Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Sat 28 Feb 2009
Tip of the day: Toronto deserves more than a 18 hour stop over.
Bustling with high rise residential development, the Toronto skyline is on the move despite the crisis. I had been in Toronto for just two hours 10 days before, and she definitely deserved a bigger chance than I had previously given her.

Couchsurfing.com had supplied somewhere to stay. Suhail from Jordon had a stack of references that you could not climb over. At the night, I would catch up with Shannon, fellow IC applicant our hopes of six months living on Hamilton Island had recently been trashed and would have the chance to commiserate together.

With explicit instructions I soon found my way to Suhail, feeling immediately welcome in his house with hot tea and WIFI internet. His two bed apartment was quite new and featured a view to other quite new apartments. Working in social services, he quite liked his job, working troubled with immigrants to assist their settling. How nice were Canadians to immigrants it seemed and I wondered about how our Australian services equated.

With less than 24 hours on the ground in Toronto I was soon on board a rent by the hour car with Suhail and friend Annie, a professional photographer. We headed to an arabic food stop, Paramount, where they purchased banquet sized amounts of tucker for a small celebration that night.  Paramount was a dine in / take out spot in a lightly industrial part of town. The Garmin GPS chick spelt out the directions in a dead pan tone. Our constant chatter creating a fun environment for Suhail to eventually take a wrong turn, with plastic lady announcing his failed mission with a deadpan, slightly condescending "recalculating". Suhail responded well to the sarcastic comments from passenger and rear seat, deflecting fault to in-car annoyances, he sought his reprise.

Inside Paramount there was a feast of sight, sound and smell. The bustling cafeteria style set up, had genuine pastries, kebabs and cooked breads on display to delight the tummy worms, the smells like a small corner of some Persian Gulf shore eatery. Folk in various types of western and traditional dress noshed about their dinner in languages that I had no chance of understanding. I tried pushing some Canadian greens on my hosts with out success. Apparently I was on the edge of insulting according to their culture...

Evening
Another defining characteristic of Suhail was his set of friends. Ranging from homosexual, beautiful Annie, cousin complete with husband child. It was wonderful to meet them all. I was soon truly part of the jokes drawing on my Aussie larakin reserves to give cheek to the overly friendly fellas, much to the mirth of those otherwise present. Quipping that about whether I should be concerned or glad that I had never been "hit on" by a gay, I was immediately in receipt of offers. Check that box - move on.

Now at street level, I made my way to a subway rendezvous with Shannon and friends and shortly there after we landed in the "Unicorn". Pub, Bar, club or all three, the blonde lead, covers band banged out something classically rock. Shannon's work colleagues were travelers as well.  Shannon talks more than me… and for those who know me will appreciate that must be a LOT! Very entertaining, Shannon had spent a sizeable amount of her Australian time working in a gulf town. Her stories sourced from misadventure, being attacked by a camel in the outback, finding her way back to her hostel after sunset in the underground town of Cooper Peady and interface with border control agents. It was likely that her blonde locks and ever present smile had been the key to safe escape on every occasion. She might not agree, but she's not doing the typing.....

Too soon we had missed the last trains and resorted to the "vommit comet", the late night bus system. Just prior, the last trian realising had me asking my up the street to the nearest "kangaroo rank". Failing in my quest, we were soon on the bus where the driver took point to question what an Aussie was doing in Toronto in the middle of winter. Funnily, I could not really come up with a good short answer…. But I knew that my experience of the world was meeting people and jointly finding adventure in what ever form it took. "Connector" I would be classified in Tourism Queensland's market segmentation model. Couchsurfing.com and the best job in the world had today, provided the connections and great connections they where. On to Ottawa!