Canadiana Backpackers Blog

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Stephanie (rt,) a Physicist from Germany here working on laser technology at the University of Toronto with her younger sister Bettina who arrived for a visit.

Naro, from Kenya; Nicola from Western Oz; and Chuck from the U.K. enjoying the last of the summer on our patio.

Sarah, Bill and Robyn (staff members) on the patio.

At one of our “locals” (The Fox and Fiddle) to shoot some pool.

Merill (an ex-staff member) visits from New York.

Ayano is a knockout from Japan. She is a drop-dead gorgeous young lady here in Toronto on a working holiday.

Rick is a former hostel staff member from Perth Australia who has just returned to Canada. Her’s got great timing too. He met Ayano!

Rick is, to put it bluntly, an endomorphic ringer for Private Pyle, the psycho-killer in the film Full Metal Jacket and he ends up friends with the lovely Ayano. (See why this hostel is so popular?)

Rick just left the city after being hired as a bartender at the upscale Deerhurst Resort in Muskoka about three hours north of Toronto.

Deerhurst is the resort where Shania Twain got her start performing and where the next G8 Summit meeting is scheduled to be held.

So when connections like Rick and Ayano can be made, why would anyone choose to stay anywhere else in Toronto?

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A lot of people think that Loic (from France) aspires to be a comedian.

He is a recent graduate with a degree in Economics but professes a love for comedy on stage.

Something has been lost in translation.

When he says he wants to do “comedy” he actually means serious strage dramas penned by such literary masters as Moliere et al.

Apparently by comedy he is refering to the “legitimate theatre”  and NOT a Jerry Seinfeld or Robin Williams stand-up routine.

His parents (originally from Cameroon) wanted him to have something to fasl back on. Hence, his degree in Economics.

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Some of our staff members were having drinks on a dimly lit patio of a local bar when we were joined by Geoffery, a young, long-term (six month) French student/backpacker.

It isn’t that we are so predictable (or perhaps we are) but that is the way this hostel works.

If you are alone on an evening and at loose ends, you can simply check out the watering holes just steps from the hostel (and there are a lot of them) and you are bound to run into other backpackers, or in this case, staff members.

In this hostel you know you will always be invited to join the group you encounter. It is just that kind of place!

Geoffery is a personable young  Frenchman who came to Toronto to improve his English skills. He opted not to spend the majority of his time conversing with other Francophones (as many foreign students tend to do) and as a result, his English skills have become much better during his stay with us.

He has made a lot of friends with other students from places where Portuguese, Spanish or even Japanese is spoken. This forces them to use their only common language - English. (Geoffery has a working-knowlege of Japanese having once lived and worked in Osaka.)

Geoffery has returned to France but has vowed to return to Toronto and is currently working on obtaining an ‘internship’. We hope to have him back soon!

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What is the main difference between the world of today and the world of only a few years ago? Well, it is much smaller!

The Internet has provided inexpensive, instantaneous communication with vitrtually any place on the planet.  And jet travel has separated “the ends of the earth” by mere hours.

A consequence of this reality can be seen so clearly at our hostel in Toronto. Clients represent a steady flow of  travelers from exotic locales from Cambodia to Cameroon; from Chile to China.

Katy is one of our newest additions to our staff and this Anglophone native of Ottawa has been raised and educated to function in this changing world.

She attended French Immersion Schools throughout her Primary and Secondary Education and even completed her final year of High School in the French part of Switzerland.

As a result, she has equal facility in both of Canada’s official languages.

Not content with that alone, she attended McGill University in Montreal and majored in International Studies and Spanish.

On the front desk of our hostel we have seen her switch languages between three languages with backpackers from Europe, South America and North America.

She is an ideal front-desk representative - a citizen of a new world.

The multi-lingual Katy!

We first wrote about Olesya last March when she came back to the hostel from Vancouver. She is from Southern Russia near Kazakhstan.

Olesya had been accepted into a film production course in Vancouver. But when she arrived, she found the course lacking and the city less appealing than Toronto. (Her preference of Toronto is merely a matter of personal opinion).

So she decided to take ann enormous chance. She dropped out of the course in B.C. and made application to Ryerson University’s Film and Television course in Toronto.

She then returned to Russia to await either acceptance or rejection to the four-year degree course. It was a tense time and a big gamble.

Well there has been good news on that front! She arrived back at the hostel and was welcomed by all of her friends after being accepted as a full-time student at the University.

Everybody who knows her is deighted that she has been accepted to the school and very, very happy to welcome back this very popular lady!