Happy Birthday Jamie xxx

So, I realise I haven't blogged in about 3 weeks and so much has happened! I have been so busy exploring and have had midterms PLUS the blog on top apparently doesn't add up HOWEVER...my best friend out here is turning 20! And that absolutely calls for a dedication blog post!
Everyone knows we've only known each other a short amount of time, 10 weeks now though!! CRAZY! But I already love this girl so much! It is such an amazing opportunity to be out here, and I am so happy I have you to share it with, Jamie.
Sorry, bit soppy!
Well we've done everything from cook to jump out a plane together which means there are far too many photos and I know its overkill but hey...TADAAAAAAA.....

As I've said, we've done a lot! Been up the CN Tower, went to Niagara Falls on a yellow school bus and went to the Hard Rock Cafe, jumped out a plane together and spent many an evening together gossiping and sipping on wine...


We also took a lil' trip to the Big Apple! I say little trip...we spent 12 hours cooped up on a coach next to each other....there and back! HAHA! Went up to Top of the Rock, top of the Empire State Building, saw a Broadway show, walked around Central Park in the sun, saw the Statue of Liberty, went to Madame Tussauds, visited Central Station and the New York Public Library where Carrie Bradshaw almost got married and so much more!

Also another day trip we took was to the aquarium, which was so much fun! We probably acted half our age, but still....so much fun!




 That time when we became avid Baseball fans for the last week of the season...GO BLUEJAYS <3

Thank you for being absolutely wonderful and literally making my time here in Canada incredible! Love you so much!

First Canada, then the World! xxxxx

Skydiving!

Why hello there!
So as of the start of the week I am officially on half term, although really I've been unwinding for about a week already!
As I am scarily already approaching the half way point of my adventure, Jamie and I randomly decided to do something....shall we say, a little crazy...

Skydiving.

I had never been much of a dare devil and never an adrenaline junkie, but being across the world on an adventure of a lifetime has definitely had an impact on me! This is not to say I intend to jump out of planes on a regular basis but the term 'yolo' has a whole new meaning! HA!!
So, the whole 'jumping out a plane at around 12,000ft' thing,..

Jamie and I rang up the company "Skydive Toronto ", which were, may I add, brilliant, midday last Friday and with Thomas on board, packed a bag hours later and headed up on the Go Train to Barrie, a city north of Toronto on a lovely lake called Lake Simcoe.
A 6am wake up call the next morning, a bus down to the Drop Zone and wayhay, we're signing our life away, promising not to sue should we die or something...gulp!

I was partnered with Alec, who I decided was my best friend for the day, him having my life in his hands and all...
We had a bit of training and were told Thomas and I would be up in the first little plane, and Jamie would follow in the next one. At first I was so disappointed I wouldn't get to go up with Jamie, I actually preferred it, she got to watch me and I got to watch her, whereas I had no idea what Thomas was doing, despite him being in the plane with me!!


So about this plane...the plane Thomas and I went up in was TINY and it was actually the worst bit of the entire jump! There were 6 people squashed into this small space, and with about 27 blooming layers on to keep warm, it was quite difficult to move around. The good thing about the little plane though is that I could see out every window and got an amazing view of Lake Simcoe going up and watched as we climbed higher and higher, through the clouds!

We were actually the first plane up of the day, so about half way up, Alec clipped himself to me and opened the door to throw, effectively a long piece of tissue paper out to see what the wind was doing, it was probably much more technical than that but who knows! I was sat right next to the open door! It was cold and windy and I just stared out at the ground below!

The climb to the top actually took around 30 minutes!! Much longer than I thought it would have done, but I had never really thought of it before, I was too focused on the jumping out of a plane bit!
The funny thing was, I was so calm! I didn't feel any nerves what so ever! I think it was a lot to do with the fact Alec really made me laugh, he looked after me, and put me at ease!
It was all a bit of a blur after that! I was clipped up, shuffled forward and pushed out an airplane...
I am so glad I got a video, I wasn't sure it was worth the extra cost at first, but it went so quickly and then it was over!  So now I get to re-watch it any time I want! The funny thing was, there was no G-Force, because you're jumping into the wind from a moving plane, you don't feel like you're falling at all! You just feel like you're floating and it's amazing! I think the jump is better told with pictures so here are a few..

