The true meaning of a vacation

A vacation for me is not about doing as many different entertainment activities as possible. My vacations used to be stressful because I always thought that I am on vacation and I shouldn't waste my time on sleeping, relaxing and wasting time. I thought it was about utilizing time as much as possible.

But not any more.

This vacation, I decided to do two things, do whatever I wanna do as they come without overthinking about who to meet, when to meet and where to meet, what to do, when to do, and where to do.

So what was the first step?

Drop the watch.

You can't believe how relieving it is to live a day without having any sort of commitment to time. Without worrying about getting to finish a task before a certain time.

In those 2 days, I never made any commitment to see anyone. I always tell my friends to call me and i just keep updating them on my location like a GPS device.

So what have I done during my first day here?

Walk, walk, and walk. Yesterday I have walked a distance equivalent to what I would walk in KSA for 3 days. I started my day with a bagel of cream cheese and hot chocolate from TIM HORTONS.. I kept shouting in my mind: "TIMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYs....." oh how much I missed TIM HORTONS. I am definitely buying their coffee and bring it back to me to KSA (looool, I don' even drink coffee)



It took me a couple of minutes to try and remember the bus system. Ok, take bus 29W to south common mall. oh, South Common Mall is still the same. Not much has changed. I spent 9 months taking the 26 bus from sheridan transport to my college. The whole trip lasted 45 minutes. I then took 1E dundas to stop by Hurontario Street & Dundas.

Later, I went to square one and just walked and walked and walked. My friend called me and we went to watch the spain vs russia game in JACKASTOR's...a pub next to Chapters in Square one. Oh man at Chapters, I remember the days where I was bored and I used to sit all alone by myself hide in a corner and read the books inside the bookstore before the owners kick me out at 9 when they close. hehehehehe

Watching the game was fun, especially when you always have smiling waitresses who enjoy doing their jobs, no matter how clumsy you can get when you get superexcited and spill the jug of beer all over your friends and all over her. She doesn't complain. She smiles back, cleans the table and the floor and adds the icing on the cake with the wink telling you: "this one is free of charge". You can't help but be very generous in your tip especially since she constantly kept supplying me SPRITE refills. I drank about 4 cups of SPRITE that my friends thought I am getting drunk on SPRITE.

3-0 was the ending result. Celebrations all over the street. We drove to streetsville, bought a couple of jerseys, screamed and cheered with spanish fans who we don't know. People thought we were spanish because we were wearing spain jerseys (except me :( ) and because of our super hyperactivity in our celebrations.
Later, we went to an Italian restaurant to try their veal sandwiches. As usual, my rooomate and his friends kept making fun of the italian team and how they 'choked' in this competition. I was siding with the waitress and her friend who were making our sandwiches till I discovered that they were InterMilan fans.

What I still don't understand is how do all girls we asked (the ones we know and the ones we don't know) find Sergio Ramos to be the cutest guy on the spanish team.

I didn't do much later. Went home, chilled for a bit. Then asked my friend to drop me in ERIN MILLS mall. The mall that I usually visit to do all my shopping errands. Had to buy the things that I forgot to bring with me like a hairbrush, and a travel adapter plug for all the electronics i have from the Middle East.

Oh man, here I was, walking again through ZELLERS, WAL-MART and SEARS. Lol at Wal-Mart. I just remembered the campaign I did 2 years ago where I vowed to myself to try all the different candy types they have on those 3 different aisles. It took me over 5 months to try all of them. But hey I did it. am I Crazy? guilty as charged. My favourite ones are the sugary jelly worms


As I left the mall, the sun was setting. I wondered what time it is. and for the first time in this day, I loook at my cellphone clock. It said 9:10 p.m. Wow, the sun is still up at 9:10 p.m?

Went back home, tired and exhausted. I didn't feel like doing anything. I guess I still didn't shake the effects of jetlag yet. I played a couple of FIFA 2008 games with my roomate on his xbox 360 (yep, he still has it) before I decided to call it a day.

I woke up half an hour ago. Its 9 a.m as I write this. My legs are hurting me. I guess it is from all the walking I did yesterday. Its ok, I am gonna walk more and more. Oh how much I miss walking. Let's see what this day will unravel for me. :)