Ottawa, capital of Canada, located on the border of Ontario and Quebec. It was decided that it was to be the capital but Queen Victoria after she perused a map of the country, and worked out that of all the very few cities that Canada had at the time, Ottawa was the furthest from the United States border, and that if anyone was to be a threat, it was those pesky trigger happy yanks.

 

I was booked into the HI Hostel in the city, which was converted several years ago from a gaol, which performed hangings, into a hostel for travelling miscreants. Its apparently one of the most haunted buildings in North America, and runs nightly shows for guests and visitors which shows you some of the cells and hanging apparatus, as well as an overview of the history of its murky past, the riots, the decision to make it unisex, details of the executions and how it was deemed in the 70’s to be too unsanitary for prisoners, and so they reopened it as a hotel.

 

I spent the afternoon in the nearby market where I picked up a leather belt with interchangeable clasps, and had a bite to eat before returning to the hostel for the tour which was good fun, but not at all scary.

 

Riley and Aileen were in town, staying at one of Aileen’s friends, and I was due to meet up with them that evening outside the front of the Canadian parliament building where they host a light extravaganza. They wait until about 9 at night, the project lights, videos and patterns on the gothic architecture to music and stories about the birth of Canada. I got their early and set up camp on the grass, and was joined much later by Riley and Aileen, minus their friend who had gone on holiday / buried under her own patio. The pair got lost on their way over, and despite having a map took ages to find the centre of town. After the show, we all headed into the bar area of town where we enjoyed the surroundings (and alcohol) of 2 bars before calling it a night.

 

The next day we all met up again and I showed them around the hostel (at least the sections I had access to) where we saw dorm rooms which were still behind bars and the stairwell that had metal mesh between levels to stop people falling to their death, and the stairs which had holes drilled in so guards could see who was coming to shank them. We went for a walk around town, found the local mall, saw some of the changing of the guard outside parliament (which is just as dull, if not duller than the English version, yet still pulls in a huge crowd), and then went back to the house they were staying at with the owner under 3ft of concrete in the back yard.

 

That was (again) the last time I would see the couple before they returned to the UK, as I was scooting back to Toronto the next day, and they were continuing onto the far east of Canada to visit friends there and down to New York after that. We had said goodbyes several times before, so this one was a low key event as I jumped in a taxi and headed back to the gaol house.

 

The next day I returned to Toronto, where I spent the night chilling with old friends I had made in Toronto previously, and gathering all my possessions that I had squirreled away in different lockers throughout the building, for the day after I was to start the journey home and to civilisation.

 

The next morning I awoke early, pack my rucksack for the last time, used 10m of bubble wrap to securely fasten my long board skateboard to my mini travel guitar which has travelled so well throughout the year, and saddle up for the gruelling walk of getting to the shuttle bus for the airport run with my 30kg of much loved crap.

 

It’s a weird prospect going home. I have been on the road for so long, that there are so many things that you both look forward to, things to avoid, and things you totally forget about. I spent much of the time thinking about my house and its contents, whilst also not trying to think of them so that I could be pleasantly surprised by the familiar surroundings. I had booked my return flight to arrive at Heathrow on Saturday morning, full in the knowledge that mum and dad would have work, and holly was away in Spain, and was fully prepared to test my newly developed skills on the crumpled chaotic structure that is London Transport. I had passed through customs with no problems, finally managed to retrieve my wrapped up fragile items (the UK is the only place in the world I have found that puts both suitcases weighing 45KG on the same conveyer belt as priceless works of art, bone china and musical instruments. Imagine my joy when I found that out!). I spent a good few minutes saddling up, expecting my next stop to be the train station, and headed out to the dreary grey room of the arrivals lounge. As I joined the hussle and bussle of grotty travellers, there was a shrill cheer from my right, where I looked over and found 9 of my friends sitting by the rail all clambering to get out and greet me. I couldn’t run back inside the terminal, I was to heavy and slow and they were too fast. I received hugs from Annie, Lou, Elaine, Phil, Pete, Gump, Alice, Sonia and a very pregnant Jodie. They promptly then removed all my luggage, and took my upstairs to the 24hr Weatherspoons, where at 8am on that Saturday morning, they bought me my first pint of English ale of the year. And God have I missed British beer and chocolate, and the dreary weather, the small cars, real tea, and of course my friends and family.