One of the best things was that I actually got to pull ripcord!

 And here I am, back safely on the ground!

Thank you so much to Skydive Toronto and especially Alec, it was such an amazing experience and I will definitely be doing it again one day! For now though, I'm going to have a cozy night in with a cup of tea!

Bye for now,

Peace and Love

Briony x

Blue Jays and More

Apologies for how long it's been! Have you missed me?
Well I wish I had more to tell you, but I've been doing well and have had lots of work, so thanks Uni....
But I have done some exciting things too..
First I've booked to go to NYC in my Fall Reading Week, (just after Canada's Thanksgiving), organised by Ryerson's Student Union, so loads of us are going, and I've also booked to fly out and see Suzanne in NYC for America's Thanksgiving!! 2 THANKSGIVINGS! FOOD! CANNOT WAIT!
ahem..
So whilst I've got that to look forward to, what have I actually been doing with my time I hear you say, well..


I've now been to a Hard Rock Cafe, in Niagara whilst we were there a few weeks ago,

I finally tried poutine finally, after being told to do so every Canadian I met! It's basically cheesy chips with gravy, and sounds amazing!

....Unfortunately, mine wasn't, the gravy wasn't hot so the cheese hadn't melted, and the gravy wasn't mums gravy.....I miss mum's gravy!!! But anyway, bad experience or bad dish? Not sure, I'm a litlle scared to try it again..we shall see!


The pudding sure made up for it, I awkwardly had to ask for the giant brownie topped with cream, ice cream, walnuts and sprinkles, to just be topped with ice cream, but it was AMAZING, regret not having sprinkles though...










I've seen a Royal Canadian Mounted Police Officer....okay, so it was a statue... still counts though right? While I'm at it, I've seen a Royal Mounted Police Moose too....








I have visited Vaughan Mills, a huge outlet shopping center just North of Toronto and spent probably too much money..








Finally, and most excitingly for me, Jamie and I went to a Blue Jays Baseball game, and loved it so much, we went to another. So glad we did this because the season is over now, but I have Ice Hockey season to look forward to now! We're hopefully going to watch our university team play in the next few weeks, but I will keep you posted!

 Okay, so baseball. It's glorified rounders. No one can tell me otherwise. Sorry. But I loved it! Decked out in our Blue Jays Jersey's and free Blue Jays sunglasses, we watched on initially, regretting not researching the game and scoring a little but cheered and clapped when we were supposed to and quickly understood.



We were playing the Baltimore Orioles and we had quite a good view of the field, the big screen, and the CN Tower!

So as the game went on,  we were doing well.. Winning infact!! The game started at 7:07pm, so it went dark during the game and it was so pretty! You could see all the stars..














Only kidding, the picture you see above is actually of thousands of bugs being lit up by the floodlights!!! But you believed they were stars, didn't you!? Either way, it did look pretty with the backdrop of the CN Tower, and luckily, they were quite fond of those lights, so we weren't attacked at all!

So we had a pretty good game! We won 4 Runs to 2! We now felt like AVID baseball fans, totally, with our favorite obviously being number, 45 Dalton Pompey...yum, er, I mean, great skills.........

We enjoyed the game so much! But unfortunately it was the end of the season, they were only playing the next 2 days, and that was it til next April when season starts again....so we obviously went again!!!!

We had such an amazing time, this match was at 1:07pm, so was done by mid afternoon and with that we decided to celebrate the end of the season with some candy floss, or 'cotton candy' which made my tongue blue and had a lovely afternoon sat in the sun...

 ...Until this geezer came along and tooted his horn and scared the bejeezus out of me!! ...and then came round again....AND A THIRD TIME!
He made me jump every single time even though I knew it was coming and he drove past with such a smug look on his little face! ...After the third time I decided it was time to go home, and with that, no more baseball :(

End of the season and end of this post but so much exciting things in the pipeline that I cannot wait to tell you about!
















