And now.. the rest.. of the story.
Took an uneventful flight home Friday night that had me arrive a little after 7AM. Unfortunately, with three hours sleep on the plane, I had now slept a total of about 13 hours in three days, and it was starting to show. I breezed through customs and over to pick up my old school friend Brent and his girlfriend, Jackie, in from Moncton for a short visit. By the end of Saturday I would actually fall asleep hunched over in my wife’s car I was so tired.
We headed down to Toronto and eventually met up with local Zonk celebrities Kip and Shaz, grabbed some day passes and headed to beerbistro. At King and Yonge it’s a high-end(ish) restaurant that specializes in rare, imported, local, and microbrews in both food and drink. The experience was incredible and I highly recommend it. I had the Beerbequed Pulled Pork Beer Bread Pizza and took their suggested beer pairing of a Denison’s Weissbier I’d heard a lot about but not yet sampled. Lots of wheat, lemons, and banana balanced with cloves and spices, so easy to sip. I had preceded that with a Hacker-Pschorr Dunkle Weisse which was all I’d hoped for; I love combinations of darker beers with weizen. On the way Shaz, who spent time in Belgium, had told me about Delirium Tremens, one of her favourites I’d never had a chance to try. Oddly, the bistro offered it on draught and I tried a three-glass sampler with it, Unibroue Maudite, and King Pilsner – all very good.
This is getting long.. hidden under drop down..

Shaz suggested we be introduced to the massive Queen’s Quay LCBO so we checked that out, and I was ecstatic to finally find a bottle of Niagara Falls Eisbock, 750ml 2005 vintage which I will hold on to for a tasting down the road. From there we retreated to their hotel room in Yorkville for a couple hours of catch-up and memories from Kip, Brent, and my childhood. YOU KNOW IT, BABY!
I was dead to the world by the time we got back and hit the sack, waking up fairly late by my standards Saturday and getting underway on another day of fun. I figured nothing says the big city quite like Vaughan Mills and Bass Pro so we took Brent and Jackie there to meet up with another Zonk legend, Rob, for some touring and lunch. I should note first that Rob is doing tremendous on his weight loss efforts looking visibly thinner – keep it up (or down, whatever..)! We had a moderately healthy lunch, then headed towards Craig and Cheryl’s in Beeton for another meeting amongst high school friends. Yesterday a visit to IKEA was requested and granted before we headed back here to rest up for their flight home.
All told a great weekend, so amazing to see not only Brent but all my old school friends within a few days. Now it’s back to the grindstone..