Saturday 21st Jan 2012
Headed out for what will probably be our last trip to Toronto Island. Having gone there in summer with Padraig, and in Autumn, now it was time to go in the snow. Walked around for 1 hour past a lot of ice filled harbour inlets. A lonely weird Russian guy with a huge camera kept plaguing us with bland questions and requests to take his photo. Stopped up the far side wall to look out at the icicles dripping from the tree and a mysterious brown animal on a distant rock. We could not tell if it was a small brown bird or some kind of weasel. We threw a snow ball and then a stick at it to get him to move, it never did. Finally it swam ashore of its own accord, it was a mink (large weasel). It ran between the rocks only a few feet below us, and seemed to rub itself in the snow to dry itself. The Russian guy joined us, and stared down at it saying dramatic words like “Incredible!”. He then slipped with his huge camera and the mink stopped rolling in the sand to have a look at this idiot before running away. The Russian asked us what it was, Tall one told him some kind of weasel, to which he said “Oyster?”..... yes that would be incredible. Walked down to the harbour side of the island where some islander woman was walking a friendly Alsatian type dog which had two diseased back legs. It’s whole rear was supported on some kind of trolley, so was half dog, half tricycle. She and the dog were both quite friendly so we stood and chatted about life for a wee while. We then got the boat back avoiding the Russian in the warm cabin area. Walking home stopped for very expensive hot chocolates in Second Cup (over $8 for 2).
Monday 2nd Jan – Friday 20th January 2012
On Saturday 7th Jan finally got out to the McCarthy’s Irish pub at 1801 Gerrard Street. Supposedly the only authentic Irish pub in the City. Phoned up night before and asked the woman what time she opened.... The next morning we got a phone call from her asking us how many people she should start cooking for and when she should start to cook? Well there’s only 2 of us and we’ll be there in a couple of hours... We decided to walk which took us an hour in the frosty weather. It was a tiny corner place which was essentially just someone’s front room. There was already one woman sat alone eating a fry up and another customer with a buggy – the place was literally packed. We went and sat at the small bar, there was no music playing the place was a deafening silence. Two irish women behind the bar said they’d get cooking, small one kept asking for a menu but neither ever gave a response, found out later that they don’t have a menu they only do fried breakfast. Turned out the owner was from Cork and we wondered if this was the person Kieran knew? The breakfast was very good, complete with homemade bread, black pudding and a pot of Barry’s tea, even the Guinness wasn’t too bad. We left an hour or so later and decided to walk down to the Toronto mainland beaches were we’d never been before. On the way there Small one got shat on by a Starling sat on a telegraph pole. Walked around the winter beach and around the weird peninsula having building works done. One tramp sat on a bench and was hanging small pieces of junk and tinsel into a small tree and pointing out his work to people walking their dogs as they walked past. Small and Tall decided a good name for a dog would be “Charles Dickens”. By now the morning was very cold and stopped at a large Tim Hortons for hot chocolate before finally getting home. Whilst walking back up Dundas street some fire engines roared past, an another tramp / lunatic stopped to very very enthusiastically wave at them, it had clearly made his day.
Small one handed his notice in at work so we had now decided to leave Toronto on the 1st of March and do all travelling before first year visa up (to save messing around with border crossings/holiday visas/insurance). All the little old women were crying on hearing he was leaving in some 6 weeks time. One of the upstairs managers came down and pulled small one aside and said very nervously that he had a personal question to ask him, then seemed reluctant and said no it’s too personal. Small one told him to spit it out and the man said he wanted to buy him a present before he left and would he like something just for himself or for his whole cleaning team? Small one clearly wanted something just for himself and would not want to share, but could not say this – so said he couldn’t possibly decide.
Tom the balding middle aged floor cleaner was on another disciplinary for losing it at his supervisors and small one when he was told how to clean a machine properly. Having a union meeting with Small one and him he dug himself into a deeper hole going on about “my tooth, no one cares about my tooth?”.... “sorry what Tom?”, “nobody cares about the tooth problems i am having either...”. Even the Union rep told him to stop talking as everyone had their own problems and left them at home and Tom just needed to learn that he worked for these guys and had to do what they said and stop complaining. Small one still worried that he’d come back in with a gun and either use it on everyone in the food court or himself.
The little cleaning ladies had got wise to which clearing stations were the quietest and so when small one started to rotate them to different stations to make it fair they started complaining that the air con was to cold by this one (the busy one) can’t i go back to station 1 (the quiet one), small one told them they had to go where he told them. All of the little old ladies behind the clearing stations were so short that some of them had got their husbands to make little reaching sticks, which they now use to lean over the desk and drag the food trays nearer to them to clear away.
Small one still getting his fair share of lunatics in the food court. Including just this week a man walking along and defecating as he went, with faeces running down his legs and onto the floor in a trail behind him. A young, professional French guy came came up to small one this week and told him he’d lost his phone, small one asked where he’d lost it, and the French guy said ohh not here somewhere else. Small one asked what he wanted him to do then? The french guy said he was meeting a friend and so did not have his phone anymore.... small one said will i all him for you? No I don’t know his number..... then what can i do? Asked small one impatiently. The French guy said well i know my friend is going to see a psychiatrist today, if you get me a list of psychiatrists I can phone round and find him... no i am not going to do that for you, this is a food court.
Meanwhile Tall one had not handed in his notice at the backpackers yet. Though recently an episode of the Toronto based cop show “Flashpoint” (season 4 ep. 3 Run Jamie Run) aired which was filmed in the backpackers just before tall one started in July.
Tall one had had his own dramas there this month. With a guy with dirty brown fingers, glasses and a big black fur coat walking in and asking for a room. Claiming that he was on a mission from Sudbury to rid the City of Toronto of politics, and precede to rant quite aggressively for ten minutes about the bureaucracy of the City governments that he’s trying to over turn.... Tall one said “sorry we are full at the moment”, the guys response was “you wouldn’t have any spare shoes would you these ones are done in?”, “no, sorry not on me”, said Tall one, “what about some spare trousers?...”. Finally the guy left after stopping to have another 5 minute the rant. The owner had sat quietly in reception listening and when the guy had gone he asked tall one if he was running for Mayor. There was also more problems with some Spanish looking guy sneaking back into the hostel after he checked out and seemed to be sleeping there somehow. He wore a weird shiny plastic black jacket with a big furry collar and tall one had remembered checking him out, but weeks after he was still here eating our pancakes and using our free wifi all day. He came up and asked for a fresh towel and tall one asked him what room he was in, he said room 9, and tall one pointed out well you don’t have a booking. He got rattled and claimed he was here under a friends name and blur blur blur. He left saying he’d be back later to pay. Another morning one Sunday, there was a smelly hairy guy called Steven past out on the chairs by reception. Had had complaints about the smell of this guy in the room, who basically never washed and stunk the whole dorm out (you could smell him coming when he came to pay rent). Tall one went over to wake him up as people checking in were looking at this man like some homeless bum, sat there looking dead with his head lolled back and mouth wide open. Infact when tall one tried to wake him it took a good five minutes of shaking and calling his name, tall one honestly thought he was dead. When finally he as awake tall one told him to go to bed, but noticed how Australian his voice had become as he said “Steven, steven mate you gotta go to bid....”....
Been snowing a fair amount last week or so, with very icy roads and quite cold temps, though apparently one of the mildest winters. It’s been around -8 instead of going as cold as -20. On tall ones treacherous walks to work past the steaming tramps on the street vents he noticed the one by TD bank and the City Hall ranting and raving... it was the one with the little Tabby kitten, he seemed to have lost it and was really not happy. Tall one stopped to buy some postcards to sent home, and with Canadas post being such a rip off most have been the only country where the stamps cost almost twice as much as the postcards. For lunch one day on the way home from work Tall one stopped in Harveys and brought a burger. They make it a bit like a Subway and ask what salads you’d like, Tall one just told them a bit of everything So the cashier puts a bit of each salad on the burger, but then she starts putting on a squirt of each of the eight sauce bottles there... BBQ, ketchup Brown, mustard, Mayo, Ranch..... “hang on stop, I meant a bit of every salad not the sauces....”..... can’t wait to leave Toronto and these lunatics behind.
Sunday 1st January 2012
Well first day of 2012. Tall one was working and small one had the day off. Though his day off was spent mostly emailing his manager Joanne answering her questions which he’d already answered a week ago in his night reports.
Tall one walked to work stepping over many hundred piles of vomit on the pavement from the New Year celebrations the night before. At the hostel had over 90 people checking out the hostel today, was very busy. Ran out of $5 notes so was giving back deposits in change, ran out of linens. Had no lunch in the end and then a group of 11 people turned up to check in, took him a good half an hour to process. Then the owner came down and said he didn’t like the look of them and phoned up the nearest hostel (Global backpackers) who’d told us they’d just kicked them out for all owing money and making a huge mess on New Years. So the owner went round and kicked them all out again, so another 40 minutes refunding them money amidst crying German girls accusing us of not being human for sending them into the streets. Some girls wanted to move rooms due to a mouse being spotted, and the staff put some unbaited mouse traps under the beds which didn’t help too much. Then the till ended up down and Tall one had a headache. Small one turned up to walk tall one home, and on the way said the Indian tramp they thought had died was now back, and therefore not dead. Though small one had spent the day thinking a lump of fluff behind the oven was a live mouse??
