Adventures part 3

Having indulged in this childish pleasure (I was happy & not hurting anyone so I enjoyed it) I decided to eat. What about the Hard Rock Cafe? I have now decided on a secondary mission to visit all I come across. [I can tick off London, Sharm El Sheikh and Toronto.] This was an excellent choice as, after being seated, the first thing played was Led Zeppelin’s Travelling Riverside Blues. As usual I looked around – always worth doing – and low & behold; Geddy Lee’s bass hanging on the wall. [Non-Rush fans: do more research Geddy Lee is the bassist in Rush – big clue in the “bass guitar” reference.] Photographic record for anyone who is interested – if you’re not: tough this is my indulgence after all; I am just sharing my experiences and delight.
Well, having consumed a meal & a beer and grafted the second dick on to the dog – I was made up. Had a lovely leisurely stroll back towards the hostel taking some pictures on the way and picked up a coffee to go on the way. (See I’m learning the language slowly – to be correct I should say “I got a coffee to go”, one must remember to ask “can I get?” not “can I have?” – it confuses the locals.)

Got back to the hostel & settled down with my coffee & laptop to write this up. I had to pause when my battery went flat (on the laptop) as I hadn’t bothered to plug it in. This was the cue for Will to come & introduce himself. He is an American from Baltimore & here on vacation for a few days. We talked and I didn’t upset him – possibly because he is one of the 2% of US passport holders who actually use them to go to other countries – or even know other countries exist! He also knew there is a Channel Tunnel. This was interrupted by the gorgeous Aida (apologies if the spelling is incorrect) who was recruiting people for a pub crawl later. Duly signed up I went off to shower & change.
The group of us that assembled consisted of 1 Austrian, 1 Swiss, 3 Canadians, 4 Brits, 2 Aussies & 3 Americans – one of whom turned out to be a complete arsehole, so I suppose a 1 in 3 ratio isn’t too bad. Aside from Will, I spent a lot of time talking to Steve, an older American guy who was into Hendrix, Zeppelin & ELP – so there are some human ones out there! The couple from Nottingham (Richard & Nicky) had friends in Pig City (Basildon) and were familiar with Bas-Vegas – o how small the world can be at times. Anthea, a darling little lady from Perth refused my offer of marriage for money in exchange for a residency visa, but she did consider it and asked if she could “still play around”. It was all very good natured, humorous and I had a lot of laughs.

I quietly crept off about 2:00am and wandered back to the hostel. I was not staggering drunk but would definitely have not driven any sort of vehicle.

Having got back to my dorm I crept in quietly only to be greeted with a cheery hello from Clement, a young French guy who was over here to attend Toronto University to learn English – although his English is far better than my French will ever be! North West Airlines had very considerately transported him to Toronto and sent his luggage for its own holiday in Detroit!
After some sleep & over breakfast I offered to help him follow up on the repatriation of his luggage via an automated telephone service. Having drawn a blank on that one – it all failed when we got to the request to enter the last four digits of the telephone number on his claim form. As he hadn’t supplied one, because he didn’t have one to supply, we had to abandon that and resort to the website. I stopped him wasting $3 on the internet connection via the hostel’s computers and got my laptop. Apparently it should be back in Toronto by noon and will be delivered to the hostel by NWA – the least they could do for losing it!

Having done that I thought I would write this up & post it before going to the CN Tower – the tallest unsupported structure in the world. I also hope to find out how that is when I visit it. I probably won’t jump up & down on the glass floor in case I disturb its unsupported nature. This has also been a useful delay as the cloud which was hanging around this morning has now gone leaving clear blue skies – I am almost tempted to say “as usual”.
Well we shall see what Spank thinks of heights and I’ll let you know how impressed he was with the tower.

More to follow...