Ecclesiastes 3:1 (KSV)**

     **-(Kemar Stevenson Version)

     Don't worry, it's not a sermon. I probably couldn't preach if my life depended on it. I can quote you the verse, however. It says:

         -"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens. A time to have fun, and a time to go back to work."

     This is actually my Thanksgiving post. No bombarding with pictures, no poor attempts at humour. This is me being thankful for quite a bit.
     Today was the end of my holiday in Canada. The most enjoyable 17 days of my life so far. There was so much to do, so much to see, so much to experience. Definitely a great trip. Now let me start my list.

     I am thankful to:

• The Almighty. 23 years of life and still going. My thanks.
• The Wilson men - Rob and Pablo - for opening their home to me and making me feel like family and a local. Very much appreciated.
• NSE for being a good sport and tolerating me in his space for so long.
• The part time residents for accepting me as part of the group.
• Canada! Oh my, I don't even know how to split this. The random people you would meet while grocery shopping, the extra friendly store clerks (special hi to the ones who were willing to jump into my suitcase when they heard I was coming back to Barbados!)
• My family, believe it or not. The support leading up to and during the trip was more than appreciated.
• My aunt Jane who is a WICKED cook! Invited me over to say hi and ended up feeding me a full "Sunday meal"!
• Those who would have checked in on me to make sure my trip was going well. An extra special mention to Femz and Brit because they kept me sane every day. A few others looked in ever so often and I say thank you to them as well!

• ...all of you. Every last one of you who read my blog updates. Even if you read and didn't like, if you read and just messaged me to say that you liked it, even the ones who read and shared. I wanna say thanks to you guys as well. When I originally thought of doing this, I tried to discourage myself because I honestly thought that only 4 people maximum would be reading it. It turned out to be quite a few more than 4, but I'm so grateful that you all allowed me to share this new experience with you. Maybe someone looking to head up to Toronto read it and they got useful information. Who knows?

     All I can say is that I hope you guys enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Sadly, as the title says, it's curtains on this adventure and time to head back to work tomorrow. 

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving, everyone!

Water, Water Everywhere..

Gotta love Canada...

     Your friends will make sure you're entertained while  you're staying with them on vacation. Your best friend will offer to take you sightseeing around Ontario. Only your brother will wait till you're in the car and seat belt fastened to tell you that it's a TWO HOUR DRIVE. Keeping in mind, I can leave my house in Kingsland, take the highway to River Bay, grab a bite in Moon Town and take the scenic route back home, all while maintaining the speed limit. Ah well, not much to do about it now. Time for my first Canadian road trip!

     Took us a bit of time to get out of Toronto, but once we got going the time flew. Can't have a road trip without music, right? Should have just played the music from my phone. If you thought Love 104.1 FM was bad, I swore the only songs we heard were "Royals" by Lorde, "Anything" by Hedley, "Roar" by Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus' "Wrecking Ball" (which I'm actually a fan of). It makes for good background noise, anyway. Nothing beats good conversation on these trips. Before I knew it, we were driving over Lake Ontario. Seriously, Canada. You guys could use a couple drops of bleach and a little Lysol in there. It looks and smells disgusting. I don't know how people can stand the odour. We picked up the speed and quickly passed over. Sadly, we still have to go back over it to get home. There was a brief moment where the car almost got picked up by a breeze. Not fun at all. Not nearly. By this time, we're deep in conversation and didn't even realise that we'd actually made it to Niagara. In less than two hours! Actually, less than an hour and a half. Colour me impressed! Time to park and walk around.

*queue "crisp, fresh" breeze*

     Or.. just a thought.. how about we stay in the car? That's nice as well. The worst part was that we were still some way off from the actual waterfall. Woah. There was quite a bit to see down here as well. 

     Let me just say that I can see myself owning one of these during my midlife crisis. Gonna start saving towards that from now, thanks. Besides, I couldn't resist taking the picture. The seat literally said "Have A Seat" and "Take A Picture"! Who am I to argue with Mr. Harley B. Davidson? You would do it as well. Kept on moving and saw a couple other stores and attempts at horror houses, but after last night I think I had my full share of that mess. We went and paid a visit to a guy who is apparently a big deal here in Niagara!