Thursday 29th – Saturday 31st December 2011
New Years Eve and small one never had a shower and never even changed out his dressing gown. Spent the day watching CSI episodes, drinking tea and ordering $50 worth of Pizza Hut (which less than half was eaten). Around midnight headed out onto the fire escape and tried to feed some cheese crackers to Raccoons, who just ran off. Then waited for the fireworks in the city. We heard the count down and the bangs, but could see nothing from all the fog that had descended on the city. Lit two sparklers left over from small one’s 30th, but they went out before we could get the camera self timer working. Then went to bed, but then again small one had never really got out of it.
Friday 9th December – Wednesday 28th December 2011
Well, that’s almost 2011 over with.
Small one lied to his job that he was flying home to Ireland for one week so he wouldn’t have to work overt the very busy xmas period in the shopping centre. To prove his alibly he had to walk 40 minutes east outside of the City to a small irish shop and spend some $88 on Irish labelled items.... the storekeeper told him that at least it was cheaper than a flight home.
This co-insides with his weekly lies of “we’re going away for the weekend to.... (Kingston/Blue Mountains/Montreal/Ottawa)”. To avoid being called in for all the many many people who phone in sick every day.
Tall one ploughing on through his job had to work Christmas and Boxing Day. Put all the decorations up carefully, only for the miserable South African cleaner to tear them down at 8am Boxing Day? Had to go to a staff xmas dinner which was at an Italian restaurant. Argued with the rest of the staff that ‘Entree’ actually means Starter, but they seem to use it as ‘Mains’. The men’s toilets in the restaurant was playing Italian language lesson tapes over the speakers, so while you urinate there is this unseen woman’s voice chanting random words and expressions like “post office..... i need to buy some stamps”.
One morning tall one came to work and the Australian Justin Bieber was signing albums in the chapters bookshop. So there were 300 girls in sleeping bags on the pavement leading round the corner past the hostel. That same morning a policeman came in and asked to speak to the owner (who was in the middle of selling one of his cars) and announced his van had been towed to CSI last night as there was a sexual assault down the side alley and his car had a hand print on the outside.
Stared up with the order online food delivery company (Grocery Gateway). Who charge $12 flat rate delivery, and are a tad more expensive, but saves us the depressing walk to No Frills and queuing up with the single mothers and tramps. The second time the van turned up we saw him from our 3rd floor window outside. We ran downstairs and waited on the porch but he wasn’t getting out his van. Then we remembered he phoned before he came in witht he food, so tall one ran three flights up and grabbed the phone. The van driver said “Grocery Gateway” Tall one asked if he was outside, to which he said “5 Minutes away...??”. Tall one then walked downstairs and helped carry the shopping up. Had also done another expensive food shop in the new Loblaws on Church and College. Made the mistake of asking the asian woman on the floor where the mince pies were. She had no clue what we were talking about (this was Christmas Eve). She took us to the ice cream department, we shook our heads, she took us to another asian looking guy and we said to just forget it.
Back at the flat and the mice were back. Eating down the sherbet poison like there was no tomorrow, but still none have gone into the box trap or the sea saw tube trap. Infact tall one went out today in the snow fall to buy some mouse traps and a packet of gravy. The gravy had no connection with the mouse traps, but thought he’d give the old fashion way a go again.
Mr Dennis also came up and took our large black dinning table as he said he needs it for his restaurant, he replaced it with a small square one which is very tall, so when eating at it tall and small are sat peering over the edge at their food up above them. Mr Dennis also said the neighbour below was complaining about the noise, should have told him it must be the mice, but instead he installed an ugly chequered rug to help??
Outside of the flat and work, had been to the cinema a few times. Saw Tinker Tailor Solider Spy and the cinema was absolutely packed. A bewildered little old couple infront of tall and small separated and he wondered down to the front few rows to get some space, but she refused to follow, so he spent a good five minutes standing in silhouette looking confused at why he was on his own. Then the eating began, the couple to each side of tall and small seemed to have brought a picnic, with hotdogs, popcorns, slurpy soft drinks, rustling bags of sweets. The other new gimmick of the cinemas here is some garbage where you can interact with the screen before the film starts. Some over enthusiastic twat appears on the screen telling you all to get ready and start zapping away the screens distorted image to reveal the picture below to win a prize. The game begins and even if the cinema is deserted except for half a dozen bewildered middle aged men, the screen dissolves in this flurry of sparks and tells everyone welldone!!!
Tall one also had a scary experience in a second hand bookshop. Not the place you’d expect to be scared, but as he was crouched down looking for some books this black guy’s dramatic voice started speaking over at the cashiers desk. “Yo how many times is a man supposed to die?”, the timid little old lady said “once i guess”. “Yeah well i’ve lost count how many times i’ve died, twenty twenty one i don’t know anymore”. Then continued with “you seem an intelligent lady, tell me how many times do you have to kill a man?? How many times did we kill Jesus?”. He repeat these questions a few times... she had stopped responding to them by now. Finally tall one stood up, they didn’t have the book he was looking for. When the guy saw him he stopped talking and walked out. The old lady turned to tall one and asked if he needed help with anything.... he was tempted to say,
“no, but he does”.
Had thought that the Indian tramp who sleeps over the vents by Tim Hortons on Richmond Street was dead. This is the one who asks for change and then spits to the side if you say no, though sometimes he does just lookup with puppy dog eyes and does not even ask for change. Well he’d been missing the last few times and then the other morning there was a single rose stuck in the grill were je used to sleep.... perhaps he was dead? Someone at the hostel said they had a friend who drove round the city in winter collecting corpses of frozen tramps for a living.
The bad news this month was that the 2012 Canada Visa rules and application came out. Tall and Small can’t get a second year as now there rule has started that you have to have been in your home country for at least 18 months before applying. Useit and the IEC both verified this. Small one also saw that on Useit’s forum page some excited people were messaging “Just done my two years in Australia excited about Canada where do I apply” to which Useit respond with “you can’t”.
Tall and small both sent some cards and presents home. Cost a fortune, Canadian post if a rip off. Then the little cashier even had the cheek to tell tall one that next time he should write in the centre of the envelope, well last time he did that the postal clerk could not fit the gigantic customs sticker on the envelope. But anyway Christmas Eve and Day were nice. Tall one had had an inadequate dinner at work which was provided for the guests (it was stone cold an hour before it was even put out for guests), then came home to a pile of Christmas dinner made by small one, which was very good. There was a fake video fire on for the day and many presents involving socks and winter clothes as the two of them are now buying gifts for each other as if they were grandparents.
Sunday 4th – Thursday 8th December 2011
Small one now in his 30th year was still having to deal with the his moronic staff at the Urban Eatery. The middle aged man with thinning hair and a gun license kept turning up late, kept taking an extra 10 minutes or so with his 15 minute breaks and kept stopping to chat endlessly to customers instead of mopping the floors. Small one kept brining him up on this to which Tom’s reply was to blame society, and that he was always being picked on. On the Thursday Small one told him his break was 15 minutes and that was it, Tom replied again that the break was not long enough, Small one said it was, Tom blamed society and threw down his keys and walked out.
Earlier in the week some customers had called small one over and said please stop that family feeding their dogs. Small one did not know what they were talking about, then he spotted them. A couple of women sat with their dogs actually up on the table in the middle of the food court, feeding them biscuits. Small one asked them to leave and they were bewildered to what they were doing wrong, when they finally did leave small one had to call them back to pick up their biscuits.
Lunatics of the week include; a old man with bushy white hair driving like a lunatic across the road in an electronic wheelchair whilst wearing slippers. As well as the stupid, lazy customers in the Eaton Centre who when the escalator broke down and a security guard stood stopping people from going up it, instead of just using the stairs next to it – they all stood queuing waiting for the escalator to start working again....
Tall one had a busy Thursday, Collecting his new Visa card from TD bank on parliament street he stopped off in a photo shop to get yet more passport photos done – this time for the police check for next years visa. When he walked into the shop the middle aged man at the counter with wifty white hair wearing a knitted jumper seemed to be watching pornography on his computer. He stopped the footage abruptly and asked tall one how he could help. When he led him to the backroom for the photos he started on about that he was “watching a British movie with Glen Close, she’s very hard in it, she’s playing a man called Noble something”. Tall one asked what the movie was called, he said “Noble something”. He then asked if Tall one would ever think about watching the movie? I have no idea.... said Tall one. The photos were finally done and back at he till an Indian woman had come in talking on her mobile, when she came off the phone the man said to her abruptly “So you’ve decided to take a break from the mobile then?” the woman nodded, she had come to collect some baby photos, “I’ve got some glue here if you want it, to stick the phone to the side of your head” said the man, the woman looked confused and Tall one got the hell out of there.
Tall one was supposedly on a day off but had a staff meeting at the hostel at 2.30pm. He was not sure if he was going but decided to walk in. Lucky he did as the owner had brought a thank you card, movie voucher and a $200 bonus for his hard work. The meeting was however a waste of time, but one of those assumed routines that company’s should do now and again. They set a date for the next one which will never happen.
