27th August, Toronto - Canada

When in Australia, I chose to stay at hotel Jenaway. Actually, there was no choice, I just lobbed in to my friend Rebekah’s house and never moved out for the best part of two months. Not only did Beck put up with me for two months, she did drank copious amounts of champagne with me, boogied with me dodgy disco music in the lounge room, ate out most nights and received the grand total of two home cooked meals from me over this whole time! Beck also pretty much single handedly organized our wedding for April next year. What a woman – she deserves a medal!!

So after two months in Perth, it was time to pack up and leave on the 12.15 am red eye on the 25th of August. Perth to Sydney, to Honolulu to Vancouver with final destination being Toronto landing at 7.30 pm on Saturday night. The flight was very long and very boring. The highlight of the trip was the fact I was sitting next to a 70 year old man as politically incorrect as myself. Upon leaving Honolulu, the steward came over the loudspeaker as we were taxing out and announced that it was the pilots final flight after 38 years, to which point I said to the 70 year old next to me “I hope he doesn’t stuff this one up” perhaps a little too loud judging my the dirty looks I was given. The plane also received a traditional welcome with two fire trucks spraying water on it as we taxied in to Vancouver.

Upon landing into Toronto, fairly exhausted at this time, I cleared immigration after some intensive questioning and went to my accommodation and straight to bed.

I woke up the next morning early and was on the internet working out what I would get up to for the day before Dan arrived the following day when a lady came in and asked if anyone was interested as appearing as an extra in a Bollywood film that was being shot around the corner. We would get paid and fed for our work. I thought, oh well when do you get the chance to appear in a movie, why not? So off I went. I was dressed up as an extra for a carnival scene with a car driving through it. Think Kylie Minogue – Showgirl with the head dress and bits and pieces and that’s what I wore. I’m not to sure how authentic we looked when the guy next to me had the same on but with a Metallica t-shirt. Oh well, it was fun and something different. I didn’t have the camera to take a photo but the below shows a little bit of the bling that I wore for the shoot. The movie is called "Lucky Charm" and judging from what I say, it looks like a load of crap. Do yourself a favour and give that one a miss!

I got back late in the day and crashed still feeling fairly jetlagged. The alarm was set for 5.15 am the next morning to head back to the airport to meet up with Dan after 56 days apart. A record for both of us. Dan saw an amazing sunrise on his flight from Saskatoon as the sun rose over Lake Huron.
We were both very jetlagged, particularly Dan from 51 days straight work and an all nighter flight, but of course, pretty pleased to see each other!!! We caught a cab into the city straight to the hotel, which of course, we hadn't bothered to book as usual until we were both at the Toronto Airport. Here's Dan on the phone.

We checked in at 9.30am and emerged around 2.00pm both feeling much better after some much needed sleep. We went for lunch, where Dan was hanging out for a beer after over a month with no beer. The first one went down like razor blades as it was also the first beverage of any sort for the day!
We wandered down to the Harbour front with the day being absolutely beautiful around 26 degrees. No fish in lake Ontario for Dan. We wandered through some of the art centre with glass blowing etc but both really didn't feel like doing a great deal today except for checking out the views of the CN Tower which we had intentions of going up but held up at the pub updating our blog and drinking again. We do have a terrific view of the CN Tower from our hotel room where it lights up in all different colours and looks rather spectacular considering its a very ugly looking concrete building in the day!

We had some great Italian in the evening and called it a night.