     Alright, alright, alright! Enough teasing! Time for the main attraction, eh? Let me just say first, if you're gonna go down there you wanna may look into wearing a couple extra jackets. Not a pleasant feeling. We were fairly far from the actual waterfall, yet could feel that air hitting fresh off the surface of the water. Mix that with a couple high winds and it's enough to make you wanna turn back and walk to the car. But we got this far, why turn back now? So I sucked it up and got a few shots standing "close" to the scenery.

Absolutely gorgeous. It's scenes like this that make me seriously taking up photography as a hobby. If not for the temperature, I would have spent some more time down here. It is quite a relaxing sight. We inched closer and closer up to get better shots and to get closer to the actual water. Eventually it got too cold for my Caribbean skin and we called it a day. Mission accomplished. Now we head back home. If you've been reading my posts, you'd know what's up next.

     This was actually supposed to be one of the earlier stops on the list, but due to the convenient branches of everything else, this got nudged to the near-bottom of the list. Better late than never, though. Got to go in alone and order my food like a big boy today!

     Not quite the spread that I was looking for, but it's enough. Grabbed the food and ran because it's definitely gonna be closer to 2 hours heading back down with all the traffic. Good thing I wasn't the driver because my stomach throws tantrums when it sees food and can't have it immediately. Unwrapped this bad boy and went in!

     Beef burger with lettuce, tomato, onions, hot peppers, cheese, bacon, pickles, ketchup, mustard and mayo. It was rather poorly put together, but in their defense it was put together in front of my face so extra points for that. It wasn't a bad sandwich. Still #TeamBigMac though, but it served its purpose. That, and it was relatively small. Still, not too shabby. That's one more thing crossed off the list. All that's really left now is probably the poutine, but I still have my reservations about that. Made it back home in decent time. The end of another adventure. I feel a Sabbath coming up...

Walkin' In A Creepy Wonderland

*sigh*

     If you ever feel the need to confess something you did wrong, if you want to let someone know you love them but you're afraid to say it, if you just need to think about everything you've done in your life so far, I recommend Canada's Wonderland.

     The fact that we went during their annual Halloween Haunt had nothing to do with the fact that this was by far the most terrifying experience I've ever had. We went during the night for the whole Halloween "scare" (and to avoid the mass of minors) and it didn't help that outside was foggy for the entire day. Small issue, right? We're all grown people here. From the time we got through the gate, we were "met" by characters in costume following us, randomly jumping out and screaming at us, magically appearing right in front of our faces, as well as machines set up to do their own bit of scaring. Like the troll under the bridge and the mental patient violently shaking while strapped to the table. 

     I keep forgetting how big these places are and how much walking I'd have to do. Gotta deal with it, though. I had never been to an amusement park (not even Coney Island) so I was willing to do whatever I had to. Well. Almost. The major attractions were the rides and the haunted houses, both of which I felt compelled to do just for the experience. Better to start with a smaller roller coaster, so we took a couple quick ones. No more than 45 seconds each. Easy, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. If it wasn't being turned inside-out or going backwards or speeding through dark tunnels, it was the inevitable feeling of weightlessness and the terror of seeing your life flash before your eyes! And the sad part? These were the small rides that had us all shaken up! Time for the big boys. Enter: The Behemoth!

     Now imagine this.. at night. With the park covered in fog. I think it's safe to say that this left all of us a bit weak. My legs and my head more than anything, because I had my stomach set on a Big Mac on the way home. We took some time for everyone to get settled before the next ride, and what's better at settling your stomach than a haunted house? Props to the people who designed these things. My scares came more from the unexpected than actual terrifying sights. The plan was to stick close to a group of random people and let THEM take the scares and I'd just sneak by while the "monsters" went back to their hiding places. A couple of them caught me off-guard however, but in my attempt to scream I could not get sufficient air out of my lungs to make the desired terrified shriek (which was probably a good thing). A couple more rides, took in a couple sights and when everyone was finally settled, we went for the big one. Ladies and gentlemen, the Leviathan!