Saturday 3rd December 2011
Small one’s 30th birthday celebration kicked off by opening his presents from Tall one... mostly socks, gloves and winter clothing.... presents a grand mother would usually give you. He was pleased with his Hawkeye red dressing gown.... Headed out for a breakfast at The Senator cafe, where small one had blown out a job as a waiter back in July. A group of four people walked in before us and when asked for how many, they said 6?? Tall and Small looked at each other and wondered if they were counting them in their group as there was no one else in the place – so quickly sat down at the counter stools and ordered a pretty good fry up .
Had a walk down to the Harbour wrapped up for winter. Stopped off for an Irish whiskey – served by a Canadian girl who would just not stop with the pointless questions. The Coffee was good at the start, but went down hill rapidly. Then headed round the harbour front (where everyone seemed to be walking dogs in little woolly jackets). Found an ice skating ring setup, though nowhere to rent shoes. Though did find some huge random piles of snow which we spent half an hour kicking about. Stopped in another Irish bar on the front for a bottle of beer and some soup (served with no roll). Walked up Spadina Avenue to do some winter clothes shopping, stopping in an awful public toilet where an Indian man called small one a dog for pissing all over the toilet seat....
Walked round Baldwin Street and then up to Bloor / York Ville areas to look at the nice restaurants, went in to none of them. Did some more clothes shopping where a man had decided to bring his terrier (also dressed in a woolly jacket) down the escalator to browse with him. Found a place down Yonge Street to eat. Rather crammed, but nicely lit place. Had a starter and a steak dinner each. They gave small one a medium-rare instead of medium-well done and messed up the bill afterwards, but other than that was a very nice meal. Arrived home in the evening shattered from the walking and trying to think of an excuse to not go for dinner with Canadian Joy (met from Tasmania) and her 80 year old Aunt the next evening.
Friday 28th October – Friday 2nd December 2011
That’s another month gone....
Christmas is almost here, Toronto have been hideously celebrating it already. Bay Mall has a huge Christmas window display with slightly creepy robotic Santas twisting their heads to music – they run this 24 / 7 so even at 2am the tamps and drunks have something to get them down. The Eaton shopping centre has giant 30 foot high reindeer in lights and many Salvation Army begs rattling tins with santa hats and shaking a set of bells in the other hand.... endlessly. Though Wednesday 30th November we saw our first snow – it fell quite thickly outside our window on Pembroke street, but never settled.
Went to the official turning on of the Toronto Christmas Tree Lights in the new town hall square the other night. It was packed solid with people, really quite hideous. This was 6-7pm and was full of young families and their little kids, and Toronto had thought it would be a good idea to have local rap music sung live on stage?? What happened to Christmas Carols, instead of confused children wondering what that noisy DJ was going on about. The street vendors selling their hot food and even roasted chestnuts were the most miserable bastards you’d ever been served by, and when the Mayor stepped up on stage to announce (in this anti-Capitalism climate) how thankful he was for all the banks sponsorships he was booed by the crowd (booed even before he spoke). They had arranged an elaborate firework tie-in for the Tree lights to turn on, that after a count down with fireworks going off on the count of 3 – 2 – 1 on top of the town hall, there was then to be one firework shooting down from the roof at the Christmas tree (like a shooting star) which was then to turn the lights on. However someone stuffed up, and so on the count of one the tree came on, then the firework shot down and hit the tree, the tree turned off again, and then a second later back on. The worst Firework and Lights display ever, even after the Mayors claims that this was the greatest city in the world.... BOOOO!!
Small one still working hard in the Eaton centre Urban Eatery.... Has told them he’s flying home for Christmas and wants the week off at the busiest time. They said they’d see what they can do, and Small one responded by saying it doesn’t matter what they can do, he’s going – they can have his notice if he can’t have the time off.
Through November small one was over seeing the building of the new staff room, mostly because all the managers could not be bothered. With the installation of the new lockers some poor lad kept finding someone was sabotaging his belongings every week – finding coke poured on his jacket and food smeared on his locker.... they couldn’t understand it as everyone seemed so nice who worked there (after small one had fired everyone else last month). Then small one had a hunch it may be the special needs boy and so asked him about it. The boy cracked and said he was only having a joke, he thought it was funny to do that to a “friend”. Small one told him the lad was ready to leave from having his coat ruined and having to walk home in the cold. They let him off with a warning.
Beyond that small one had the usual string of weirdos to deal with downstairs, including a woman bringing a small dog down the escalator, and using one of the china bowls from the food court was a dog water bowl. The toilets flood last week spilling human excrement everywhere, though some of the vendors thought it okay to stay open anyway. An old man came down the stairs and threw up in the middle of the floor then decided to leave and a week later a woman and her toddler came down and as her toddler threw up on the floor she kept dragging it away to get it out – then didn’t even apologise when small one came over. The staff are just as hard work, though all friendly enough there English is bad and they all gossip and moan about each other to small one who couldn’t care less. He took one of the middle aged foreign women one of the new employee census forms to fill in, and infront of customers she was reading out “it says gay or lesbian there is no option for normal, what do I do if i am normal!”, small one told her that she then puts down “heterosexual”, she still carried on, “no no no sexual anything, just normal”.
Meanwhile tall one at the backpackers hostel was still having varying hours from week to week. Two new girls had started, one had stopped showing up and the other was a little Asian girl who looked and acted like a precious china figurine. She even refused to call a taxi for one of the guests asking tall one to make it as she doesn’t like speaking on the phone, tall one told her she’s in the wrong job then. There’s more threats this month of another staff night out, after the boredom and awkward conversation of the last beer and wings night Tall one is definitely not going to the next – though after successfully avoiding the staff bowling night he is short ton excuses.
The hostel is quieter this time of year, though from the cold weather still getting more lunatics phoning up or walking in the door. One phone call consisted of “Hello Michael speaking” to be told “your just a fucking racist” and then a hang up. When telling the Manager he was told that that happens all the time, she’d been called a slut many-a-time before. Then just yesterday some fool phoned up from Israel saying he is going to Europe and wants to stay in a hostel and does he need to be a member? Tall one explained how hostels worked very slowly and finally hung up. He phoned back 10 minutes later with another question, saying how can he get a pass for a train to get across Europe? Tall one responded by telling him “you are talking to a hostel in Canada I cannot answer any questions about train travel in Europe”. Other than the looney phone calls, the face to face guests are no better. A middle aged Indian woman in a female dorm was complaining that someone’s incense they were burning in the room was endangering her life and demanded she was moved. After moving into a new room she came down and said she thought the girls in the room or the cleaner where putting things on her pillow, she could smell them... When she finally left she came to reception saying that all her new “friends” in the room were so nice helping her carry her bags out of the room to reception.... Desperate to be rid of her. Unfortunately she got her dates wrong and was actually checking out the day after so Tall one had to help her lug everything back much to the dismay of the other girls in the room. There was also the young girl who asked if she could have a hand with her things when she checked in. Tall one offered (thought generally they do not offer a bell hop service), but at the bottom of the stairs she got all independent and said she’d carry her own suitcase and that he could just carry the small linen pack he’d given her at reception.... ridiculous.
Tall one also received his new UK passport, after a long form to fill in and some $250 USD going to Washington then London – he got a nice new shiny passport complete with some nice watercolours of English rivers and bridges??? Though most of the guests seem to think he’s Australian, making a big point to say smugly “you’re a long way from down under aren’t you!” Tall one is confused, “what do you mean?”, “your Australian aren’t you, nice country”.... “I’m from England”. Why people feel the need to guess people’s nationality is beyond me.
At least with the new staff at the hostel Tall one was able to get every Saturday off for the last month, so he had at least one whole day off with the small one. Been doing a few more interesting things with the extra time. Went over to Toronto Island to see the colours of the Fall, quite nice, quite cold. Headed down to the Distillery District which was a very nice area, old cobbled streets and old brewery buildings all stuffed with very expensive arty shops and disappointing hot chocolates. Sat outside and had a $5 fried breakfast, it was in fairness a bit too cold and windy to be eating outside, even the bacon blew away. Another Saturday headed up to Kensington Markets, not been there since Matt left for Melbourne. Had a Panini with cold chips and cold tea in a very slow moving cafe – a man sat behind us was making phone calls asking a girl called Suzie to blow out his candles??
Tall one headed out to the strange, dank Rainbow Cinema near St Lawrence Market to see the pretty boring movie J. Edgar. The most entertaining part was the audience, with one old man sat at the end of the row shouting at a poor couple to “TURN OFF THE MOBILE PHONE!!” before the trailers had even started. An old Canadian couple in front of all one rabbited through the start of the film about if they should put up Martin’s rent or not, and “I think we should put it up to the maximum aloud I think it’s 3%.... ooh look at that man over there he looks like Martin”. Then another old overweight man a few seats up from Tall one fell asleep, head lulled back and loud snores began. The audience pounced on him, including the landlady thinking about Martins rent. They said very angrily “If you cannot stay awake I suggest you leave!” and then tried to recover more politely (they are Canadian after all) “please, if that’s okay....thank you”. He did it again 45 minutes later and was pounced on again in the same half aggressive half over polite manner. Finally when the movie was over and the credits had been on for a couple of minutes, Tall one stood up and waited for the sleepy old man to move so he could get the hell out, when a woman piped up frustrated a few rows back “could you sit down please i’m trying to read!!”. Tall one looked at the little frustrated woman and back at the credits rolling on the screen, and just raised his eyebrows and continued to wait.
