I'm In Canada!

Well, as most of you know, I am back in Canada for a vacation. Used to be, I would live here and vacation in Vallarta. Now I live in Vallarta and vacation here. Go figure! I must say it is good to be home. I was gone 9 months to the day. Kind of like having a baby I guess ... LOL Speaking of babies, the flight home was HORRIBLE! I think that 1/3 of the passengers were under age 10. I sat beside a couple with a two year old and a four month old. When one wasn't screaming, the other one was! Not to mention the two kids behind me crying and kicking the back of my chair. *sigh* I think living in Mexico has taught be tolerance because I didn't lose it ... just smiled a lot and helped distract the two year old.

My flight arrived at midnight and I didn't get my luggage for about an hour. It gave me some time to study the other adult passengers. There was quite a mixed group of people with many different ethnicites represented. It's good to home! :) I met a really cute Chinese couple in line at the airport in PV and when they saw me at the luggage station, they offered me a ride home. Canadians are so nice. Unfortunately, when he called the Park'n'Fly automated service to order a pick up, they weren't recognizing his number. So I jumped in a limo and was home 20 minutes later. By the way, there was quite a contrast in my rides to and from the airport. It cost 60 pesos to the airport in PV in a yellow cab with no shocks and a Mexican driver. It cost $47CDN to my place in Toronto in a limo with leather seats and a Punjabi driver. Both spoke excellent English! :)

I had called Heidi from the airport so she was ready for me with a big hug and a bottle of red wine. We stayed up until 4:30AM talking and getting caught up. Funny how we can never run out of things to talk about even though I just called her on Friday and she only left PV two months ago! We finally passed out and then woke up a scant four hours later by the sound of many, many sports cars. Apparently there was a MG convention at the Distillery District and they were revving their engines at 8:30 in the morning! After a lazy morning, we finally made it out of the condo around 1PM and walked along The Esplanade to the market. I love this area of downtown Toronto on Saturday mornings! The colour (yellow flowers, fresh red strawberries), the noise (live busker music, many conversations in different languages), the people (Canadians, American tourists, Somalian woman wearing long, traditional robes), the diversity of the goods offered for sale (food, jewellery, maple syrup) ... it's good to be home again!

After a delicous breakfast (which included a well-deserved Bloody Caesar), Heidi and I headed off to The Bay at The Eaton Centre for some serious shopping. After nine months of being deprived of one of my favourite past-times, I had reached Mecca -- makeup counters, exotic shoes, fabulous handbags, clothes in my size!!! Our first major purchase was made at Sephora (www.sephora.com), a cosmetic/skin care store which carries major brands from all over the world. I found a product here, recommended by my dermatologist in PV, for only $70CDN (I paid 820 pesos ... DRAT!!!). In the end, given all of our choices, I ended up buying some Cargo makeup which, of course, is made in Canada. :)

I found some terrific bargains. I bought 5 summer tshirts (2 for $15; 3 for $25), two lightweight cotton tops ($25 each less 10%) and another pair of sports sandals since the thick sole on one of mine cracked in PV (I think it was a cobblestone-related incident). We hit the mall at 2PM and left after 6PM. Talk about "shop until you drop"! We were both exhausted. We agreed on dinner at The Hot House Cafe, a local favourite, and after more wine and some seriously garlicky pasta, we headed home with a rental movie. I slept extremely well last night. The last thing I saw before closing my eyes were the lights of the city twinkling outside my window.