Christmas, Thermals, and Honest Eds!

Hello there dear readers – hope you are all well out there in cyberland!

It has been a pretty quiet week for me recovering from my Boston trip but I thought I would give you a bit of an update anyway! It has been a bit of a week of Christmas preparations really – the last of the presents have been posted, a bunch of cards have been sent off, the worlds smallest Christmas tree has been purchased and decorated, and an advent chocolate or two has also been consumed (thanks Mum!)!

Other than Christmas preparations I really just spent the week working and muddling along at the hostel. On Thursday night Patrick and I went to a restaurant called Captain Johns, which is a big old ship that sits in the harbour and has now been converted to a seafood restaurant. The food was gorgeous and it was really lovely surroundings, especially with the Christmas decorations and lights up. These Canadian’s are very big on their Christmas lights and I have to say… I like it!

Friday night I went to a girls night at my work-mate Sharon’s house. We played board-games, had a few drinks and ate lots of yummy food – we finished off the evening by watching The Wizard of Oz (with whole new eyes now that we have seen Wicked!) and Sharon dropped us all home about 2am… bunch of nana’s that we are, we were all pretty much falling asleep at 2am but still!

Saturday I finally visited Honest Eds – a bit of a Toronto institution on the shopping front! It is a big discount store, which would be totally at home in Vegas with its Neon lights and big signs proclaiming things like “Honest Eds… it is only the floor that’s crooked!” and “Honest Eds… its not pretty but its cheap!”. Ed (who is sadly no longer with us) seems to have met a lot of famous people in his lifetime and there are signed posters and photos of celebrities all over the show. My favourite was possibly the personal letter from Princess Di, congratulating Ed on his long and successful career in retail! Anyway, it was really fun and I managed to get a couple of souvenirs for myself and even made a start on next year’s birthday shopping!

Other than that there really is not too much to report on this week. The weather has been getting noticeably colder, although today it is raining a little so the temperature has crept up a bit. The coldest day last week got down to -9, with a wind-chill taking it down to -19… good thing Honest Eds sold thermal leggings I reckon!

Have a great week everyone!
Clare