Canada's Wonderland with a hint of Halloween!

Let the Haunted Antics Begin

Halloween is arriving shortly and the Canadians sure know how to celebrate it! Last weekend we made a day trip to Canada's biggest theme park, Canada's Wonderland. Seriously the rides here were massive. As there were no queues, we more a less managed to go on every ride. As part of the ticked deal we got, we also got to attend the Fear Fest and a buffet! But before this happened, we first had to leave the park and re-enter in order for the park to open the haunted aspects! This is the moment i lost my phone for the second time in Canada, it must have fell out of my pocket on a ride! With luck someone in the park handed my phone to lost and found which made my day! Then i realised my keys went missing too! But thankfully they got handed in too with my phone! Moral of the story Canadians are really nice and i'm an idiot! As we all know for a fact that if this happened in England, it would of already have been sold on!

Getting ready for the view

Anyway, the Haunted aspect of the park was really good! after eating at the buffet we decided to go on the tallest roller-coaster in Canada, Behemoth! It did feel weird, as i just ate 5 plates of food! But it was good!!!! Then we hit the Haunted mazes and shows! The whole day was wicked, but the week ahead was going to be stressful as Mid-terms were approaching, as well as essay deadlines!

Bonjour and Merci Montreal!

Bixi Bike Ride around Montreal!

Once again i have not posted for a while! With the amount of work that has been going on, I seriously haven't even had time to eat, let alone sleep due to multiple essay deadlines and tests! Anyway, for Thanksgiving weekend, around 15 of us exchange peeps organised a trip to Montreal! Words can't describe how much fun we had! After a 6 hour coach trip from Toronto, we eventually arrived in the French speaking province of Quebec. It was so weird being in Canada and everyone talking in french, but it was a good to use the word "Merci" and for people to understand! Haha!! Of course, over 6 hours without a decent meal and only one apple to last you the whole journey, the first thing we did was to eat Montreal's speciality dish.  Can't really say it was exciting, as it was only melted cheese on top of chicken and chips, called 'Poutine', but it was niceeee!! Kind of like cheesy chips in England, but i'll pretty much hoover up any food that is in front of me. Anyway, you now know where cheesy chips originated from.

The next couple of days were filled with so much fun that I'm already reminiscing over good times. We were able to eat at a cool breakfast restaurant, where i had the nicest caramelised pear pancakes! There was practically a que of people outside waiting for tables to become free. After wondering around Montreal's various districts we ventured through parks as well as climbing up Mount Royal, where we was able to view over the entire city. Although the walk up killed, as we decided to take the more 'scenic route' which basically felt like a hike! And hiking in 25C+ weather was, lets just say 'an experience', but worth it! After spending the rest of the day wondering around Montreal's many attractions, the night ended with a meal and a Night out Montreal style!

Chinese Lantern Festival

The next day involved catching the metro (underground train system) to Montreal's Island where we rode bikes whilst appreciating the Montreal Skyline and good weather! The day then consisted of bike riding around the streets of montreal and visiting the Botanical Gardens, with close encounters with poisonous concussion causing plants and a bit of meditation in the Japanese gardens; well just sitting down and relaxing more like! The bike rides were really cool, as there are a number of stations around the city where you can rent a bike for $5 for 24 hours. All you have to do is make sure the bike is at a station every 30 minutes, which was fairly easy as the stations are everywhere. But one of the highlights of the day, was the visit to the Chinese lantern festival, which was wicked!! Overall the weekend was wicked and a definitely one of the many highlights of my  study abroad experience so far!

A common picturesque street in Montreal

Overall, good times all around!

Homecoming and Happy Nuit Blanche!

McMaster Marauders Vs Waterloo Warriors

Homecoming arrived and left with a Bang! After purchasing my homecoming ticket for $10 a couple of weeks ago,  I couldn't wait to finally experience it! After going to one game already, i kind of knew the drill, but Homecoming tends to be the main game! And that is the impression i got. One thing that still confuses me is the whole concept of Homecoming! After asking many Canadians "what is Homecoming?" no one could actually give me a clear answer. There has already been an opening game, so the players have already come to back Home (as in Uni). So looks like I'll have to Google it! Anyway the Game was great, free food, pictures with the mascot, McMaster University cheers, free inflatables, face paint and the atmosphere is what made Homecoming! Everyone went all out, wearing anything that represented McMaster University, so anything that said McMaster, had an Eagle and the colour Maroon! Early that morning i managed to buy myself a Marauders T-shirt to show some support! If you didn't have enough Maroon on you, then that's shameful! The whole event was pretty good, with many people having parties in the morning before the game had began and Homecoming breakfasts. Once we all arrived, we brought hot dogs during quarter breaks and watched the marching band do their stuff! Half way through the game a streaker starts running across the pitch and gets arrested by the police,  which was funny!! After winning the game McMaster 40 Vs 20 Waterloo, people went onto their house parties to celebrate!! Funny story is that Waterloo have not long just started playing Football again as they got suspended because their players were on steroids. Too surreal haha!!

Marauder's Mascot

Once Homecoming was over, it was time to hit Toronto! Every year Toronto holds a huge Festival with many pieces of art and technology located around the city. The cool thing about this festival was that it was on from 6pm to 6am the following morning! So you know what that means, time for an all nighter! A group of us decided to go and stop the whole night and return early morning on one of the first busses! So that is what we did! After setting out and arriving in Toronto, we grabbed something to eat (this is the moment i started to hiccup for 2 days solid) no joke!! We made our way around the different exhibitions all night long! But the best thing about Nuite Blanche (the name of the festival) was the moment when we were walking on a busy street and all of a sudden a truck pulls up with a Dj set on the back and strobe lights blaring out from the back onto a crowd of people raving. So obviously we all joined in and it ended up being wicked! haha i had to take a moment to think, 'Musty your in Toronto doing this on the street!' It was really Surreal! (ye i know i keep using that work but it seriously was haha

  

After walking around for so long, we came across some really cool arty things. For one we ended up in a bus that was a stimulator with images projected onto the windows inside the bus. It was cheesy humour, we also went into a museum with sculptures from the Maya culture (thats the one which predicted the world to end in 2012) as well as visiting a bollywood movie gallery. Overall we had a great night, along with free coffee and a free flask towards the end of the night at this random stand. As the daylight was approaching we decided to go and see if we can catch the sun rise over lake ontario so we all sat down and waited for the Sun to rise only to be disappointed with a sky full of clouds haha! but it was still cool! 

                      Hiding sun-rise over Lake Ontario                         Meal was the Bomb!                     

Once day light had come, we headed to the bus station to catch the 7:30am bus back Home. And then i practically slept the whole of Sunday! The weekend was one to be remembered! 

Me and Lucy @ Dundas Square

See you on the next post peeps!