled for an interview whilst tall one went through fine.
A large black immigration officer came round and asked for tall one to bring small one’s documents for Canada with him. He looked through the proof of funds and visa and seemed satisfied and asked tall one if he was trustable. Both got through and small said he’d had these rapid fire questions fired at him “how long were you in USA? Why is there no stamps? Why are you lying? What were you doing in Vietnam?” most of which he was not given time to respond to...
Anyway got through and small one had a beer and tall had a very nice tuna melt. Aer Lingus was a bit confusing as well as we saw are selected seats (apparently selected by us) were 35a and 35c which we thought would mean we’d be set apart. When we got on the plane however the seats where labelled left to right as (number) A, C, D, E, H, I ??? So we were next to each other by the window. There was however a nun dressed in blue on the flight so they took that as a good omen, she had spent the last half an hour pacing up and down the terminal.
It was still a bit cramped, especially when the person in front put their seat back you could not see the tv screen on the back of the chair and so had to put your own chair back to view it, which meant hte person behind you had to do the same, and so a domino effect was caused down the length of the plane.... Food was adequate, though only one meal in 7 hours? They did however give us a scone an hour before landing?? Had a fantastic view of Chicago city under bright blue skies and harbour, with tall buildings as we landed, and wished we had booked a few days to stay before transferring up (we probably would have had we realized earlier on that we had to get the same visa for Chicago for 3 hours as a week?).
In Chicago did not have to go through immigration, just security twice. Sat in the airport restaurant and had a lovely pizza and two beers which came to $40!! Sat by us a large English girl and a very camp lad ordered their food mocking the American waitress. The English girl had said she was allergic to Garlic and so ordered a salad which came smothered with Garlic. The waitress took it back and after a lot of ordering and explaining came back with a plain green salad – literally just lettuce leaves and croutons – the croutons were picked out by the girl.
On to Toronto in just an hour and as we flew in over the City the sun was setting and turning the clouds purple and pink. Immigration was confusing, at first nobody seemed to know what we wanted, until finally we were set up with a couple of officers who ran through the process. They barely even asked or looked at proof of funds or insurance. Infact after being told insurance was ESSENTIAL small one showed his officer the insurance whose responce was yeah that’s probably a good thing to have i suppose”. Got through fine and pi ked up our bags, drew out some currency and headed on to airport bus.
Bus driver seemed to miss our stop (Seemed French/Canadian) and asked where we were staying and dropped us outside the hostel (thankfully, as the area seemed a bit grim at night). It was 11.30pm Toronto time by the time we went in, we had already been e-maield the door code to get in. It was basically a converted large street house, and we phoned the Chinese owner to check in, who then phoned back and said just let yourselves in and we’ll sort money tomorrow. House was alright,. Bit smelly, bit like a student or share house, but for the money got private room with fridge, tv, decent air con, chair, desk, lamp etc etc. Spent a sleepless night with tall one screaming in his sleep, to wake up still shattered in the morning.
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