Tall and small also met up for a few drinks with friends (a rare occasion nowadays). It turned out that an Irish couple, Pat and Maude had been checked into tall one’s hostel. The day before they were due to leave to start work in the Blue Moutains ski resort, they went out for a few drinks in a very large and very empty Irish type bar round the corner. Served by a man with one of those dodgy, boring Movember tashes. Even though the four of them brought a round of drinks each, each paid with $40 for the $29 round, the bar man insisted on giving them each back 1 five dollar note and one pile of $1 coins in change... this ruse was done by most of the bars – even if you could easily have a note back, they wanted to give you change so you’d be more likely to tip. So all four of us by the end of the night were sat there with identical piles of change and one five dollar note... suffice to say we left him about 1.25 in change between us.
Monday 26th September – Thursday 27th October 2011
Well, getting lazy with the blog. A whole month to summarize... it’s gone very quickly.
The mice have sent in reinforcements, the problem continues despite the pink sherbet like rat poison, the black plastic tube trap, the glass topped box trap, the victor classic mouse traps and the electronic sonic mouse annoyers. We did get one with the poison a while back though, but have only seen the odd sign or foot prints in the poison since then. Also have to fight against the black squirrels and the hungry raccoons trying tog et into our window via the extractor fan outlet.
In other news Tall one has been offending some previous work colleagues across the globe. Having sent a postcard back to Maidstone, UK joking making reference to the fact that there is probably no one there who remembers him what with all the recession cut backs – he received an email from one of the office workers to tell him that everybody is very upset there as half have been made redundant and the other half demoted.... ooops. The other offense being to the dear old (previous) owner of the Corkman, who was loving illustrated in a sketch book by Tall one (who depicted a scene from each major stop from the last few years in black marker drawings). Small one had uploaded the sketch book collection to facebook, and received a comment from the owner that we should watch what we say (or draw as it were – as the sketch depicted the outside of the hostel/pub with various characters hanging out windows while the owner was speeding away with a truck full of money)...oops.
In other general news, small one got a haircut from a lunatic in the east of the city. This huge monster of a woman kept hocking bag her greenies as she chopped his hair to ribbons, being told some helpful pointers by the sharper looking hairdresser next to her (who had cut about 3 peoples hair in the time small one had his butchered). It was salvaged enough by the end to look respectful enough. Small had also enjoyed a big night out, alone in the flat last week. This consisted of him drinking a box of Canadian beer while speaking to his friends back home via laptop. Tall one had to come home from work and put out a lot of recycling that night.
The City is in it’s usual form. The winter is definitely setting in, the heater has been in once or twice, and the gloves are out. Dundas square is swarming with starling erching on the giant tv monitors, though the weirdos have still not left. Last week tall one walked through the square on his way to work, first passing a man dressed like a beaver towing behind him a small childs trailer filled with rubbish while sticking his finger up at tourists the other side of the street. On the corner of the square outside Sears and the Eaten shopping centre a man with a microphone spouted out how the end was coming, next to a group of black men holding up banners on the future of the white man will be as slaves for black men, next to a very tall man dressed as spock charging to have photos taken by tourists, next to a man who was dressed like Elvis but painted silver??? Maybe the first man was right, the world is coming to an end?
Small one as supervisor is going strong in the food court, which is going badly. Working weekdays only the weekends are a mess down there when he is off. He has been given a pay rise up to $17, which is a come up from minimum wage at $10. The food court is losing money left right and centre. Having pitched too low with their costs and staffing in their original projections, they did not realized how much work was involved in running an “organic friendly” food court (using all china plates). Even the stock orders for each vendor is taking way over their estimates to fill (for example one vendor orders 1,000 trays – these have to be counted in the kitchen, taken over on the trolley which only takes 100 at a time) and that’s before moving onto the plates, cutlery etc just for one vendor. Small one has been asked to cut the staff basically in half with near enough the same work being done which is impossible. He’s friend over a dozen people in the last week, and each morning tells tall one how many have to go that day. One fella he fired took it badly and went to his union to get his job back – this was despite the fact that he was still within his probation period and he hadn’t even started with the Union yet. He complained that small one had been “harassing” him and even called him a “penguin”. Infact small one had called him a scarecrow (easy to confuse the two) because of his untidy appearance. It may be going to court, but the fella had signed a contract agreeing to the probation period and the rights of the employer to get rid of him for being a rubbish scarecrow.
Last night (Wed 26th Oct) small one arranged his own staff night out. He took some of the staff to the Imperial Pub for a couple of beers. The only ones that came along in the end were the Filipinos, with barely any English. Half of them hadn’t even brought any money with them. Small one spent $35 on the first round, and then after an hour he noticed how they all had only one mouthful left they’d been nursing for a very long time. This was because they knew the first to finish would have to buy the next round. In the end small one finished and brought a second round for another $35. After that he brought only his own. On his way home after midnight one of the Filipino girls text him to say that she “liked him”. His response was “don’t be late for work tomorrow”. He’ll probably have to fire her before the week is out anyway.
Meanwhile, compared to small one arranging his staff get togethers - tall one does his best to get otu of them. There was one due today (Thursday 27 Oct) but he’s just cowardly sent an email to say he can’t make it. The thought of traipsing across town on his day off, to look at the people he’s got a day off from in a Chinese Restaurant just sounds too painful. He has been kinda promoted to an assistant manager on Sundays – this is mostly because the Irish girl gets to pissed the night before and rolls in an hour or two late on any day shift. They are interviewing for some new staff, one of which is a girl staying at the hostel who came up a few nights ago and said she needed a taxi to the TIFF cinema. Tall one told her it was literally a few minutes walk away, she insisted saying she was “going to a movie premiere”.... tall one thought that would explain why she looked like mutton dressed like lamb – he could not however see how this kinda person would work in a job lugging new bedding around and checking toilets in a hostel between premieres??
Plently of other lunatics checking in (or trying to). One homeless fella came in asking for a room and was even dragging behind him a huge cardboard sign with some begging jibberish on, he was turned away, despite being quite friendly. Usually when they are that rough tall one sends them up to Pembroke Street where he lives, as they’ll take anybody. Still having hundreds of Irish checking in, one was a pretty simple fella who came down a few times asking about how the lockers in the rooms work. Tall one explained you just put your own padlock onto the locker so just find a free one. He then came back down and asked what the combination for the padlock was on the locker.... tall one told him that that was probably somebody else padlock and locker and that he needs to find an empty one to use...
A few middle aged Indian men at the moment too, one of which accused Tall one of black mailing him yesterday. A very strange exchange where he’d booked to arrive Tuesday, but turned up Wednesday 7am, but of course was still charged for Tuesday night.... he winged and grumbled and complained and would not go away so Tall one told him if he was still that unhappy that he’d give him a refund on his remaining nights so he could find another hostel, his response was that that was blackmail. Tall one was perturbed by this and said “Blackmail? I don’t see how that works, i’m offering to give you a refund?”. He went away looking just as confused, but then came back half an hour later happy as Larry to extend his stay??
Generally speaking the job is going well. It’s just a long long walk. The role is a little tedious a times, when your trying to count the till at the start of a shift and you have non stop moronic phone calls with moronic questions in very bad English “hello?..... hello?.... yes, can you tell me what is a dorm, what does this mean?”. Mind you some of the staff can be just as hard work. They leave all manner of their personal junk clogging up reception as well, the other day on tall one’s desk was left a box of tampons and an un-eaten kinder egg (they’d just taken the toy out??). Blonde Vera had run the pub crawl a week ago with disastrous effects, she turned up over an hour late and then didn’t leave for another hour.... taking along her miserable Ozzy Osbourne partner who pissed everyone off by stealing their beers, and for some reason Vera was dressed in a Halloween cape and fish net stockings.... Tall one shivered with fear. The owner is a nice fella, but does bumble in and make some awkward conversation with staff sometimes, including his story about how he’d just went to buy some black duck tape from a hardware store, and when he asked the clerk for BLACK duck tape he realized the clerk was a black man and so fumbled over his words as he didn’t want to offend him for using the word black??
Walking home at 2am is a strange experience in Toronto. It’s now got pretty cold at night as well, so the raccoons are out amongst the sleeping tramps trying to beg for food of them. Dundas Square is deserted at that time, but they insist on still keeping the fountain display going. Down on Dundas Street by George are the same local beggars. The woman who had threatened to put a bullet in tall one’s head asked for some change. Tall one had a one dollar coin on him and gave it to her, she took it and her response was “don’t you have $5?.... $5??”. Tall one apologized to her for not having more money and kept walking, to then be accostered by a big black man asking for change. Tall one apologised again and kept walking to have some skinny black fella shout across to him if he wanted to buy sunglasses.... this was 2am, winter and pitch black. Tall one apologised again and said no thank you and wondered how many more tramps he’d have to apologize to that night.
