Thursday, August 10, 2006

First day in Toronto (August 8th, 2006)

Hi everyone,

well, I'm finally once again in the city of Toronto where I spent my three years of high-school back in the years of 1995-1997.
Well, to make things short, Holly picked Nina and me at the airport on Tuesday the 8th of August. We went to her place and started to plan Nina's trip up North. That whole story is for another day to tell by another person. ;)

However, on the following day I woke up at 7am and went to a diner called "The Mars Diner". Here is a picture of what I ordered for breakfast (typical Canadian)


That was one of the best breakfast I have ever had! Keep in mind that I haven't been to Toronto in over six years now. So basically what I had was the "Grand Mars Slam" breakfast that included toast (with butter, which I forgot to ask to tell the waitress not to put on), scrambled eggs, bacon and potatoes. At the bottom I had two pancakes later on served with maple syrup! Mmmmmm....
The diner is a little bit up north from the intersection of Younge St. and Englington St.
This is what it looks like --->After that beautiful fat breakfast, I made my way to Davisville Station. My goal was to reach the "Davisville Health Club" which my best friend (like a brother to me) Alex Gray owns.
He also has a martial arts school at his health club (he is a kung fu master) and has been training kung fu over 20 years or so. In any case, I went to school with him back in high-school and we have always been in touch.
So this is Alex for you people --->

After hanging out with Alex most of the day [working at the front desk for him, then going for lunch with his lovely mom (she looks so much younger than what I remember!)] I headed downtown in order to meet with Noor. Noor is the wife of another of my best friends called Christopher (Chris for short). I am staying right now at their place at Eglinton East 960, Apt. 7.


Well, I met Noor yesterday for the very first time and I think she is a lovely woman and that Chris is a lucky man. This is Noor by the way:

And before I met Noor, I went to get a slice of pizza from "Pizza Pizza". Hadn't gone there in six years and I just had to have a slice. So I go in, order a combo slice and meet a Mexican woman called Angelica Guzman. We didn't know each other, but we talked as if we knew each other for the longest time. So that was really awesome. She is married to a Canadian and lives in Toronto. However, they might move down to Mexico. We shall see how that works out for them.
Well, to keep the story going on, I met her at her work at Bay St. 777 (right at College St. and Bay St.) and we went for coffee and she handed me her keys to the apartment.

So, after 15 min she went back to work unwillingly and then my bro Mike Guerra came over to see me at Tim Horton's (where we were drinking our coffee). Like Alex, Mike is a really cool guy, they trained together kung fu and are true killing machines with a good conscious (thank the Lord!). So I spent the next three hours (from 6-9pm) with Mike talking about our lives in these past six years and it was really nice to see that he has grown up a lot, matured and still a nice guy. Unforts, I didn't take a picture of him cuz I was just a bit too tired by then.
What was really cool from seeing him again is that we went to the gym where he works and we worked out for a bit doing some kicks and punches. That was a lot of fun. Oh, I also met his girlfriend Sofia, a lovely girl and I can see why he likes her. I promise I will put on my next post a picture of those two.

Well, after saying my good byes to Mike and Sofia, I met finally with my bro Andrew Robinson. He is the man why I came over to Toronto: he is getting married with the woman of his life, that is Ada. I haven't met Ada and I'm really excited on seeing her and getting to know her.
Well, Andrew lives close to Front and Spadina Street. So from downtown I took the subway (also known as the TTC) from King to Union Station and then took the 510 tram to Front and Spadina. When I got off and made my way to his place I saw a really nice view of the following:

So, Andrew and I met on the street cuz he came down from his apartment (which currently is a fine mess) and we exchanged a huge hug. He is like family (as well) to me and six years not seeing each other is a long time. So, instead of going first to his place we went to the burrito mini restaurant and got us two steak burritos and pop, then headed over to his place and just catched up a bit with our lives. I could write some details, but then again, nothing you guys want to know of.
In any case, I stayed a little bit until midnight and then went back to Chris's place. Got home around 1am and fell asleep around 2am.

So that's it for now. I have more pictures of today, Thursday the 10th of August, but I shall show them later.

Cheers to you all!

Hector S.