Trip to Leaf-City

Toronto

No blog last week because nothing really happened except mid-term exams. This weekend me and a group of Aussies + a Frenchman went to Toronto to explore the city and try the Halloween nightlife. 

We arrived in Toronto the night after Drake played there and I was going to call it Drake-city not Leaf city but then I just kept on living.

As per usual the photos will dominate this blog.

Rogers Centre and the CN tower as we drove into downtown Toronto

We got a bit merry at the local bar alongside some students from the University of Indianapolis who shared their women amongst themselves very liberal manner  

Went exploring the main streets- rainy as you can see

Went to the canadian Hockey Museum

Saw a shit-tonne of pucks

Saw Boston reppin' alongside sid the kid

Here's a puck for every goal the great one  (WG) scored and his helmet, gloves and stick

Met Stan- Tom was nice enough to keep the shot dark so you can't see the excitement in my pants

Here's the group up the CN tower- (From left) Liv, Tom, me, Emma, Gabbie and Sarah. 

We ate in a restaurant that displayed the entire city- this is the view of the airport  where I first arrived in Toronto

And here is the view from that same airport (different day) looking up at the CN tower

If you ever go to Toronto make sure you get to the Distillery district- its all vintage buildings and niche stores

Heres the bar across the road from the Air Canada Centre where the leafs were playing- this place was my dream home

Here's Emma and Special-T before we went the Government nightclub
*look closely at Special

It was a sweat fest in the club- Lego man was repping in one of the 6 rooms

People take their costumes seriously here.
Still scary to look at and there were about 6 of these zombies

Sorry for the weak blog- I have no real excuse for the absent quips and content. My life is back in NBA>life mode.

Going to Montreal this weekend so will get more photos and sack up with some chat.

Yeah I'm a sell out and rep in all cities.

Thanks for stopping by

Thanksgiving/Oktoberfest weekend

 This previous weekend I went to Waterloo which is about an hour north of my town to celebrate Thanksgiving and Oktoberfest (the 2nd largest festival behind Munich) with three other mates. Without further adieu:

This far south in Canada is very flat with a lot of farmland and corn fields

The family that hosted us lived in a beautiful neighbourhood already decked out with Halloween props

Being a North American household they naturally had a big pick up

We actually got to this bar before it opened but they had a nice selection of beer mugs. We found another bar where we started Oktoberfest the traditional way [in Waterloo]: with pitchers of pumpkin ale

Being a family-oriented celebration (theme alert) there was a multitude of daytime events. This was the keg race

There was a strongman competition in the middle of the street?

Some Andrew Wylie size mofo's all over the street

We found our way to the day-time tent

The classic Transylvanian pipe band

A very interesting man selling German hats and memorabilia*

*I'm thinking of starting a 'Legends of Canada' picture for each blog; I have a few pictures of people straight out of Grand Theft Auto

The beer and schnitzel/pretzels contiuned 

We stumbled past another rival called Laurier University

And spent the afternoon at this bar. You can see the net for the beach volleyball court at the back- great way to sobre up before a big night

So that was the day- spent drinking pumpkin ale and beer, eating German snacks and looking around the town. On to the night

Tyler and Neill representing German culture much better than Tom and I. No one told me I looked like Bruno Mars' queer counterpart

We stayed at the pre's a little too long and were met with a line at the main Oktoberfest tent

Naturally the 'tent' we were in was an ice hockey rink. You're never far from Canadian culture

Family event- people of all ages join in on the chicken dance and other ageless classics

Next to us was a grandmother with her sons, daughters and grandchildren

Saw this guy on my way out- his handshake crushed my hand so I can only presume he's a regular of either tug-o-war or some Bavarian finger pulling**

**http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3EKiBIRUy0

 With a long day of walking, consuming, volleyball, German jigging and eating under our belt we decided to head back from the tent and call it a night. What should have been a simple taxi home turned into two girls following our host back to his house in the middle of the night, waking up the entire family and making  themselves at home at the dining table.

Honestly if the family that had us stay weren't so nice/Canadian they would have told these broads to f*** off and taxi home but they let them use the bathroom and tried to politely usher them out.