     Once again, this badboy, 11:30 pm, the entire place taken over by fog. Yes, I screamed. Yes, there were tears running down my face afterwards. But I did it! Of course, my main issue wasn't getting on the ride, I had a fear of getting off. Walking felt so refreshing, yet so unnatural afterwards. A couple of us took one last trip through a haunted house and then we decided to call it a night. And quite a night it was! I'm pretty sure I got my money's worth on this trip. Time for my Big Mac and then home for some rest.

     p.s. Do not try to sleep in a moving vehicle after you've just come off of one of these rides. You will end up with a headache. Such as the one I have right now. Can't say I didn't warn you!

Looks Like I Made It!

*throws streamers and other decorative mess*

Thank you! Thank you very much! You're all far too kind! 

     I'm sure by now you've figured it out. What my blog's name means. This whole trip was planned to coincide with my 23rd birthday which was on Saturday (October 5th). Funny enough, not much happened leading up to the specific date but this entire trip has been one satisfying experience so it was still a fairly decent day. Yeah, I know I missed a day so I'll start from Friday and fill you guys in.

Day 7

     An entire week in Toronto. Wow. It's honestly felt like forever with the amount of things I've done, the places I've seen, the food I ate, all brilliant. What's on the cards for today? Nothing. Not during daytime hours, at least. We've been building hype around this Lil Rick concert that was gonna go down over at Centennial College and my poor, naive mind was under the impression that it would be an all-soca event. Made sense, right? If only.

     We pretty much spent the entire day lazing around, as bachelor life should be... except for the fact that I'm the only single man in the group. TV, food, sleep. What else do you need when you're on vacation? Besides, these late sunrises are excellent at throwing off your internal clock. Since bro had to work and was gonna miss the show (poor lad), the plan involved a bit of early moving. Grab some food, stop over by the part-time residents' actual home and then catch the bus from there to the school. Out of all of that, the only thing that initially caught my attention was food. Those glorious calories. Where are we gonna try today? McDonalds, Wendy's, Dominoes, Pita Land have been all crossed off the list. 

     Let me just be clear and state upfront that nothing on this menu contains or consists of spinach. Yes, I checked the entire menu at least twice because I was curious to see if the restaurant was related to the cartoon. Long shot, I know. 

 Slight disappointment? Yes. Did they make up for it? Brilliantly. See that poster right in the middle of the glass? That's this stuff right here:

     Dip'n Chickn. I need to bring this concept back to Barbados for Haloute to run with it. This stuff is fantastic! And initially had my doubts about the cajun chili garlic sauce, but that was spectacular as well. The fries were good as well. An 8*/10. Overall pleased. Now we wait for the show.

     Remember earlier when I asked about it being an all soca show? Stupid question. The poster was on the bedroom dresser the whole time and I never bothered to look at it! Chris Martin and Wayne Wonder opening. ...huh? Call me bougie, but the only Chris Martin I knew up until a couple months ago was a lead singer in a band. Then to find out it's the guy who is popular with women for his song - and I quote - "Oh Lord, don't let me cheat on my girlfriend. Cause as far as I can see, she loves only me. Oh Lord, don't let me cheat on my girlfriend. But Lord if you can't stop me from cheating, then don't let me get caught." ...er, pardon? And I'm the one that's single? Alright. Moving on swiftly. Not swiftly enough, sadly. I guess the folks who came for him enjoyed his set. The Barbadian massive knew what was coming and wisely conserved their energy. Chris finally left the stage. Thank you! Wayne up. Dude has a handful of decent songs. Sadly for him, I'm not sure the crowd knew many of the ones he sang. I wasn't moved by his performances, but he was winding down sooner than I expected.

*you know when you're at church and the pastor is praying, you can pick up in his voice and his speech pattern that by all rights he should be coming to an end, yet he finds a burst of energy and starts fresh? That's what this guy did. *yawn*.

