Back to Toronto, my 2nd home

G’day all,
Sorry it’s been such a long time since my last update but I’ve just been having too much fun to get on with it. It’s been a great past week or two with non-stop fun and not a moment to ponder. After Morocco I caught the ferry back across to Spain and met up with Sean, Des, and Shane in Seville for one last night of partying together. I literally rocked up to Seville just before it got dark and met the guys at the hostel. They told me I had 10 minutes to get ready because we were heading off on a pub crawl so I didn’t have to for a shower or anything and headed like a feral. We had a pretty big night and drank a dangerous cocktail of various drinks included in the pub crawl. The following day I said my farewells to the guys and headed off alone to Lagos in Portugal. I knew I wanted to do some surfing in Portugal and Lagos had a nice ring to it so I blindly headed there with no expectations. Lagos is a small party town which I grew fond of the minute I stepped off the bus. There didn’t seem to be any Portuguese people in Lagos though as the whole town seemed to be run by young people from all over the world. I was met at the bus by a guy who took me to his hostel called the ‘3 Monkeys’ where I had a brilliant time. Within the first 20 minutes I was already booked onto a surf trip for the morning so I rested up for the big day ahead. Each morning I stayed there I had the biggest English breakfast and stuffed myself full before surfing. The surfing trip was more of a ‘learn to surf’ trip and everyone was pretty much surfing for their first time. I’ve grown up in the surf but have always body-boarded so surfing to me was fairly new too. Being the only Aussie on the bus, there were huge expectations on my shoulders to lead the way on the waves but I really had no idea either. We drove for almost an hour to the west coast of Portugal where we met some seriously nice waves and good weather. We surfed all day and by the end of the day I was starting to cut some moves on the waves and quickly booked myself onto the trip again for day 2. I had a great time surfing both days and can’t wait to get into it when I get back home now. I never really got to see much of the town of Lagos as surfing took up all my time but I had a little walk around just before catching the bus to Lisbon. I only spent one night in Lisbon and it seemed like a nice trendy little city but on Tuesday I flew off to London. It was nice to be back on a plane again but felt even nicer to be able to speak English for the first time in almost 3 months and be understood. People always say my accent is too strong and I end up finding myself trying to put on a bad American accent to get by sometimes. London was just a flyby visit to see my cousin Dave before flying off to Toronto, Canada on Wednesday. I was really excited to come back to Toronto as it feels like my second home and most of my best friends live here too. The weather was perfect when I arrived and I was met at the airport by one of my best mates Rob. My cousin Dan flew into Toronto a few days earlier and within a few hours we were all reunited at Rob’s new house drinking a few beers. Rob and Steve are my best two mates in Toronto and they recently moved about 5 houses away from each other in this really nice new area downtown. Dan and I have been in Toronto for the past week now staying with Rob and Steve and having a brilliant time catching up with all my footy mates each night with some quiet beers. On Thursday I showed Dan around town a bit, being my old home 2 years ago. We had a pretty casual day and went to the CN tower and soaked up the sun walking between the skyscrapers and china town. On Thursday night we went to footy training with my old team the “Central Blues” and found ourselves on the roster to play on Saturday. I couldn’t wait to play again and trained as hard as I could after no exercise in about 6 months. On Friday I wad so sore I could hardly walk and was wondering how I’m going to get through the game but after the warm up on Saturday I was good to go. It was a great feeling being re-united with my mates again and playing for my beloved Blues. We headed out to play a town called Guelph about 80km out of Toronto. On the drive out we traditionally listen to our pump up music as we cruised along the freeway to the game. The field was quiet rough and was layed in flowers and weeds and had a lethal looking cricket pitch waiting for us wanting to rip our knees up in the center of the field. We played really well in the first quarter and I got a nice hand pass off to Dan who kicked a goal and Rob kicked another. After that unfortunately we got goal after goal kicked against us and ended up losing by about 7 goals in the end. After the game we had a barbie and some beers before partying the night away downtown like the good old days. Dan and I planned to stay in Toronto for another week but after working out our plans decided we better leave for New York on Wednesday otherwise we will be behind schedule. The past few days I’ve been showing Dan around a bit more and we had a nice day down at the beaches in the sun. Last night we had some farewells drinks with Rob and Steve and today we head off to Niagara Falls then onto New York on a overnight bus from Buffalo. We had a really nice time in Toronto and thank Rob and Steve for having us but it’s time to move on. Next Stop….New York.

Woodsy