Canadiana Backpackers Blog

Teresa, our resident superwoman has been away on holiday for two weeks. And the hostel is surviving without her!

Just barely!

It is no exaggeration to say that Teresa is the heart and soul of the Canadiana! She is both loved and respected by all!

As head of housekeeping, Teresa runs a tight ship and it is through her efforts that we have the ratings succes that we enjoy.

Teresa always “leads by example” and never asks a staff member to take on a job that she would not do herself.

She has just spent two glorious weeks taking her son to the Azores for a visit to his grandmother’s home.

She’s due back tomorrow and the staff has been extra vigilant during her absence. No one wants to let Teresa down!

It might be interesting to note that we assigned two staff members to do her job while she was away!

Teresa’s shift begins at 8 AM. But look for her arrival anytime after 6 AM!

The answer (of course) to the question in the heading is:

“A good start!”

Now that might be an old joke (who’s joking?) but it is also illustrative of the esteem most of us hold for lawyers.

For instance:

“What do you call twenty-five lawyers skydiving?”

Answer: “Skeet!

Jeffery is a lawyer from Down Under. He was called to the bar more than six years ago and then decided to explore the world. He hasn’t worked in Oz for a long, long time.

He worked for a law firm in Scot;land for a few years before coming to Toronto on a two-year work/travel visa. Here Jeffery is working in the IT field.

His education saw him complete a degree in Law and Computer Science. So he has employment options in this climate of economic downturn.

He’s not sure how long he will stay in Canada; but, it is always nice when you have so many avenues of employment open to you.

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In our previous post we welcomed Brett back to the hostel after a long absence. We had some catching up to do.

He’d been living in France for 14 months and had learned the language which he can now use with impressive facility!

He also supplied us with a photo of his little French amie and she’s quite a doll! She’s what inspired him and gave him the impetus to learn the language!

He met her in Montreal so yiou might say that Canada has been pretty good to Brett! It’s been the same to his older brother Shane!

Both brothers have met their respective partners in Canada.  Shane who was here about three years ago met thge lovely Nicola from Scotland. They have been together ever since!

Shane, we are told, now works in Television production in Oz and is still together with Nicola!

You might say that Canada, Toronto and hostel living has been a real boon to the brothers.

Check out the photos below!

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Our long Toronto winter is finally over and many evenings are spent on our patio making plans to fix the world aided by beer induced wisdom.

You’ll have to admit that this is some pretty important stuff we’ were working on!  But we were interrupted by a vaguely familiar face and a very familiar voice.

I was about to chastise him for interrupting our earth saving discussion when the hamster woke up in the wheel.

“My God, it’s Brett! What the hell are you doing here?”

Brett is an old guest/friend. He stayed here about two years ago and we haven’t heard from him since. But like a lot of old guests, he just showed up out of the blue.

He didn’t even book ahead. Luckily we had space! Quite often old friends pitch up and it can be a mad scramble to try to find them a bed. And we can’t always do it! Brett was lucky.

It turned out that Brett (an Aussie) met a French girl and went to France for fourteen months where he learned the language.

Not much that Brett does surprises us. He was once a professional in-line skater and can do some pretty amazing tricks on weird looking roller blades.

Anyhow, it’s always a pleasure to welcome old friends back home!

He’s really young and he’s really bright. Dave is a twenty-year old who attends the prestigious university at Oxford, England.

We were having a political discussion on the hostel’s patio and it was a bit of a shock to hear such  clear analysis on Geopolitics from someone so young.

It isn’t until you realize that he had gained admittance to one of the world’s most hallowed institutions of learning that you appreciate his depth of perception.

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Early on in our hostel’s history we had a couple meet under our roof and eventually wed. Tova and Garen were the first!

Since then we’ve had more couples meet and make a life-long connection here. We used to keep track of the number but they have become almost too numerous to count!

This year, there will be four more (that we know of)!

1) Jonno and Madders, two founding members of the infamous “Lager Louts” and “Anilmalettes” are engaged in OZ!

2) Renae from Oz and Dave from the U.K. ae also engaged.

3) Big Stew and Little Katy are getting married in Venezuela.

4) Hailey (a former staff member) and Lourens (from Capetown) are getting married too!

That’s four more happy unions this year alone!

CONGRATULATIONS ALL!

Masahito Koizumi is arguably one of the nicest persons ever to stay here at our hostel in Toronto.

Traditionally, the Koizumi clan were Buddhist Priests in Japan. It’s a good thing too!

You see, we Christians believe that “gluttony” is a sin.

I’m not saying that Masa is a glutton. Well, actually, I am.

We call him “the Bear” and sometimes “Tape Worm”. If you’ve ever seen how long he can sleep and the copious amounts of food he can dispose of you would understand why.

If you’ve ever seen restaurants that advertised “All You Can Eat” buffets, it was likely before they had been visited by Masashito!

Look closely and now the signs simply say “Buffet”!

Masa has been politely ejected from two “buffets” on his storied eating binges! A third “All You Can Eat” seafood chain asked him to “please never return”!

There is a place near the hostel that offers a burger the size of a toilet seat! It a pretty expensive meal; but, if you can eat the whole thing within an hour, you get it free!

We’re going there with Masa tonight! He wants a free meal.  And he’ll probably order two of them!

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If you’ve read the previous entry (about Stefanie from Germany). We were telling you how odd it seemed to have such a combination of beauty and brains.

Well, not at our hostel here in Toronto (or so it seems).

We’ve just fond another lovely Physics grad from Germany. Susan hails from Dresden and has completed the German equivalent to a Master’s Degree in thec science!

Susan is here in Canada on a working/holiday visa. She’s just taking jobs that will finance her travels.

The point is that we’ve got TWO lovely lady scientists in exactly the same field!

We’re so glad to have them here backpacking their way around the world before returning to Germany to split the atom (or whatever it is that physicists do!)

Things are not always as they seem. We’ve got a tall statuesque young lady staying here who looks like a Supermodel.

Stefanie Wagner is from the city of Konstanz in Southern Germany. In a word, she’s gorgeous and at 6′1″ (183cm) she could easily make a lucrative living as a high-fashion runway mannequin.

But Stefanie is here to do an summer internship at the University of Toronto’s Chemistry Department.

She’s a recent graduate (Physics) from the University of Konstanz and the next 5 months of research at the University will be her very first academic work experience.

But this just goes to show you that things are very often not what they seem.

Well, Wouter’s back! He’s just finished a three week holiday in beautiful Capetown, South Africa.

You’ll see him around the hostel because he’s part of our staff. He’s not hard to recognize either. He’s thin as a rail, tall like a giraffe and gentle as a meerkat (as he is sometimes referred to).

He’s a member of a somewhat endangered species. He’s a “White African” - a born and bred Boer.

Wouter and his three siblings have left South Africa and and have settled in Canada. They will be joined shortly by their parents who are planning to leave the land their people have called home for more than three centuries.

The Boers (meaning farmers) or Afrikaners as the original settlers (circa late 15th Century) are called, have a passionate connection with the soil of Africa.

They are known to be a hard-working, self-sufficient, stubborn and iconoclastic people. They once ruled Southern Africa politically, militarily and economically.

We won’t delve into their excesses when they were masters of the land but will leave that to the judgment of history.

What we can say is that however their record will be judged, the fact remains that they are a race of people who once tamed an unforgiving wilderness - and thrived.

If you take note of the work-ethic of Wouter (and his brothers and sister) you might conclude that they should do quite well here in their new homeland.

We’re glad to have him back.