     Dude proceeded to stitch together covers of other songs, threw in a couple of his "newer" pieces and generally did what he felt like. Not here for this. Kindly vacate the stage for the headline act to come on, why don't you? Lucky for me, all good things must come to and end. Time for the real deal! Chihuahua Business Man. Board Face. Hypa Dawg. Rickey Reid. Lil Rick. T-111 Untreated! Rick knew we were waiting and he came to satisfy. Even the people who had no concept of soca music were able to enjoy his performance. In the name of discretion and to protect the character of those involved, there are no pictures to be included, but I will limit my review to 5 words:

============================================================

MASHED. UP. AND. BOUGHT. BACK.

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     Seemed like his set was shorter than those other two. Oh well, such is life. Rick leaves the stage and the DJ decides that it's appropriate to follow up that performance with some hip hop! No. Just.. no. We decided to go check the other room. They seemed to be rocking. We were in and out in a matter of 15 seconds. Let's just say it's not what we were expecting. Our ride eventually came and we got something to eat, picked up our stuff and headed home. Time to put the Sabbath back on the Saturday. Thanks for reading, guys!

Eye of The... Jellyfish?

Be careful what you wish for!

Day 6

       Does a jellyfish even have eyes? I don't think so either... I'll look into this and get back to you guys. Today, however, was the day I've been looking forward to most this week. We're going to the zoo! Woke up early (surprise, surprise..) and made breakfast: cheese omelette with chopped onion and sweet peppers with bacon and a slice of tomato and Thousand Island dressing on lightly toasted bread. Yes, it's as fantastic as it sounds. (And yes, I'm available for marriage ;) ) -back to the topic- Showered and left home around 10 to make it to the zoo around 10:30. I could tell this would have been an experience I'd enjoy.

       

       So apparently, pandas are a big deal here. A VERY big deal. There's the whole Panda Experience with interactive games and the whole shebang. They even have an entire day for themselves! I bet those white lions are jealous.

Finally got to the things and there's a crowd of people ahead of me somehow manage to scare this one away before I get my picture. Great. At least there's another one outside. Let's see if he's up for public interaction.

NOPE.

       He's not here for this mess, so I just grabbed this shot and a mini video and moved on. Time to take the man test. Now lemme explain. When we went in, the nice lady gave us a map of the zoo so we knew where to find what. We spent most of the time aimlessly wandering around and discovering different animals. Would I use the map? Nah. Don't need it. Because I know where I'm going! Kinda. Almost. I mean, it's an enclosed area. If things go wrong, some road has to lead to the exit. Ok, I pulled it out once but just as an excuse to stop walking for a bit.

       Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and anyone who prefers not to be confined to a specific gender, anytime someone tells you "we're gonna do a lot of walking", PLEASE don't play it off as exaggeration. I have walked to my house in Kingsland from Coral Ridge Memorial Gardens in under an hour, so I thought I was good. I will take everything said to me literally from now on.

       As expected, if it's one thing that is associated with wild animals it's a stench, and these guys were no different. Why doesn't the gift shop sell little hats with the pine tree air fresheners? Oh right, because they're closed on week days. (-_-') good job. Ah well. Regulated my breathing and continued with my adventure. Now let me warn you guys, I think I took waaaaaaayy too many pictures. Definitely too many to put on here in a single file format, so I'll select my favourite shots and then put the rest in a Facebook album over here.

       But for those of who who rather not leave the page, here are a few of my favourite shots.

       Ok, enough wildlife. Fascinating experience overall. We got in around 10:45 and clocked out just before 2:00. Way past my lunch time. What else was there to experience here in North America? Popeye's was left, so was Pizza Hut, Church's Chicken and a couple other places. And the winner is...... shawarma. You looked just as surprised as I did. What the hell is a shawarma? Iron Man mentioned it in the Avengers movie, but surely it wasn't a real thing, right? WRONG. It most definitely is a real thing. And it was pretty decent, I must say!

I'll probably get another one before my time's up. Freshly made, full of veggies. I could respect that. Let's head home now cause bro has to work this evening (poor fella). Start the car and let's -- oh, wait..