 

During my first drink back, I was awarded a repatriation pack from the group, which consisted of all the items that I will have missed over the course of the year, this included; PG Tips, Tika Masala sauce, postcard with the royal family on, Walkers crisps, The Sun newspaper and of course, and umbrella.

 

Elaine kindly offered me a ride back to civilisation in her with some of the others, but I had to make a quick stop off at mum and dads work as I needed a key to the house. They, as usual on a Saturday, were very busy, and I managed to sneak up on mum and surprise her, and then headed off to find dad who was in one of the studios with his back turned to the door talking to one of the teachers, Lauren. I crept up as quietly as I could, making a ‘shhh’ sign with my finger and mouth to Lauren, who, as soon as she saw me, pushed dad out the way and gave me a big hug and scolded me for coming back to such miserable weather. After that I finally managed to catch up with dad briefly, found mum again, said I would be asleep when they got in, stole the key and got waved off my mum in the car park as I was driven home.

 

It’s a weird experience, going back to something that you have lived in for so long when you have been away from it for so much time. I went in, dropped the bags and thanked Elaine, and walked around the house I knew so well for 10mins re-exploring it and beaming like a very happy bunny. I was finally home, after 328 days on the road, and all the better for it. 

 

Montreal, in the Canadian province of Quebec. I had heard so many great tales of the French-Canadian city. Everyone told me that 5 days would be too short a time to stay there as there was so much to see and do. That was utter bollocks. Montreal, I’m afraid, is just like any normal city in France, and I found that I could explore it quite happily in 2-3 days.

 

I arrived late at night when the jazz festival was unwinding and everyone was going home, trundling about with 30KG on my back among thousands of people was not the best first impression I could have got. The hostel was ok, but no where near where the guide book said it was in relation to the bus terminal, which I must inform Lonely Planet, is not around the corner, but a mile and a half away uphill.

 

The next day I went for a skate, and as ever, it being a Sunday, everything was closed. I saw a few nice sites as I went through old Montreal and their cobbled streets, the dockland area which looks like it has been redeveloped and where I stopped off for what I thought was a potato and cheese crepe, but was shocked to find an apple and cheese pancake instead (my French truly does suck, and whilst everyone speaks both French and English, they pretty much only converse in French). I went past their version of the Notre Dam and right round the dockland area which has running and cycle lanes set up throughout the embankment (which I abused with my long board) until I found myself back at the Hostel. I went shopping for the rest of the day and found a cheap Dickies outlet, drank more coffee and went to see Pirates of the Caribbean again after a really nice Segfredo pizza.

 

The next day I went to the Biodome, which sadly didn’t resemble the one in the Paulie Shore movie, but was still packed with lots of wildlife, plants, caves of bats which flew around you as you passed through a tunnel, and hundreds of annoying children and their evil co-companions, they parents who felt that forcing their way through packed crowds with the aid of a pushchair was the way forward in life. After doing the whole exhibit twice in 2 hours, I headed over to see the Olympic stadium with its giant curved architecture, but couldn’t see much in the midday fog, so gave up and went back to the shops.

 

I decided to cut my losses at that point, give up on the dream of 5 days of life in a French city, and opted to pop over the border to Ontario to visit Riley and Aileen in the Capital of Canada, Ottawa.
 

 

Over the following weeks, I used Toronto as my main base of operations for my adventures in the east of Canada. Within the next few days I managed to see the Transformers Movie, Die Hard 4 and Harry Potter (in 3D at the IMAX). I went shopping in the main malls, ate in nice restaurants cafes and bars, went on another bar crawl on College Road, went to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM – which I though was a very poor use of $17 as most the exhibits were closed), saw a baseball game with our friend Jamie who we met in Fiji and caught up with Riley and Aileen after their journey over by Greyhound from Calgary when the arrived a few days after me. 

 

Toronto on a map looks quite small, well organised and easy to get around. This is far from true. It is a sprawling metropolis, which whilst easy to navigate, takes hours to get from A to B due to the sheer size of everything. They have several large malls, and they are links via an underground network starting at the central train station and ending 1 mile to the north east, after walking around 2 miles to get there. The whole thing takes around 3 hours (allowing for short stops in shops and the odd Tim Hortons coffee or Starbucks. By he end of the hike I felt like an honoury mole person, and protested to Riley and Aileen when they dragged me kicking and screaming into the un-airconditioned atmosphere of the real world.