Headed out for what will probably be our last trip to Toronto Island. Having gone there in summer with Padraig, and in Autumn, now it was time to go in the snow. Walked around for 1 hour past a lot of ice filled harbour inlets. A lonely weird Russian guy with a huge camera kept plaguing us with bland questions and requests to take his photo. Stopped up the far side wall to look out at the icicles dripping from the tree and a mysterious brown animal on a distant rock. We could not tell if it was a small brown bird or some kind of weasel. We threw a snow ball and then a stick at it to get him to move, it never did. Finally it swam ashore of its own accord, it was a mink (large weasel). It ran between the rocks only a few feet below us, and seemed to rub itself in the snow to dry itself. The Russian guy joined us, and stared down at it saying dramatic words like “Incredible!”. He then slipped with his huge camera and the mink stopped rolling in the sand to have a look at this idiot before running away. The Russian asked us what it was, Tall one told him some kind of weasel, to which he said “Oyster?”..... yes that would be incredible. Walked down to the harbour side of the island where some islander woman was walking a friendly Alsatian type dog which had two diseased back legs. It’s whole rear was supported on some kind of trolley, so was half dog, half tricycle. She and the dog were both quite friendly so we stood and chatted about life for a wee while. We then got the boat back avoiding the Russian in the warm cabin area. Walking home stopped for very expensive hot chocolates in Second Cup (over $8 for 2).
Monday 2nd Jan – Friday 20th January 2012
On Saturday 7th Jan finally got out to the McCarthy’s Irish pub at 1801 Gerrard Street. Supposedly the only authentic Irish pub in the City. Phoned up night before and asked the woman what time she opened.... The next morning we got a phone call from her asking us how many people she should start cooking for and when she should start to cook? Well there’s only 2 of us and we’ll be there in a couple of hours... We decided to walk which took us an hour in the frosty weather. It was a tiny corner place which was essentially just someone’s front room. There was already one woman sat alone eating a fry up and another customer with a buggy – the place was literally packed. We went and sat at the small bar, there was no music playing the place was a deafening silence. Two irish women behind the bar said they’d get cooking, small one kept asking for a menu but neither ever gave a response, found out later that they don’t have a menu they only do fried breakfast. Turned out the owner was from Cork and we wondered if this was the person Kieran knew? The breakfast was very good, complete with homemade bread, black pudding and a pot of Barry’s tea, even the Guinness wasn’t too bad. We left an hour or so later and decided to walk down to the Toronto mainland beaches were we’d never been before. On the way there Small one got shat on by a Starling sat on a telegraph pole. Walked around the winter beach and around the weird peninsula having building works done. One tramp sat on a bench and was hanging small pieces of junk and tinsel into a small tree and pointing out his work to people walking their dogs as they walked past. Small and Tall decided a good name for a dog would be “Charles Dickens”. By now the morning was very cold and stopped at a large Tim Hortons for hot chocolate before finally getting home. Whilst walking back up Dundas street some fire engines roared past, an another tramp / lunatic stopped to very very enthusiastically wave at them, it had clearly made his day.
Small one handed his notice in at work so we had now decided to leave Toronto on the 1st of March and do all travelling before first year visa up (to save messing around with border crossings/holiday visas/insurance). All the little old women were crying on hearing he was leaving in some 6 weeks time. One of the upstairs managers came down and pulled small one aside and said very nervously that he had a personal question to ask him, then seemed reluctant and said no it’s too personal. Small one told him to spit it out and the man said he wanted to buy him a present before he left and would he like something just for himself or for his whole cleaning team? Small one clearly wanted something just for himself and would not want to share, but could not say this – so said he couldn’t possibly decide.
Tom the balding middle aged floor cleaner was on another disciplinary for losing it at his supervisors and small one when he was told how to clean a machine properly. Having a union meeting with Small one and him he dug himself into a deeper hole going on about “my tooth, no one cares about my tooth?”.... “sorry what Tom?”, “nobody cares about the tooth problems i am having either...”. Even the Union rep told him to stop talking as everyone had their own problems and left them at home and Tom just needed to learn that he worked for these guys and had to do what they said and stop complaining. Small one still worried that he’d come back in with a gun and either use it on everyone in the food court or himself.
The little cleaning ladies had got wise to which clearing stations were the quietest and so when small one started to rotate them to different stations to make it fair they started complaining that the air con was to cold by this one (the busy one) can’t i go back to station 1 (the quiet one), small one told them they had to go where he told them. All of the little old ladies behind the clearing stations were so short that some of them had got their husbands to make little reaching sticks, which they now use to lean over the desk and drag the food trays nearer to them to clear away.
Small one still getting his fair share of lunatics in the food court. Including just this week a man walking along and defecating as he went, with faeces running down his legs and onto the floor in a trail behind him. A young, professional French guy came came up to small one this week and told him he’d lost his phone, small one asked where he’d lost it, and the French guy said ohh not here somewhere else. Small one asked what he wanted him to do then? The french guy said he was meeting a friend and so did not have his phone anymore.... small one said will i all him for you? No I don’t know his number..... then what can i do? Asked small one impatiently. The French guy said well i know my friend is going to see a psychiatrist today, if you get me a list of psychiatrists I can phone round and find him... no i am not going to do that for you, this is a food court.
Meanwhile Tall one had not handed in his notice at the backpackers yet. Though recently an episode of the Toronto based cop show “Flashpoint” (season 4 ep. 3 Run Jamie Run) aired which was filmed in the backpackers just before tall one started in July.
Tall one had had his own dramas there this month. With a guy with dirty brown fingers, glasses and a big black fur coat walking in and asking for a room. Claiming that he was on a mission from Sudbury to rid the City of Toronto of politics, and precede to rant quite aggressively for ten minutes about the bureaucracy of the City governments that he’s trying to over turn.... Tall one said “sorry we are full at the moment”, the guys response was “you wouldn’t have any spare shoes would you these ones are done in?”, “no, sorry not on me”, said Tall one, “what about some spare trousers?...”. Finally the guy left after stopping to have another 5 minute the rant. The owner had sat quietly in reception listening and when the guy had gone he asked tall one if he was running for Mayor. There was also more problems with some Spanish looking guy sneaking back into the hostel after he checked out and seemed to be sleeping there somehow. He wore a weird shiny plastic black jacket with a big furry collar and tall one had remembered checking him out, but weeks after he was still here eating our pancakes and using our free wifi all day. He came up and asked for a fresh towel and tall one asked him what room he was in, he said room 9, and tall one pointed out well you don’t have a booking. He got rattled and claimed he was here under a friends name and blur blur blur. He left saying he’d be back later to pay. Another morning one Sunday, there was a smelly hairy guy called Steven past out on the chairs by reception. Had had complaints about the smell of this guy in the room, who basically never washed and stunk the whole dorm out (you could smell him coming when he came to pay rent). Tall one went over to wake him up as people checking in were looking at this man like some homeless bum, sat there looking dead with his head lolled back and mouth wide open. Infact when tall one tried to wake him it took a good five minutes of shaking and calling his name, tall one honestly thought he was dead. When finally he as awake tall one told him to go to bed, but noticed how Australian his voice had become as he said “Steven, steven mate you gotta go to bid....”....
Been snowing a fair amount last week or so, with very icy roads and quite cold temps, though apparently one of the mildest winters. It’s been around -8 instead of going as cold as -20. On tall ones treacherous walks to work past the steaming tramps on the street vents he noticed the one by TD bank and the City Hall ranting and raving... it was the one with the little Tabby kitten, he seemed to have lost it and was really not happy. Tall one stopped to buy some postcards to sent home, and with Canadas post being such a rip off most have been the only country where the stamps cost almost twice as much as the postcards. For lunch one day on the way home from work Tall one stopped in Harveys and brought a burger. They make it a bit like a Subway and ask what salads you’d like, Tall one just told them a bit of everything So the cashier puts a bit of each salad on the burger, but then she starts putting on a squirt of each of the eight sauce bottles there... BBQ, ketchup Brown, mustard, Mayo, Ranch..... “hang on stop, I meant a bit of every salad not the sauces....”..... can’t wait to leave Toronto and these lunatics behind.
Sunday 1st January 2012
Well first day of 2012. Tall one was working and small one had the day off. Though his day off was spent mostly emailing his manager Joanne answering her questions which he’d already answered a week ago in his night reports.
Tall one walked to work stepping over many hundred piles of vomit on the pavement from the New Year celebrations the night before. At the hostel had over 90 people checking out the hostel today, was very busy. Ran out of $5 notes so was giving back deposits in change, ran out of linens. Had no lunch in the end and then a group of 11 people turned up to check in, took him a good half an hour to process. Then the owner came down and said he didn’t like the look of them and phoned up the nearest hostel (Global backpackers) who’d told us they’d just kicked them out for all owing money and making a huge mess on New Years. So the owner went round and kicked them all out again, so another 40 minutes refunding them money amidst crying German girls accusing us of not being human for sending them into the streets. Some girls wanted to move rooms due to a mouse being spotted, and the staff put some unbaited mouse traps under the beds which didn’t help too much. Then the till ended up down and Tall one had a headache. Small one turned up to walk tall one home, and on the way said the Indian tramp they thought had died was now back, and therefore not dead. Though small one had spent the day thinking a lump of fluff behind the oven was a live mouse??