Here you can see one of the girls (who couldn't talk) sitting on a chair against the wall. In the background is Rachel who had woken up to come see what her brother brought home, Lynn humouring the drunken girls and Tom having the time of his life

Here Neill (whose house we were at) decided to have some fun with it and engage in responsible conversation with the gal.
In the end Neills parents drove the girls home who were convinced they were supposed to be at a frat house

That was Oktoberfest done and dusted; as good as you could imagine it would be

The next day we thought we were going to be heading back to London quite early but due to unforeseen headaches and unavoidable sleep deprivation we all woke up later than expected and were invited to stay for thanksgiving dinner that evening***

***we were told that we agreed to this when we came home from the oktoberfest tent but can't confirm or deny this allegation

We spent that afternoon testing our the local course and returned home to a steak dinner

This is what was in the garage; what I can only imagine is a staple of every Canadian household

Special thanks goes out to Neill and the McCaffrey family for taking us into their beautiful home and looking after us this weekend.

For more frequent updates on and essential life information follow my twitter at https://twitter.com/JLCassells
For even better essential life information follow https://twitter.com/mattsoundy

Next on the agenda is Halloween and a trip to Michigan to watch a football stadiums which holds 100k fans.

Louis Cassells [signing off] You stay classy, Planet Earth

Hoco

Homecoming; the first of two perennial big [party] weekends at Western University

Hoco was the weekend before last. I was warned by my room-mates (and can now confirm) that it was the last drinking weekend before midterms and really cracking into midterm study so naturally we drank for the three nights preceding the event. Don't worry, this is the only paragraph in Mustang purple.

Homecoming itself, as far as I can tell, is the weekend in which current Western Ontario University students of all years and alumni, from the Ontario region to as far away as BC, convene in this beautiful 'forest city' called London to celebrate. Formally the main event is the football game which pits the Western Mustangs against the rival Queens university (the degree of hatred towards Queens varies with some people I spoke to not minding them and others saying 'there best not be any f***ing Queens colours on Broughdale*.

In simple terms the people at Queens (Montreal) believe Western students are spoilt, slutty snobs from Toronto and Western students feel Queens kids are, and I quote "pretentious dicks"**.

*Broughdale is akin to Hyde Street. I'll get to this
**Quote from Quin Wade- I woke him from a nap so this may not reflect his true intention

Time to let the photos speak:

This is on the walk to Broughdale St. We walked from our apartment through a park and slowly started seeing the first signs of the purple tide (it's not called that but Alabama has the Crimson Tide and I thought I'd try it***)
***Point is there was a lot of people in purple

First kegger sighting

Broughdale St looking into the growing crowd. This was about 10:30 am (I like to think that was a precautionary ambulance...)

That house was in the midst of having it's kegs removed. Apparently the police and security took all the kegs, the cash the tenants had with them (so they couldnt pay to join another kegger) and slapped a hefty fine on them. Still 10:30am

Pohpohohno. Probably checking his fantasy football line up

The backyard of one of the keggers. Each house on Broughdale seemed to have a kegger

Another backyard. Just silly busy

Jess, Quin, Kayla of the aptly named 'Babe Cave' (not talking about Quin)

Met an Aussie bloke also on exchange here and Katie

Anze Kopitar getting a $125 ticket for having an open vessel on the road. If you were on the lawn 2m to the left you were fine. There were police everywhere and most were good natured.

Why is there a photo from inside a house during a Street Keg event?

Oh, it's so some more of the BC girls could twerk in there
Yeah, Canada's alright 

Back to the Street

This was a very nice lass, so kind that she swapped glasses and completed a wager. 

The view from the end of Broughdale

So by about 3pm the Street cleared out and everyone went home to rest, get some kai and get ready for a big Saturday night. No surprises who showed up for this weekend:

None other than Mr Western himself; the man to whom I owe this adventure (I pikie'd out shortly after this)

Thanks for stopping by the blog again. I've got mid terms this week but am going to Kitchener/Waterloo for the second largest Oktoberfest in the world in the weekend so this space should fill up again

Oh and Western won the football who anyone who cares****
****blue,red,yellow are the colours of Queens.