OK, where to begin…just after I wrote that last post England lost to Portugal on penalties. Needless to say, the crowd at the Duke of York was mightily pissed. Still, we soldiered on, determined to enjoy Canada Day. However, our nation’s birthday isn’t quite the event that my brother experienced in Ottawa, so there wasn’t really much to do festivities-wise…we walked down St. George, cut through the U of T campus, walked along College and then down University, had a gawk at the new opera house, walked across Queen to city hall, stopped in the weird little waterfall park off of Richmond, walked across to the condo site, and then strolled down to C’est What for a cold beer and the first half of the France/Brazil match. During halftime we made it back up to our apartment, settled in and watched the second half while Nellie had a nap on the floor.

That night, after a few hours of downtime, we all went to Fieramosca. As usual, it was too much great food; we were all stuffed by the time we left. I had a relatively simple penne with chicken, sundried tomato, zucchini, and asparagus; Nellie had gnocchi and TimmyD has a plate of sausage (which I had a bit of; daaaaaaaaamn) and quail. After much limoncello with the hostess, we walked home.

This morning: no rest for the wicked. We all met at half-ten (that’s what the frickin’ British call 10:30) and hit Eggstacy for some breakfast; we left, more than a little bit stuffed but ready for some shopping. Some shoes, some clothes and some books* later and we’d had about enough of Bloor Street.

After all the shopping we spent a few hours on the patio at the Bishop & Belcher, then collected ourselves at our place before heading out to the Auld Spot for dinner. Once again, I was more than impressed with the food (Nellie liked hers a great deal this time). We left, getting home in time for me to write this, check some feeds and pack for tomorrow.

That’s right, I said pack; we’ve decided to spend a night out of the city. We’re visiting our uncle & aunt near Guelph, and from there we’re going up to Elora for the night. It’ll be nice to see…you know, trees. Etc. I’ll post again when we’re back on Tuesday, at which point our visitors should be jetting back to old blighty.

* TimmyD pointed out a book, based on this website, which is quite possibly the most hilarious thing I have ever seen. We laughing hysterically in the stacks at Indigo, and at home I was actually on the floor laughing as I read it. There are pictures. Nellie says she’s never heard (or seen) me laugh that hard. I understand that some people won’t find it that funny. If you don’t find it funny at all, then I can’t be friends with you anymore.

[tags]england, portugal, u of t, toronto opera house, c’est what, fieramosca, eggstacy, bishop & belcher, auld spot, elora, mnftiu[/tags]