Thursday 29th – Saturday 31st December 2011
New Years Eve and small one never had a shower and never even changed out his dressing gown. Spent the day watching CSI episodes, drinking tea and ordering $50 worth of Pizza Hut (which less than half was eaten). Around midnight headed out onto the fire escape and tried to feed some cheese crackers to Raccoons, who just ran off. Then waited for the fireworks in the city. We heard the count down and the bangs, but could see nothing from all the fog that had descended on the city. Lit two sparklers left over from small one’s 30th, but they went out before we could get the camera self timer working. Then went to bed, but then again small one had never really got out of it.
Friday 9th December – Wednesday 28th December 2011
Well, that’s almost 2011 over with.
Small one lied to his job that he was flying home to Ireland for one week so he wouldn’t have to work overt the very busy xmas period in the shopping centre. To prove his alibly he had to walk 40 minutes east outside of the City to a small irish shop and spend some $88 on Irish labelled items.... the storekeeper told him that at least it was cheaper than a flight home.
This co-insides with his weekly lies of “we’re going away for the weekend to.... (Kingston/Blue Mountains/Montreal/Ottawa)”. To avoid being called in for all the many many people who phone in sick every day.
Tall one ploughing on through his job had to work Christmas and Boxing Day. Put all the decorations up carefully, only for the miserable South African cleaner to tear them down at 8am Boxing Day? Had to go to a staff xmas dinner which was at an Italian restaurant. Argued with the rest of the staff that ‘Entree’ actually means Starter, but they seem to use it as ‘Mains’. The men’s toilets in the restaurant was playing Italian language lesson tapes over the speakers, so while you urinate there is this unseen woman’s voice chanting random words and expressions like “post office..... i need to buy some stamps”.
One morning tall one came to work and the Australian Justin Bieber was signing albums in the chapters bookshop. So there were 300 girls in sleeping bags on the pavement leading round the corner past the hostel. That same morning a policeman came in and asked to speak to the owner (who was in the middle of selling one of his cars) and announced his van had been towed to CSI last night as there was a sexual assault down the side alley and his car had a hand print on the outside.
Stared up with the order online food delivery company (Grocery Gateway). Who charge $12 flat rate delivery, and are a tad more expensive, but saves us the depressing walk to No Frills and queuing up with the single mothers and tramps. The second time the van turned up we saw him from our 3rd floor window outside. We ran downstairs and waited on the porch but he wasn’t getting out his van. Then we remembered he phoned before he came in witht he food, so tall one ran three flights up and grabbed the phone. The van driver said “Grocery Gateway” Tall one asked if he was outside, to which he said “5 Minutes away...??”. Tall one then walked downstairs and helped carry the shopping up. Had also done another expensive food shop in the new Loblaws on Church and College. Made the mistake of asking the asian woman on the floor where the mince pies were. She had no clue what we were talking about (this was Christmas Eve). She took us to the ice cream department, we shook our heads, she took us to another asian looking guy and we said to just forget it.
Back at the flat and the mice were back. Eating down the sherbet poison like there was no tomorrow, but still none have gone into the box trap or the sea saw tube trap. Infact tall one went out today in the snow fall to buy some mouse traps and a packet of gravy. The gravy had no connection with the mouse traps, but thought he’d give the old fashion way a go again.
Mr Dennis also came up and took our large black dinning table as he said he needs it for his restaurant, he replaced it with a small square one which is very tall, so when eating at it tall and small are sat peering over the edge at their food up above them. Mr Dennis also said the neighbour below was complaining about the noise, should have told him it must be the mice, but instead he installed an ugly chequered rug to help??
Outside of the flat and work, had been to the cinema a few times. Saw Tinker Tailor Solider Spy and the cinema was absolutely packed. A bewildered little old couple infront of tall and small separated and he wondered down to the front few rows to get some space, but she refused to follow, so he spent a good five minutes standing in silhouette looking confused at why he was on his own. Then the eating began, the couple to each side of tall and small seemed to have brought a picnic, with hotdogs, popcorns, slurpy soft drinks, rustling bags of sweets. The other new gimmick of the cinemas here is some garbage where you can interact with the screen before the film starts. Some over enthusiastic twat appears on the screen telling you all to get ready and start zapping away the screens distorted image to reveal the picture below to win a prize. The game begins and even if the cinema is deserted except for half a dozen bewildered middle aged men, the screen dissolves in this flurry of sparks and tells everyone welldone!!!
Tall one also had a scary experience in a second hand bookshop. Not the place you’d expect to be scared, but as he was crouched down looking for some books this black guy’s dramatic voice started speaking over at the cashiers desk. “Yo how many times is a man supposed to die?”, the timid little old lady said “once i guess”. “Yeah well i’ve lost count how many times i’ve died, twenty twenty one i don’t know anymore”. Then continued with “you seem an intelligent lady, tell me how many times do you have to kill a man?? How many times did we kill Jesus?”. He repeat these questions a few times... she had stopped responding to them by now. Finally tall one stood up, they didn’t have the book he was looking for. When the guy saw him he stopped talking and walked out. The old lady turned to tall one and asked if he needed help with anything.... he was tempted to say,
“no, but he does”.
Had thought that the Indian tramp who sleeps over the vents by Tim Hortons on Richmond Street was dead. This is the one who asks for change and then spits to the side if you say no, though sometimes he does just lookup with puppy dog eyes and does not even ask for change. Well he’d been missing the last few times and then the other morning there was a single rose stuck in the grill were je used to sleep.... perhaps he was dead? Someone at the hostel said they had a friend who drove round the city in winter collecting corpses of frozen tramps for a living.
The bad news this month was that the 2012 Canada Visa rules and application came out. Tall and Small can’t get a second year as now there rule has started that you have to have been in your home country for at least 18 months before applying. Useit and the IEC both verified this. Small one also saw that on Useit’s forum page some excited people were messaging “Just done my two years in Australia excited about Canada where do I apply” to which Useit respond with “you can’t”.
Tall and small both sent some cards and presents home. Cost a fortune, Canadian post if a rip off. Then the little cashier even had the cheek to tell tall one that next time he should write in the centre of the envelope, well last time he did that the postal clerk could not fit the gigantic customs sticker on the envelope. But anyway Christmas Eve and Day were nice. Tall one had had an inadequate dinner at work which was provided for the guests (it was stone cold an hour before it was even put out for guests), then came home to a pile of Christmas dinner made by small one, which was very good. There was a fake video fire on for the day and many presents involving socks and winter clothes as the two of them are now buying gifts for each other as if they were grandparents.
Sunday 4th – Thursday 8th December 2011
Small one now in his 30th year was still having to deal with the his moronic staff at the Urban Eatery. The middle aged man with thinning hair and a gun license kept turning up late, kept taking an extra 10 minutes or so with his 15 minute breaks and kept stopping to chat endlessly to customers instead of mopping the floors. Small one kept brining him up on this to which Tom’s reply was to blame society, and that he was always being picked on. On the Thursday Small one told him his break was 15 minutes and that was it, Tom replied again that the break was not long enough, Small one said it was, Tom blamed society and threw down his keys and walked out.
Earlier in the week some customers had called small one over and said please stop that family feeding their dogs. Small one did not know what they were talking about, then he spotted them. A couple of women sat with their dogs actually up on the table in the middle of the food court, feeding them biscuits. Small one asked them to leave and they were bewildered to what they were doing wrong, when they finally did leave small one had to call them back to pick up their biscuits.
Lunatics of the week include; a old man with bushy white hair driving like a lunatic across the road in an electronic wheelchair whilst wearing slippers. As well as the stupid, lazy customers in the Eaton Centre who when the escalator broke down and a security guard stood stopping people from going up it, instead of just using the stairs next to it – they all stood queuing waiting for the escalator to start working again....
Tall one had a busy Thursday, Collecting his new Visa card from TD bank on parliament street he stopped off in a photo shop to get yet more passport photos done – this time for the police check for next years visa. When he walked into the shop the middle aged man at the counter with wifty white hair wearing a knitted jumper seemed to be watching pornography on his computer. He stopped the footage abruptly and asked tall one how he could help. When he led him to the backroom for the photos he started on about that he was “watching a British movie with Glen Close, she’s very hard in it, she’s playing a man called Noble something”. Tall one asked what the movie was called, he said “Noble something”. He then asked if Tall one would ever think about watching the movie? I have no idea.... said Tall one. The photos were finally done and back at he till an Indian woman had come in talking on her mobile, when she came off the phone the man said to her abruptly “So you’ve decided to take a break from the mobile then?” the woman nodded, she had come to collect some baby photos, “I’ve got some glue here if you want it, to stick the phone to the side of your head” said the man, the woman looked confused and Tall one got the hell out of there.
Tall one was supposedly on a day off but had a staff meeting at the hostel at 2.30pm. He was not sure if he was going but decided to walk in. Lucky he did as the owner had brought a thank you card, movie voucher and a $200 bonus for his hard work. The meeting was however a waste of time, but one of those assumed routines that company’s should do now and again. They set a date for the next one which will never happen.
