Hi everyone! I’m happy to announce that after 8 hours on the road, a couple stressful wrong turns and roundabouts, and a bag of maple-flavored cashews later, we’ve successfully reached Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

About a month ago, my good friend Carolina and I decided spontaneously during a typical day at work to venture to Toronto. She, being a Chilean citizen, was thrilled she no longer needed a Visa to enter the country, and I, filled with the intense desire to travel to new places (and the intense desire to see Jay Park live in concert), was excited to venture on this journey. We discovered, in about hour 4 or 5 of the trip, that we make quite good travel companions. This is a good thing, because let’s face it…if you’re going to spend 8 hours in a car with someone, it better be someone you get along well with.

We opted to rent a car to save money, and because we thought it would be kind of cool to drive. I received plenty of warnings from well-meaning family members and friends that driving would be taxing on me. Two hours into the drive, I was completely cool. “I can do this” I thought.

My back started to stiffen up somewhere along Ann Arbor, or somewhere in that neck of the woods. We stopped for lunch in a town called Chelsea, Michigan, which the lady at Taco Bell informed us was the home of Jack Daniels. Cool, we thought.

Let me tell you, the longest and most stress-inducing stretch of the trip was the final 2 hours. As we approached the city, we passed signs telling us the distance in kilometers until Toronto. We kept looking ahead into the newly darkened sky for any site of a skyline, but the cars fooled us. I pass a semi here, and there.

Finally, as we are heading into Toronto, we had a few wrong turns/merges. I decided it would probably be a better idea to get off at the wrong exit rather than cut in front of a couple lanes of traffic to get to the correct one. After a couple pull-over to the side of the road, we got it right, and arrived at our hotel in Toronto.

After checking in, we realized that while we were excited to have been greeted by the bright lights of an unfamiliar city, we were far too mentally exhausted to even consider going out somewhere. We grabbed a couple drinks and some small bites in the hotel restaurant, then headed up to the room to retire for the night. Carolina is currently passed out…and I will be soon too..but not before I share an update with anyone reading!

Tomorrow night is the concert (Yay!). We plan to wake up tomorrow morning and check out the area. We will then begin crossing out some of the items on our to-do list. As promised, I will be blogging. And I hope to share some pictures and adventures with you. Fact: The CN tower is literally right outside of our hotel room window.

Sleep is calling…until tomorrow..goodnight, Toronto and everyone back home.