 

It appears that the rest of Canada despises Toronto, and I can’t really work out why. I suspect it has to do with the large amount of money everyone makes in the commerce sector, or the laid back attitude lots had, but we didn’t really meet any rude locals, in fact it was the complete opposite. During a night out with some friends of Aileen’s they were all very kind to us, their friends were buying us drinks all evening, talking about the way Toronto works, the issues they have here and how it compares to London, and I do believe we even found the solution to fixing most the problems in Africa, now if only I could remember the contents of the conversation…

 

Overall Toronto is a really great city, as was the HI Hostel I stayed in and kept returning to after days away. One of the trips was to Niagara falls, where I was joined by Dan’s girlfriend Maureen as she needed to stop off and get her passport on the way. She used to work at the falls, and would have been a wonderful guide that wet and windy independence day. Sadly it was very hard to see much of the falls, but I can however report that the Canadian side is far more impressive than that belonging to the USA. The area around the falls is very tacky and cheap, reminding me of Blackpool. On the trip back we ended up at the passport office for quite some time, I wasn’t really surprised, having been to passport offices before, however, Maureen, 32, was in for a shock as she tried to grapple with the staff to obtain her first ever passport. 

 

After my arrival at the HI Toronto, I headed out to enjoy the festivities of Canada day. Its their national holiday, and supposed to be a big celebration on the scale of July 4^th in the USA, but just 3 days earlier on July the 1^st. It was my main reason for the horrendous bus journey from Calgary, if I had more time, I would have used it, but Canada Day waits for no man!

 

I was joined by Stefan, a German guy I had first met in Calgary, whose English is fairly broken, and is an electrical engineer back home, so at least we had something to talk about. We headed out and found the CN Tower. It is the tallest tower in the world, so long as you count the height of the antenna at the top, otherwise it is about 7^th. Being early in the morning there was no queue, however, the ride up costs a fair bit, and Stefan decided against the trip, so I went up on my own and enjoyed the panoramic views on my own with very few tourists. Amongst the few people there were a couple in which the woman was scared to death of heights, and wouldn’t even walk around inside away from the windows ‘just in case’. I had fun on the glass floor section, where you can look directly down to your death 300m below. To the south was lake Ontario, and even that high up it looks like an ocean, there isn’t even a hint of land on the other side.

 

After I returned back to sea level we walked along the water front and saw a stage being set up for jazz performances later that day, but we were still far too early. After a coffee, we found Yeong street, one of the main streets in the city, and discovered another stage with a surrounding market, and had a little explore. We stumbled upon an information booth and got directions to Queens Park, which we eventually found and they had live performances going on, along with bird shows (Eagles and stuff like that), kids entertainment and mini eateries. Soon after our stint of standing about in the warm sun, we found china town, which isn’t like most china town areas, as it is a neighbourhood, with no decoration, and simply loads of Chinese shops selling various products. This backs onto Kensington market, which I can only compare to London’s Camden. The shops are bizarre, varied and friendly, and flouts Toronto’s ban on Marijuana. It is readily available on the street, and there are cafes, which whilst not selling anything illicit, allow you to smoke in the garden with a drink or food. The lady in the shop pointed out to me that ‘if you’re sat around not doing anything in this neighbourhood, your defiantly doing something’. Everyone was a dealer. I sat in the garden of one café for a short time, and with it being lunchtime, the patio area was packed, and all around me the bloodshot eyes of that days patrons were looking eagerly towards the door for the possibility that the next tray of food out the door may be their source of munchies. I was very entertained to hear from one corner one guy announce ‘oh my god, they do ice creams, I have to get one of those, oy mate, how much was that, that looks really good’. Ahh stoners.

 I spent the rest of the day walking between the various stages in the city looking for entertainment until I could officially check in to the hostel at 4pm. Once their I had some dinner in the café, and awaited the ensuing bar crawl which took us to local bars, and allowed me to befriend other travellers in the likes of Dan, Maureen and Drew. That night was a very drunken one, and a good time was had by all, I’m still not entirely sure how I got home, and how I managed to find my way, but I thank the beer fairy for all her good work in keeping me safe. The bar crawl did mean that I missed the firework show at the docks, but I have seen fireworks before, my experience was far more fun. I highly recommend experiencing a Canada Day if you’re ever about for one.