Week fourteen would begin with myself moving back into the traditional surroundings of my favored hostel, although with this unable to occur until the afternoon, I spent the morning in a bookshop reading books and magazines. My decision to wear black out proved to be a huge error of judgement though, due to the ridiculous heat that was bathing Toronto. The twenty minute walk to my new home for the remainder of my stay was going to prove extremely tough in these African conditions, but thankfully my conditioning work and sheer fitness level turned it into a walk in the park. I soon checked into the hostel, secured a ticket for the following days MLS clash between Toronto and Chicago Fire, and then headed to the Irish Embassy for three swift pints of Magners. With a day of football and possible drinking ahead the following day, I decided to have a quiet night infront of the television with a crate of Steam Whistle

The Saturday nights sleep was bizarre, as one fellow hosteler was obviously aware of my pedigree as a Minor Celebrity as they tried to climb into bed with me. It began with them touching my foot, and then attempting to climb the ladder to get into my bunk. Weighing up the options, this was either a fit girl trying to give me a subtle hint, or a rapist. Remembering some of the weird people I had met in hostel stays over the course of the trip, from the political nut in Vancouver to the cross dresser previously in Toronto, I took the sensible course of action and punched the person trying to enter in the face. Unfortunately, I had now gone deaf in my right ear, but not worrying about this I boarded the limousine for the trip to the soccerball game, this time with two Aussies and an Irish guy. Toronto were appalling, and were destroyed 3-0 by the Fire, and after the 45 minute walk home I was parched and decided to visit the Embassy for a pint. As per usual, this pint turned into nine, and I noticed how horrendously sunburnt I was, before demolishing two slices of pizza and returning to the hostel. Here, I fell asleep while watching Most Haunted, and awoke at 6.30am with a ridiculously painful back thanks to sleeping on the hard wooden seat, before heading to bed

Surprisingly, when I awoke late on Monday I didn't feel too hungover, and with this in mind decided to head to an old-school cinema near the old Maple Gardens, where I intended to view Hot Fuzz. After purchasing my ticket, I proceeded to spill a large coke all over myself, before entering theatre 5, which was the size of your average kitchen. The homeliness of the cinema was such that I began to experience feelings of claustrophobia among the huge crowd of three, but the film was nonetheless pleasant. I returned to the hostel to do precisely bugger all for the rest of the day

My original plan for the Tuesday was of visiting the Toronto islands, a short boat trip across Lake Ontario. Unfortunately, this was thrown into confussion with the issuing of a heat warning, telling people to stay inside as much as possible due to the extreme heat that would be affecting the city today. With my fitness levels on a par with an obese, bed ridden man, I decided to yeal their advise and headed to the Embassy for a few pints. With nothing else to do, I decided to attempt some home surgery on my still blocked ear, believing I could unblock it using something small, and as such ignored all medical advise with regards to sticking stuff into your ear. I soon learnt why, as my probing resulted in not a clearing of the ear, but becoming completely deaf on the right side. Blind panicking, I headed to the nearest pharmacy to buy some products that were supposed to help clear it, but did bugger all. Checking the god-given site that is NHS direct, I was relieved to find out that any drops would take time - but if it hadn't cleared I would need to visit a doctor to get them syringed, something that was going to prove impossible to do for at least 10 days as my doctor was thousands of miles away. I went to bed feeling extremely disabled

With only a week to go until I went home, I spent Wednesday souvenir shopping. This included a visit to the Air Canada Sports Shop to stock up on Toronto FC merchandise, then onto the Skydome to purchase some Blue Jays merchandise. I then spent a brief period at the internet cafe, where a restaurant table for eight was successfully booked on Skype, before spending the remainder of the day at the hostel and continuing treatment on my ear, where a brief improvement was noted

A terrible nights sleep saw me question whether to spend my Thursday down at Niagara, but the lure of the Fallsview Casino proved too much to resist. Todays mode of transport was the bus, which went direct to the casino and the cheap ticket was only valid if five hours was spent in the facility. With a cracking excuse to gamble, I had a mixed day of luck at the slots. My ear condition was now at maximum annoyance, so I decided to buy a strawberry ice cream to please myself, which turned out to be a stroke of genius. The small spoon that came with the ice cream was slender enough to slide right into my ear, and remarkably with the lubrication provided by the drops, remove the blockage. In order to celebrate, I visited the Embassy for three pints on my return before heading back to the hostel and bed

Entering Toronto on the highway after returning from Niagara	The Skydome in all her glory

My last Friday in Toronto saw me head to the Air Canada Centre once again, before attempting to use the underground network to find my way to the internet cafe thanks to the blistering heat. Despite having spent 6 weeks in the city of Toronto, I still managed to get horribly lost while underground, and ended up having to walk through the streets in the blistering heat, resulting in myself sweating like the proverbial pedophile. I decided to take advantage of the cool, air conditioned facility by spending a large portion of the day there, before heading to the Embassy for three points of Magners. On my return to the hostel, I finally got my hands on the hottest ticket in town - a Toronto v LA Galaxy ticket. These were trading for up to £200 on the black market, yet I picked mine up for a fraction of that. The hostel were offering free tickets to the ball game in the evening, which I took advantage of. Due to the nature of these free tickets, the seats were further from the Diamond and higher up than I was accustomed to, which made for a refreshing new look. The Blue Jays were able to destroy the Texas Rangers 6-3, and after the game I headed back to the hostel for some much needed rest following a viewing of WWE Smackdown

The hottest ticket in Toronto - TFC v LA Galaxy	The Blue Jays take on Texas Rangers
A fantastic piece of photography by myself to capture the Skydome in all her glory

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