The Revellers

Yes a hand-drawn rickshaw

I remember last year during the DAAD meet, I was mostly part of a small group, and had even been particularly harsh in my blog about a group of merrymakers sitting at the back of the bus creating ruckus. The seats have changed this year around, and I found myself amongst the backbenchers. The Waterloo group (with support from the Western Ontario group from London) was the most vibrant sub-group during the meet. For the 5 days in Toronto, we laughed like anything. And we were suddenly back in school. Everyone were at their perverted best.
On Day 1, we decided to get over with the one thing, which in my case, took three years coming - A visit to a strip-club. The fact that entry was free, as long as you order some drinks, went well with us. I would rather skip the details of our experience at the risk of disappointing the readers. From movies, I used to have the impression that the strippers dance around poles and strip down to minimals. It was mostly accurate but regarding the extent to which they strip, let's just say that I was wrong.

On the second day, we slipped out during the Ontario Museum tour and went to Eaton Centre for some shopping, not for the love of it, but mostly because everyone else of our group went there. We hung around in Dundas Square, where a band was performing live. Afterwards a group of people were playing a game called Ninja. Kind of a fun thing. We joined in for sometime.

The Eaton Centre

At Dundas Square, these exotic bikes were all lined up as if for an exhibit

The following day we were forced on to a Niagara encore. What is supposed to be one of the natural wonders of the world, somehow interested none of us anymore. There was no excitement on seeing the falls again. After getting off from the bus, we didn't even go in the direction of the falls. We just walked the streets joblessly. The up and down bus journeys were more exciting though- Bada Don, Angry birds, Tamil songs, and a lot of fun. We teased the couples in the bus, deriving school-boyish pleasures out of it, and at that time it didn't seem silly at all.

On the boat cruise, there was good food. While helping myself for the second time, some random girl from Calcutta, who had already made herself infamous, tried to give me some baseless advice regarding eating habits in a very rude manner. It felt good to blast her off.

The sunset looked beautiful. The island to the south-west of Toronto downtown had a busy runway, and flights taking off and landing every now and then metres away from the boat made a wonderful sight. Soon after sunset, there was a disco arranged for us on the boat. The MITACS organizers hit the floor first and urged us to follow suit. We did so albeit in an ungainly fashion, except for Rohit, who was finally living up to his dancing reputations.