       If you're walking to your car and you EVER see this store, turn around and RUN! Forget the car and call a taxi, you are not to go near this place. It is EVIL! Sin in concrete form! In my head, I imagine them selling the stuff wholesale. Makes sense, right? Ha. You wish. Try this:

       $3.39/lb? Tears. Of. Joy. And don't you dare play down a pound of gummy bears. It is not an amount to be laughed at. This is at least 4 handfuls of gummy bears, and unless you're an aspiring diabetic or your blood sugar is -134 and you need to get it up, then this should last you about a week. And it's more than junk food they sell. Spices, peanut butter, oils, cooking and baking ingredients... it is ridiculous. Of course I bought a bag. They're here helping to write this blog now. Haven't even made a dent in the bag and I think I'm done for the night.

       Ok, definitely time for home now. I need to process my day and get some rest. A lot of rest. My feet hurt from that zoo trip. Maybe tomorrow will be another Sabbath, who knows? I'll definitely keep you guys posted. Thanks for reading!

Let's Ride The Rocket!

Going For A Ride!

Day 5

I thought I had this sleeping thing in the bag, yet I'm writing this at 2:58 am. Makes no sense getting breakfast now because I'll be empty by 10:00. Let's try this again.

So I crashed after 3:30 and somehow still managed to make it back up by 6:43. That's not the weird part, though. The weird part is that outside is still PITCH BLACK! So when I got up, I was like, "don't tell me I only slept for an hour!" and Asha's battery 

was dead as well. Gonna put her to charge and check Tiffany while I start my early morning tea ritual. Not much sense going back to 

sleep now, since we're supposed to be roaming today. Maybe I should have bet him money that he'd still be unconscious at 8:30. Ah well, some other time. Kettle's done!

  Getting dressed and I realise that I'm actually a medium and not a large. Also, my pants should be a 32, not too sure what I was thinking when I said 34. Ah well. Small issue. Someone's finally up! Gonna let him get ready and then head to the zoo catch the bus? err... pardon? I guess it can't hurt..

Barely missed one, but the next one wasn't too far behind. Had to resist the urge to stick my hand out to signal the bus lol. 

Ok, we're off! Head down to Lawrence West Station then going down below for the train! You can't go wrong with the train because they're no more than 5 mins apart, you can ALWAYS FEEL it coming and there's this handy mini live map over the door to let you know where you are and where you're going.

It was kinda awkward seeing the car in front of mine turning the corner while I appeared to remain straight, so I buried my head in my phone till we got to the stop. Dundas Square!

This was a bit much to take in in 2 seconds. And this is just one shot! For a panorama shot, look over here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zb2hf3ae3r7cl8l/20131002_104908.jpg

Enough talking. Look what I saw!

Scotiabank! Discover what's possible!

Nearest mall was Eaton Centre. Why not head in and see what they have to offer? Some nice stores in there. Quite a walk, too!

Interesting fact: geese are protected animals here in Canada. You're not allowed to hunt them, attack them, chase them or startle them. Just let them do their own thing.

Walked around Eaton for a bit more, but by now it was my favourite time of the day! Food! Let's head downstairs to the Urban Eatery. There was SO much to choose from! Greek, Chinese, Japanese, American, Thai, Mediterranean, French and so much more! Ok, no fast food today. We're gonna head over to Bourbon St. Grill and have some "cooked food". Decided to stick to what I know and get the pasta with a chicken leg and some veg. Rob went for the bourbon chicken and shrimp with pasta. He somehow convinced me that I should try one of his shrimp.

PAUSE.

Let me take this time to mention that I'm a simple guy. Chicken. Fish. The end. I've dabbled in beef and lamb, I've had my time with pork. As it stands right now, my livestock protein sources do not require expansion. Ok, let's continue.

So he put one in my container. In the name of trying new stuff, I thought "what the heck" and went for it. Bleh, Not a very convincing initial encounter. Thank God for soy sauce, right? Maybe I shouldn't have doused the entire packet on the one shrimp. But it made it bearable, so whatever. Ok, so it was fine ok alright decent passable not awful. Not in a rush to have any more...

Made it halfway through the meal and decided not to pig it out. Let's put it in a bag and take it home. Always time for food back at the apartment. As bad as it sounds, this bus-to-train-to-bus thing is exhausting! Gonna try for the zoo tomorrow, so stay tuned!