Bye for now,
Peace and Love
Briony x

Niagara Falls

Yesterday I got to go to Niagara Falls with the Ryerson International Exchange Committee, which meant loads of international and exchange students basically took a massive day trip. First things first, our transport, oh my gosh, we took a YELLOW SCHOOL BUS!! Not to brag or anything, but I've now been on a yellow school bus....


Yes, I am the coolest kid I know..


Anyway, the Falls! So, in hindsight, I knew very little about Niagara Falls, for instance, it's not just one giant waterfall. I now know, after a bit of research, that Niagara Falls is the collective name for three waterfalls; Horeshoe Falls, American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls....interesting, eh? Well with this perfect image in my mind and limited knowledge, Niagara was not what I expected. Unfortunately, even though the weather wasn't bad, it was quite overcast, meaning the landscape looked quite grey rather than the beautiful blues I had imagined (as you'll be able to see from some of the photos below) and if I'm being honest, it wasn't as big as I had imaged, oops.

Jamie looking FINE

Told you, fashion statement

Pushing this aside for a little bit, I was excited to go on the 'Hornblower' which is the boat that goes right up to the falls. We got given some red waterproof macs that were a real fashion statement and were allowed to board.

Whilst trying to juggle, taking photos without getting my camera wet, getting my hood to stay up in the wind, and avoiding getting spray in my face, I can't say that I really saw much on the boat, it was fun don't get me wrong, and I would definitely do it again but....at least I have the photos to remember it, that's all I'll say! Another thing, I was told by people the sound would be incredible...it wasn't. It wasn't quiet but again, I'd probably hyped it up, thinking it was deafening.

On the boat we saw people in yellow and blue macs on the other side actually getting to walk down the rocks by the falls as you can see from the picture and when I next visit the Falls I now know exactly what I want to do, I want to see the falls from the top, and possibly walk down beside them, and also see it at night because apparently it is lit up in beautiful colors and sometimes there are fireworks too, which would be incredible! I would also like to explore the actual town a bit more; it reminds me of a theme park with all these cartoon buildings with 4D cinemas and arcades and we really didn't get much time to explore that unfortunately.

Looking back at the photos, it is beautiful and it was amazing, but I definitely think the views from a higher perspective really do it more justice, up close it is just white spray! Either way I had an amazing day and cannot wait to go again with all my new knowledge...



...Avoiding the people that take photos with their iPad though!! Ahem, Thomas!

CN Tower

On Sunday I got to do my first really tourist-ey thing here in Toronto, visit and go up the CN Tower with my friends Thomas and Jamie! And rest assured, I did indeed act like a complete tourist! This post is mostly photos because they tell the story better than I can, I did actually take over 100 photos but I've only posted some of my favourites. The best thing about these photos is that none of them are photoshopped or edited at all, it is really just that beautiful!

This is the CN Tower from the ground and you can see from the other picture just what a BEAUTIFUL day it was! It was so blue, it was incredible!

Like a child I was mega excited and couldn't wait to get to the top, fortunately it only took around 58 seconds according to our lift guide person....I don't know what their official title is, but anyway, even the lift, actually sorry, "elevator", had a glass bottom so you could see the ground wiz away from you!

 And this was the view......

So then there was this glass floor whatsit, to put us at ease this sign was posted....good to know I guess, although I don't like the ominous 'How many of YOU can the Glass Floor hold?"....what are they trying to say! Anyway we did all get on, and it didn't crack thank you very much, it wasn't  the best view down, you could see the Aquarium (which is my next tourist place to visit hopefully later this week) but that was mostly it...

My fav picture of me and Jamie standing by the baby CN Tower just as "lightning" strikes it! Just like how I saw it in the middle of a thunderstorm a few nights previous, thanks to Thomas for his perfect timing.

Also me looking a little frightened on the glass floor and a great mirror shot of Thomas and Jamie on the floor too.

 

It was an amazing day and one thing ticked off my to do list, Rushed end to this post as I actually have a seminar, because I am technically here to study, whoops!

Bye for now,

Peace and Love

Briony x