Very early in the morning on July 11th, Elinor, Andrew and I scoured airline websites trying to find me a cheap flight to Toronto. It looked pretty bleak there for a while - we couldn’t find anything. The cheapest flights ranged from $550 to $800 (yes, I said cheapest.). I went to bed unhappy that night and slept for a few hours, then got up and went to work. Mom called me at the Eptek at about 10:30 to inform me that she had called a travel agent and found me a flight! It cost $370 and left Moncton at 6:30 the next morning, so it would get me to the big city by 8:00 a.m. Toronto time. I excitedly e-mailed Elinor with the news and she began planning everything we’d do when I arrived. This article is... well, it’s everything we did when I arrived. It’s probably fairly disjointed and more interesting to me than to you, but here it is nonetheless. Enjoy.
Thursday, July 12
Mom, Michael, David and I got up at 3 this morning to drive to Moncton. My brothers couldn’t explain why they’d come along - after all, as Mike pointed out, it was the most pointless trip ever (“hmm, let’s get up at 3 a.m. to drive for two hours to an airport where nothing is even open, then turn around and come right back home”). Nevertheless, they did come for the drive, and we played Mike’s Green Day CDs at top volume and sang along all the way there. It was fun.
My flight was uneventful (and the “continental breakfast” sucked). I slept through most of it and talked to my seatmates the rest of the time. I arrived at the scary Toronto airport at 7:30 a.m. and walked for about two miles before I found a pay phone. Dude, that place is huge. I called Elinor to tell her I’d arrived, then went outside to find a cab to take me to her house in the Beaches. My cab driver was really nice - he moved to Toronto from India seven years ago and has been driving his cab for the last year and a half. He works from 4 a.m. to 1 a.m. almost every day and sleeps in the car when he’s not driving. He has a map of the entire city in his head and can tell you where pretty much any street is located. I thought that was cool.
After an hour’s drive, I arrived at Elinor’s house. It’s big and old and bluish-grey and it has a tower, and there are hardwood floors throughout. Elinor showed me around, but then she had to go to work, leaving me all alone in the big house. I wandered around, then played the piano for a while (I’d forgotten how to read music, so I found a beginner piano book and re-taught myself). Then I slept in Elinor’s room for a few hours.
Dude, that room is huge. It’s basically the entire third floor of her house. It’s four times the size of my bedroom, and my room’s not tiny. She has her own bathroom and two beds, which is cool.
I woke up around 7 p.m. and wandered downstairs. Elinor’s dad teased me for sleeping so late, and I watched the end of a Seinfeld episode with him and Elinor’s brother Corey. Then they went out to hit baseballs in the park, and I hung around until they and Elinor’s mom came home. Corey and I watched a Learning Channel special on gladiators as she cooked dinner.
Since Elinor was at her boss’s barbecue that evening, I had to eat a late dinner (spaghetti and meatballs, yum) with Elinor’s parents alone. I was a little nervous about that, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. Her dad told us all about his cases (he’s a divorce lawyer) and ranted about the injustice of Prince Edward Island having four senators. Elinor’s mom and I discussed everything from oceanography and gardening to music. The three of us also had a short philosophical discussion on whether it’s better to trust everyone or no one at all.
After dinner, Corey and I watched stars from the balcony until his bedtime, trying to decide whether the blinking dot to the left of the big tree was Venus or an airplane. Elinor came home around 11:30, and we registered for third-year university courses (we’ll have a couple classes together next year). She was exhausted after that, so we just talked briefly before going to bed.
Friday, July 13
Elinor had to work a half day today, so I once again had the house to myself. I ate a pizza pop for breakfast (no, it was not good), then fed birds and huge grey squirrels in the backyard. We only have tiny cute red squirrels on PEI, so I found the huge squirrels a lot more interesting than Elinor does (she refers to them as “ugly rats”).
We saw Legally Blonde at a big downtown theater this afternoon. It was a cute movie and we enjoyed it, although some parts were a little stupid, even for that type of film. Reese Witherspoon was great, though, and there were some really hilarious scenes.
After the movie, we walked to Union Station to meet Andrew. He looked the same as ever, albeit with shaggier hair. It was great to see him. The three of us immediately headed over to a restaurant/pub called Fionn MacCool’s for the Toronto Hissycon. We hadn’t seen or even spoken to any of the people we were supposed to meet (aside from on the actual messageboard), so we didn’t know what to expect. Luckily, a petite, pretty girl in a jean jacket recognized us from the description we’d provided and came over to lead us to the table, where a blonde girl was already waiting.