Saturday 3rd December 2011
Small one’s 30th birthday celebration kicked off by opening his presents from Tall one... mostly socks, gloves and winter clothing.... presents a grand mother would usually give you. He was pleased with his Hawkeye red dressing gown.... Headed out for a breakfast at The Senator cafe, where small one had blown out a job as a waiter back in July. A group of four people walked in before us and when asked for how many, they said 6?? Tall and Small looked at each other and wondered if they were counting them in their group as there was no one else in the place – so quickly sat down at the counter stools and ordered a pretty good fry up .
Had a walk down to the Harbour wrapped up for winter. Stopped off for an Irish whiskey – served by a Canadian girl who would just not stop with the pointless questions. The Coffee was good at the start, but went down hill rapidly. Then headed round the harbour front (where everyone seemed to be walking dogs in little woolly jackets). Found an ice skating ring setup, though nowhere to rent shoes. Though did find some huge random piles of snow which we spent half an hour kicking about. Stopped in another Irish bar on the front for a bottle of beer and some soup (served with no roll). Walked up Spadina Avenue to do some winter clothes shopping, stopping in an awful public toilet where an Indian man called small one a dog for pissing all over the toilet seat....
Walked round Baldwin Street and then up to Bloor / York Ville areas to look at the nice restaurants, went in to none of them. Did some more clothes shopping where a man had decided to bring his terrier (also dressed in a woolly jacket) down the escalator to browse with him. Found a place down Yonge Street to eat. Rather crammed, but nicely lit place. Had a starter and a steak dinner each. They gave small one a medium-rare instead of medium-well done and messed up the bill afterwards, but other than that was a very nice meal. Arrived home in the evening shattered from the walking and trying to think of an excuse to not go for dinner with Canadian Joy (met from Tasmania) and her 80 year old Aunt the next evening.
Friday 28th October – Friday 2nd December 2011
That’s another month gone....
Christmas is almost here, Toronto have been hideously celebrating it already. Bay Mall has a huge Christmas window display with slightly creepy robotic Santas twisting their heads to music – they run this 24 / 7 so even at 2am the tamps and drunks have something to get them down. The Eaton shopping centre has giant 30 foot high reindeer in lights and many Salvation Army begs rattling tins with santa hats and shaking a set of bells in the other hand.... endlessly. Though Wednesday 30th November we saw our first snow – it fell quite thickly outside our window on Pembroke street, but never settled.
Went to the official turning on of the Toronto Christmas Tree Lights in the new town hall square the other night. It was packed solid with people, really quite hideous. This was 6-7pm and was full of young families and their little kids, and Toronto had thought it would be a good idea to have local rap music sung live on stage?? What happened to Christmas Carols, instead of confused children wondering what that noisy DJ was going on about. The street vendors selling their hot food and even roasted chestnuts were the most miserable bastards you’d ever been served by, and when the Mayor stepped up on stage to announce (in this anti-Capitalism climate) how thankful he was for all the banks sponsorships he was booed by the crowd (booed even before he spoke). They had arranged an elaborate firework tie-in for the Tree lights to turn on, that after a count down with fireworks going off on the count of 3 – 2 – 1 on top of the town hall, there was then to be one firework shooting down from the roof at the Christmas tree (like a shooting star) which was then to turn the lights on. However someone stuffed up, and so on the count of one the tree came on, then the firework shot down and hit the tree, the tree turned off again, and then a second later back on. The worst Firework and Lights display ever, even after the Mayors claims that this was the greatest city in the world.... BOOOO!!
Small one still working hard in the Eaton centre Urban Eatery.... Has told them he’s flying home for Christmas and wants the week off at the busiest time. They said they’d see what they can do, and Small one responded by saying it doesn’t matter what they can do, he’s going – they can have his notice if he can’t have the time off.
Through November small one was over seeing the building of the new staff room, mostly because all the managers could not be bothered. With the installation of the new lockers some poor lad kept finding someone was sabotaging his belongings every week – finding coke poured on his jacket and food smeared on his locker.... they couldn’t understand it as everyone seemed so nice who worked there (after small one had fired everyone else last month). Then small one had a hunch it may be the special needs boy and so asked him about it. The boy cracked and said he was only having a joke, he thought it was funny to do that to a “friend”. Small one told him the lad was ready to leave from having his coat ruined and having to walk home in the cold. They let him off with a warning.
Beyond that small one had the usual string of weirdos to deal with downstairs, including a woman bringing a small dog down the escalator, and using one of the china bowls from the food court was a dog water bowl. The toilets flood last week spilling human excrement everywhere, though some of the vendors thought it okay to stay open anyway. An old man came down the stairs and threw up in the middle of the floor then decided to leave and a week later a woman and her toddler came down and as her toddler threw up on the floor she kept dragging it away to get it out – then didn’t even apologise when small one came over. The staff are just as hard work, though all friendly enough there English is bad and they all gossip and moan about each other to small one who couldn’t care less. He took one of the middle aged foreign women one of the new employee census forms to fill in, and infront of customers she was reading out “it says gay or lesbian there is no option for normal, what do I do if i am normal!”, small one told her that she then puts down “heterosexual”, she still carried on, “no no no sexual anything, just normal”.
Meanwhile tall one at the backpackers hostel was still having varying hours from week to week. Two new girls had started, one had stopped showing up and the other was a little Asian girl who looked and acted like a precious china figurine. She even refused to call a taxi for one of the guests asking tall one to make it as she doesn’t like speaking on the phone, tall one told her she’s in the wrong job then. There’s more threats this month of another staff night out, after the boredom and awkward conversation of the last beer and wings night Tall one is definitely not going to the next – though after successfully avoiding the staff bowling night he is short ton excuses.
The hostel is quieter this time of year, though from the cold weather still getting more lunatics phoning up or walking in the door. One phone call consisted of “Hello Michael speaking” to be told “your just a fucking racist” and then a hang up. When telling the Manager he was told that that happens all the time, she’d been called a slut many-a-time before. Then just yesterday some fool phoned up from Israel saying he is going to Europe and wants to stay in a hostel and does he need to be a member? Tall one explained how hostels worked very slowly and finally hung up. He phoned back 10 minutes later with another question, saying how can he get a pass for a train to get across Europe? Tall one responded by telling him “you are talking to a hostel in Canada I cannot answer any questions about train travel in Europe”. Other than the looney phone calls, the face to face guests are no better. A middle aged Indian woman in a female dorm was complaining that someone’s incense they were burning in the room was endangering her life and demanded she was moved. After moving into a new room she came down and said she thought the girls in the room or the cleaner where putting things on her pillow, she could smell them... When she finally left she came to reception saying that all her new “friends” in the room were so nice helping her carry her bags out of the room to reception.... Desperate to be rid of her. Unfortunately she got her dates wrong and was actually checking out the day after so Tall one had to help her lug everything back much to the dismay of the other girls in the room. There was also the young girl who asked if she could have a hand with her things when she checked in. Tall one offered (thought generally they do not offer a bell hop service), but at the bottom of the stairs she got all independent and said she’d carry her own suitcase and that he could just carry the small linen pack he’d given her at reception.... ridiculous.
Tall one also received his new UK passport, after a long form to fill in and some $250 USD going to Washington then London – he got a nice new shiny passport complete with some nice watercolours of English rivers and bridges??? Though most of the guests seem to think he’s Australian, making a big point to say smugly “you’re a long way from down under aren’t you!” Tall one is confused, “what do you mean?”, “your Australian aren’t you, nice country”.... “I’m from England”. Why people feel the need to guess people’s nationality is beyond me.
At least with the new staff at the hostel Tall one was able to get every Saturday off for the last month, so he had at least one whole day off with the small one. Been doing a few more interesting things with the extra time. Went over to Toronto Island to see the colours of the Fall, quite nice, quite cold. Headed down to the Distillery District which was a very nice area, old cobbled streets and old brewery buildings all stuffed with very expensive arty shops and disappointing hot chocolates. Sat outside and had a $5 fried breakfast, it was in fairness a bit too cold and windy to be eating outside, even the bacon blew away. Another Saturday headed up to Kensington Markets, not been there since Matt left for Melbourne. Had a Panini with cold chips and cold tea in a very slow moving cafe – a man sat behind us was making phone calls asking a girl called Suzie to blow out his candles??
Tall one headed out to the strange, dank Rainbow Cinema near St Lawrence Market to see the pretty boring movie J. Edgar. The most entertaining part was the audience, with one old man sat at the end of the row shouting at a poor couple to “TURN OFF THE MOBILE PHONE!!” before the trailers had even started. An old Canadian couple in front of all one rabbited through the start of the film about if they should put up Martin’s rent or not, and “I think we should put it up to the maximum aloud I think it’s 3%.... ooh look at that man over there he looks like Martin”. Then another old overweight man a few seats up from Tall one fell asleep, head lulled back and loud snores began. The audience pounced on him, including the landlady thinking about Martins rent. They said very angrily “If you cannot stay awake I suggest you leave!” and then tried to recover more politely (they are Canadian after all) “please, if that’s okay....thank you”. He did it again 45 minutes later and was pounced on again in the same half aggressive half over polite manner. Finally when the movie was over and the credits had been on for a couple of minutes, Tall one stood up and waited for the sleepy old man to move so he could get the hell out, when a woman piped up frustrated a few rows back “could you sit down please i’m trying to read!!”. Tall one looked at the little frustrated woman and back at the credits rolling on the screen, and just raised his eyebrows and continued to wait.
