Weekend full of action.

It's Tuesday and my first day of work this week. On Sunday, 1st of July, it was time for celebration as Canada turned 140 years as counted from establishment of Canada as a self-governing country. For us workers, it meant that Monday yesterday was off and we really had the time to celebrate both Canada's day as well as nice summer days.

For me, the weekend was full of program. As my parents and brothers have been visiting the city since last Tuesday, I also got some time to hang out with them. As for touristic attractions, we went to see the Casa Loma , gorgeous house built in the early 1900's. The building that was an interesting mix of European style tudor or villa and the "latest technology" of the beginning of 20th century. There was special medieval/renaissance theme going on in the house and besides tourists it was packed with semiprofessional actors how had dressed up like and behaved to be a person from the past centuries.

Besides Casa Loma, we got ourselves finally to the night life of Toronto. On Friday, we went to see two local student pubs, Madison and Brunswick, located near our residence. As speaking of these establishment, the word "pub" is quite misleading as both places are quite well-sized and offer different option for spending your night. Especially Madison, that was located in a Victorian-era house, was quite impressive with its multifloor bars, pool tables, darts, piano lounge and four terraces. On the other hand, Brunny wasn't as fancy but beat Madison in prices 10 to nothing. Certainly we will be visiting these places again.

On Saturday, we took a little trip to the suburbia. Emily was throwing a party with her brother at their parents house and we were invited as well. Despite of our efforts we arrived quite late to the scene. And what a scene it was! Pool, bbq, jacuzzi, dj and drunken happy people! As soon as we got there a friendly drinking game match of Flip Cup between Finland and Canada was on and from there the party just got started. We all got ourselves quite well under the influence and partied long to the night. There was actually another party going on in a house couple of blocks down the street. At that party, the Finnish way of drinking vodka straight and out of bottle made some impression, at least judging by the crowd watching us drink:D

Better half of the Sunday was spent commuting back from Islington and recovering ourselves. As there was TO Jazz Festival going on during the weekend, most of us enjoyed a free show of urban dance group called Baby Boyz. After that, me and my brother Jarkko headed down to BMO Stadium with my collegue Mashkur and his buddy. The FIFA U20 World Cup is held in Canada this year and Mash had some extra tickets to the Toronto opener, Canada vs. Chile. 21,000 seat stadium was sold out and the atmosphere at the stadium rose to levels that the games of baseball and Canadian football season openers that I have seen here so far could not compete with. It was a great evening of soccer, even though the Canadian team got knocked out by Chile. Needless to say that in Toronto, having people from 144 countries of the world, the soccer is quite popular and the games fun to watch. My plan is to see couple of more games in next few weeks, including also the semifinals where I wish to be able to cheer for Latin American team that is the reigning champion of U20 WC. I guess the smartest readers have already guessed which team that is...

On Monday, we headed down to Toronto Islands. Formed by three big and few smaller ones, the islands are the perfect spot for lazy afternoon. There are few houses, no cars and lots of attractions for day visitors to spend their time on. We managed to spend our day laying on the beach, but the nature, atmosphere and various of the island made it sure that we will returning there in the coming weekends. Just to mention few, the islands offer bbq places, tennis courts, frisbee golf course and a bowls court (Big up Bowls Finland) as well as rentable bikes, couple of beaches and a maze. But I'll tell you more about it as I've explored also other places than the sandy beaches.

I've had some problems with my camera (as well as time) lately, and haven't been able to upload any photos. However, now everything should be in order and I promise to share loads of photos and couple of stories in the very near future. Until that, I wish everybody a sunny summer!