Once we were seated, Elly and I introduced ourselves as Mr. Smith and Cranberry, and Andrew told everyone that he was “The Boy” (or “El Nino,” which made us laugh). The brunette introduced herself as Brooke, or “Scout” on the Hissyfit boards, and the blonde turned out to be Mindy (Minda-lina). Justin and Scott (a.k.a. Jazman and Moebius) showed up a bit later, and we all got down to talking, eating and drinking beer. A lot of beer. Seven pitchers in total.
The Hissycon lasted for five hours, and I can’t remember everything we talked about (I was a little tipsy by the end of the evening). I do know that the subjects varied from Destiny’s Child and hot male celebrities to university and traveling to oral sex and Hissyfit trolls to why nice guys really do finish last. The Hissyfitters were funny and nice, and I liked all of them.
After the Hissycon, Elinor, Andrew and I headed back to Elinor’s house. Andrew planned to stay overnight, but was worried because Elinor’s parents wanted him to sleep downstairs on the couch, and Elinor and I didn’t see a problem with him sleeping in her bed. After all, I would be in a bed on the other side of the same room. Luckily, her family was fast asleep by the time we got to the house around 2 a.m., so we all snuck upstairs and got ready for bed. We hung out in Elinor’s big bed for a while, but we were all so sleepy that we kind of dozed off instead of talking, so I retired to my little bed for the rest of the night.
Saturday, July 14
Andrew left at 7:30 this morning, and Elly and I slept in until afternoon. Then we headed downtown to see crazy/beautiful. We enjoyed that movie a lot, too - it was a darker, smarter teen movie than most. It was a matinee, so our tickets were fairly inexpensive, but the food at the theater was certainly not. I bought a small 7-up there for a whopping $3.38. Can you believe that!? The chicken hotdog I bought from a street vendor was cheaper than that.
After the movie, we wandered around downtown for a while. We met a homeless man and his cute, shaggy little dog. When I asked the dog’s name, the man replied “Spare Change,” and that amused me so I gave them a twonie.
Elinor and I had raspberry-peach pie at Wanda’s Pie In The Sky, and Elinor showed me the Robarts Library, where she does most of her research for work. We walked some more and went to a few stores on College street, one of which was a cool little record place called Soundscapes. We ate at Utopia in little Italy, where they started out playing really good music but switched over to depressing trance halfway through our dinner. I bought a tiny good luck turtle in Chinatown, and then we caught the subway back to the beaches and had dessert at a place called Just Desserts, where the waitress referred to us as “those two chicks on the couch.” The strawberry shortcake there was really good.
Sunday, July 15
Toronto, unlike Prince Edward Island, has Sunday shopping. So today we shopped. We bought some jingly medicine balls for my mom in Chinatown, and we visited a pet shop there and convinced the woman who worked in it that we wanted to buy the little black kitten so she’d let us hold it. I wanted that little black kitten.
We walked around for a bit, and then Elinor took me to a lingerie store called Secrets From Your Sister to be fitted for a bra. It wasn’t as uncomfortable an experience as I’d imagined - it was more tedious than anything. I tried on about eight bras, and each time Elinor and the salesperson would come in to my dressing room and inspect me to see how each one looked and fit. Elinor and I decided on the second last one I tried, a basic black one that fit really nicely. It was expensive, so we both chipped in to buy it.
As we were walking down the street after purchasing the bra, Elinor told me that I’d made the right choice, as that one looked the best. I thanked her, but informed her that it didn’t really matter anyway. After all, no one else was going to see it.
“When we get back to school, we’ll find you a nice boy with a voyeuristic streak,” Elinor replied.
Suddenly, a long-haired man who’d been walking along in front of us spoke up. “Shouldn’t be hard to find,” he said. “We’re pretty much all like that.”
Elly and I really wanted creme brulee (we’d been craving it since Friday), so we headed over to the Royal Ontario Museum’s restaurant to get some. It was closed, though, and so was the next place we tried, so we gave up on the creme brulee and ate at Marche instead. It’s a really neat restaurant.
Our feet were sore and we were exhausted from walking all day, so we headed back to Elinor’s. I packed to go home and her dad drove us to the subway. We took that to Andrew’s house, where I met his parents, brother and little black cocker spaniel, Cujo. Andrew drove me to the airport, and although I really didn’t want to go home, I hugged Andrew and Elinor goodbye and got on the plane.
And that was my trip. I had a great time - the weather was beautiful, the city was busy and exciting, and it was so nice to see Elinor and Andrew again. I just wish I could have stayed longer.
