A Day, A Week, Hemant, A Year

This past weekend I flew out to Toronto and met Jeffrey who was arriving from Montreal. Jeffrey was interested in seeing a Raptors game while he was out in that part of the country, so that seemed like a pretty good excuse for me to meet him there. It had been over two years since I attended a Raptors game at the Air Canada Centre, so this was a great opportunity for me to feed my addiction. Since we were going to be there for a few days, we also got some tickets to Evil Dead : The Musical. It would also work out for me visit my many friends in Guelph.

Before I left Saskatoon on Friday, I checked the Toronto weather forecast for the weekend. It wasn’t looking good as there were major snow storm warnings issued for all of southern Ontario. I was lucky enough that I got in just before it started up so it didn’t affect my flight.

I got to Toronto early in the afternoon and decided to rent a car since I was going to be traveling between three cities. I was supposed to get a compact such as a Ford Focus, but for some reason I got downgraded to a sub-compact, getting stuck with a Hyundai Accent. To my surprise, it didn’t turn out to be as bad as I was expecting. I met Jeffrey downtown at the Eaton’s Centre. We had some time to kill before the Raptors game at seven o’clock so we went to the St. Lawrence Market and bummed around. Seeing that market again really made me wish that we had something like that in Saskatoon. We bought some fresh fruit and chowed down while being geeks on our respective internet tablets. You gotta love free wi-fi.

We headed to the Air Canada Centre a little early since I wanted to try and get my picture taken with, “the man, the myth, the voice”, Chuck Swirsky. For those of you who don’t know who this is, he is the play-by-play voice of the Toronto Raptors. He’s has become a favourite among the team’s fans, and has gathered somewhat of a cult following. He is known for his use of personal catchphrases during the games such as, “Get out the salami and cheese mamma! This game is over”, and “That was sick, wicked, and nasty!”.

I had emailed him to see if I could get a pic with him and he told me that he was always outside Gate 1 about 50 minutes prior to tipoff, and would be happy to meet me. So Jeffrey and I hung around the area waiting for him to show. We were about to give up, when he rolled in, blaming the storm for his tardiness. After he jumped in on the Raptors TV pre-game panel, I managed to swipe a picture with him.

Even though getting to meet Chuck was enough to make this whole trip worth it, I figured we should still go and check out the actual game versus the Washington Wizards. On the way to our seats we crossed paths with some of the Raptors Dance Pak. I couldn’t refuse after the ladies swooned over me and wanted to get their picture with me.

Our seats turned out to be better than I was expecting so that was a great. Another added bonus was that the ACC offers free wi-fi, letting Jeffrey and I further display our geekiness with our internet tablets. The game didn’t start off too well for the Raptors, but they got their act together creating a pretty entertaining match. It went into overtime, but the Raps couldn’t pull it off. Disappointing, but it was still and exciting game.

Following the game we grabbed a bite to eat before heading out to Chris and Kaleigh Kuzma’s pad. They are some friends of Jeffrey, Rachel, and Michelle and were nice enough to let the two of us stay with them. We did a little visiting, but we were all pretty tired and called it a night.

When we woke up Saturday morning, the snow was really coming down, and was accumulating very fast. Since the weather wasn’t cooperating and Jeffrey and I had done the Toronto tourist stuff multiple times, we just decided to go see some movies before we headed to the Evil Dead show. We saw 10,000 BC which I enjoyed more than I probably should have, and Semi-Pro which was just another cookie-cutter Will Ferrell flick. You can likely wait for both of these on DVD.

After the movies we met Chris and Kaleigh for dinner and then we headed to the Diesel Playhouse for the musical. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but since it was critically acclaimed and had been voted “Toronto’s Favourite Show”, I had a pretty good feeling. The first two rows were called the “splatter zone”. You probably can imagine why it is called that. Jeffrey and I made sure to get tickets directly behind this zone since we didn’t want to get sprayed with blood. As it turned out, our seats were “unofficially” in the splatter zone. We were provided with ponchos to help keep the washable blood out of our clothes.

All I can say is that I completely enjoyed the show from the moment the curtains opened. It was much more of a farce than I was expecting and the music was great. Once the mayhem started to reach a climax in one of the final scenes, the blood started to fly. At one point I was taken by complete surprise and took a stream of the red stuff directly in my face. It was hilarious….but the “blood” definitely didn’t taste good. I can’t help but recommend anyone in the area to check out this show. It’s a great time.

Jeffrey was heading back to Montreal on Sunday, so I dropped him off at the train station. But not before having to dig the rental car out of a ton of snow. Knowing that this may be a tricky endeavor, it had been bothering me all weekend. As it turned out, with two shovels going we had the car out in no time. I headed out to Waterdown (just outside Hamilton) to visit my buddy Shawn, his wife Wendy and their new baby Sabrina. The highways were actually not too bad considering how hard the area was hit with snow that weekend, so I made it to their place with no catches. I spent the night with them, and we didn’t really do much other than visit and catch up on what has been going on in our respective lives. It was a great visit.

I left Waterdown Monday morning and headed to Guelph where I had lunch plans with some old friends from the Co-operators. I stopped in the office and said hi to some old colleagues before a bunch of us headed to a new pub close by. Since it was spring break, I didn’t get a chance to see a lot of people I wanted to, but it was great to see everyone else. Once we finished up there I went to see my old landlord Dominic. It may seem kind of weird to go visit a landlord, but this guy was awesome, and he and his wife did a lot for me. Probably the greatest landlord in history.

I was staying with my buddy Danny and his girlfriend Aislinn at their new house in Guelph so I headed over there. He gave me the grand tour and we spent the rest of the afternoon playing Guitar Hero : Rock the 80s. We went out to a pub for some pints and a bite to eat, and were lucky to have a couple of old buddies join us. The party animal Khamsy was a little disappointed that we were being so tame. He had big plans for me that night involving “praying at church” (ask me in person about this), but I wasn’t up for a crazy evening.

My flight back to Saskatoon was just after noon on Tuesday, so I said my farewells to Danny and Aislinn and made my way back to Pearson International in Toronto. Luckily all of the snow situations were under control and my flight was not in jeopardy. The trip was like a whirlwind, but it was awesome to see so many of my old friends, and get a chance to see Guelph again. I really love that city and was surprised to see how it has boomed over the last two years, becoming the fastest growing city in Canada. Toronto was fun as usual, but the terrible weather was a limiting factor…guess I’ll have to plan another trip.

You can see more pictures from the trip below.

• Thumbnails on Flickr
• Slideshow on Flickr
• Thumbnails on Picasa
• Slideshow on Picasa