Tall and small also met up for a few drinks with friends (a rare occasion nowadays). It turned out that an Irish couple, Pat and Maude had been checked into tall one’s hostel. The day before they were due to leave to start work in the Blue Moutains ski resort, they went out for a few drinks in a very large and very empty Irish type bar round the corner. Served by a man with one of those dodgy, boring Movember tashes. Even though the four of them brought a round of drinks each, each paid with $40 for the $29 round, the bar man insisted on giving them each back 1 five dollar note and one pile of $1 coins in change... this ruse was done by most of the bars – even if you could easily have a note back, they wanted to give you change so you’d be more likely to tip. So all four of us by the end of the night were sat there with identical piles of change and one five dollar note... suffice to say we left him about 1.25 in change between us.
Monday 26th September – Thursday 27th October 2011
Well, getting lazy with the blog. A whole month to summarize... it’s gone very quickly.
The mice have sent in reinforcements, the problem continues despite the pink sherbet like rat poison, the black plastic tube trap, the glass topped box trap, the victor classic mouse traps and the electronic sonic mouse annoyers. We did get one with the poison a while back though, but have only seen the odd sign or foot prints in the poison since then. Also have to fight against the black squirrels and the hungry raccoons trying tog et into our window via the extractor fan outlet.
In other news Tall one has been offending some previous work colleagues across the globe. Having sent a postcard back to Maidstone, UK joking making reference to the fact that there is probably no one there who remembers him what with all the recession cut backs – he received an email from one of the office workers to tell him that everybody is very upset there as half have been made redundant and the other half demoted.... ooops. The other offense being to the dear old (previous) owner of the Corkman, who was loving illustrated in a sketch book by Tall one (who depicted a scene from each major stop from the last few years in black marker drawings). Small one had uploaded the sketch book collection to facebook, and received a comment from the owner that we should watch what we say (or draw as it were – as the sketch depicted the outside of the hostel/pub with various characters hanging out windows while the owner was speeding away with a truck full of money)...oops.
In other general news, small one got a haircut from a lunatic in the east of the city. This huge monster of a woman kept hocking bag her greenies as she chopped his hair to ribbons, being told some helpful pointers by the sharper looking hairdresser next to her (who had cut about 3 peoples hair in the time small one had his butchered). It was salvaged enough by the end to look respectful enough. Small had also enjoyed a big night out, alone in the flat last week. This consisted of him drinking a box of Canadian beer while speaking to his friends back home via laptop. Tall one had to come home from work and put out a lot of recycling that night.
The City is in it’s usual form. The winter is definitely setting in, the heater has been in once or twice, and the gloves are out. Dundas square is swarming with starling erching on the giant tv monitors, though the weirdos have still not left. Last week tall one walked through the square on his way to work, first passing a man dressed like a beaver towing behind him a small childs trailer filled with rubbish while sticking his finger up at tourists the other side of the street. On the corner of the square outside Sears and the Eaten shopping centre a man with a microphone spouted out how the end was coming, next to a group of black men holding up banners on the future of the white man will be as slaves for black men, next to a very tall man dressed as spock charging to have photos taken by tourists, next to a man who was dressed like Elvis but painted silver??? Maybe the first man was right, the world is coming to an end?
Small one as supervisor is going strong in the food court, which is going badly. Working weekdays only the weekends are a mess down there when he is off. He has been given a pay rise up to $17, which is a come up from minimum wage at $10. The food court is losing money left right and centre. Having pitched too low with their costs and staffing in their original projections, they did not realized how much work was involved in running an “organic friendly” food court (using all china plates). Even the stock orders for each vendor is taking way over their estimates to fill (for example one vendor orders 1,000 trays – these have to be counted in the kitchen, taken over on the trolley which only takes 100 at a time) and that’s before moving onto the plates, cutlery etc just for one vendor. Small one has been asked to cut the staff basically in half with near enough the same work being done which is impossible. He’s friend over a dozen people in the last week, and each morning tells tall one how many have to go that day. One fella he fired took it badly and went to his union to get his job back – this was despite the fact that he was still within his probation period and he hadn’t even started with the Union yet. He complained that small one had been “harassing” him and even called him a “penguin”. Infact small one had called him a scarecrow (easy to confuse the two) because of his untidy appearance. It may be going to court, but the fella had signed a contract agreeing to the probation period and the rights of the employer to get rid of him for being a rubbish scarecrow.
Last night (Wed 26th Oct) small one arranged his own staff night out. He took some of the staff to the Imperial Pub for a couple of beers. The only ones that came along in the end were the Filipinos, with barely any English. Half of them hadn’t even brought any money with them. Small one spent $35 on the first round, and then after an hour he noticed how they all had only one mouthful left they’d been nursing for a very long time. This was because they knew the first to finish would have to buy the next round. In the end small one finished and brought a second round for another $35. After that he brought only his own. On his way home after midnight one of the Filipino girls text him to say that she “liked him”. His response was “don’t be late for work tomorrow”. He’ll probably have to fire her before the week is out anyway.
Meanwhile, compared to small one arranging his staff get togethers - tall one does his best to get otu of them. There was one due today (Thursday 27 Oct) but he’s just cowardly sent an email to say he can’t make it. The thought of traipsing across town on his day off, to look at the people he’s got a day off from in a Chinese Restaurant just sounds too painful. He has been kinda promoted to an assistant manager on Sundays – this is mostly because the Irish girl gets to pissed the night before and rolls in an hour or two late on any day shift. They are interviewing for some new staff, one of which is a girl staying at the hostel who came up a few nights ago and said she needed a taxi to the TIFF cinema. Tall one told her it was literally a few minutes walk away, she insisted saying she was “going to a movie premiere”.... tall one thought that would explain why she looked like mutton dressed like lamb – he could not however see how this kinda person would work in a job lugging new bedding around and checking toilets in a hostel between premieres??
Plently of other lunatics checking in (or trying to). One homeless fella came in asking for a room and was even dragging behind him a huge cardboard sign with some begging jibberish on, he was turned away, despite being quite friendly. Usually when they are that rough tall one sends them up to Pembroke Street where he lives, as they’ll take anybody. Still having hundreds of Irish checking in, one was a pretty simple fella who came down a few times asking about how the lockers in the rooms work. Tall one explained you just put your own padlock onto the locker so just find a free one. He then came back down and asked what the combination for the padlock was on the locker.... tall one told him that that was probably somebody else padlock and locker and that he needs to find an empty one to use...
A few middle aged Indian men at the moment too, one of which accused Tall one of black mailing him yesterday. A very strange exchange where he’d booked to arrive Tuesday, but turned up Wednesday 7am, but of course was still charged for Tuesday night.... he winged and grumbled and complained and would not go away so Tall one told him if he was still that unhappy that he’d give him a refund on his remaining nights so he could find another hostel, his response was that that was blackmail. Tall one was perturbed by this and said “Blackmail? I don’t see how that works, i’m offering to give you a refund?”. He went away looking just as confused, but then came back half an hour later happy as Larry to extend his stay??
Generally speaking the job is going well. It’s just a long long walk. The role is a little tedious a times, when your trying to count the till at the start of a shift and you have non stop moronic phone calls with moronic questions in very bad English “hello?..... hello?.... yes, can you tell me what is a dorm, what does this mean?”. Mind you some of the staff can be just as hard work. They leave all manner of their personal junk clogging up reception as well, the other day on tall one’s desk was left a box of tampons and an un-eaten kinder egg (they’d just taken the toy out??). Blonde Vera had run the pub crawl a week ago with disastrous effects, she turned up over an hour late and then didn’t leave for another hour.... taking along her miserable Ozzy Osbourne partner who pissed everyone off by stealing their beers, and for some reason Vera was dressed in a Halloween cape and fish net stockings.... Tall one shivered with fear. The owner is a nice fella, but does bumble in and make some awkward conversation with staff sometimes, including his story about how he’d just went to buy some black duck tape from a hardware store, and when he asked the clerk for BLACK duck tape he realized the clerk was a black man and so fumbled over his words as he didn’t want to offend him for using the word black??
Walking home at 2am is a strange experience in Toronto. It’s now got pretty cold at night as well, so the raccoons are out amongst the sleeping tramps trying to beg for food of them. Dundas Square is deserted at that time, but they insist on still keeping the fountain display going. Down on Dundas Street by George are the same local beggars. The woman who had threatened to put a bullet in tall one’s head asked for some change. Tall one had a one dollar coin on him and gave it to her, she took it and her response was “don’t you have $5?.... $5??”. Tall one apologized to her for not having more money and kept walking, to then be accostered by a big black man asking for change. Tall one apologised again and kept walking to have some skinny black fella shout across to him if he wanted to buy sunglasses.... this was 2am, winter and pitch black. Tall one apologised again and said no thank you and wondered how many more tramps he’d have to apologize to that night.
