Two of Girlfriend's friends were staying in our apartment with us in Montreal: Gemma and Ester. A couple of days ago, Ester asked me, "We're going to Toronto for the weekend. Do you want to come?"

Now, I think they only asked me out of politeness. They didn't expect me to actually say "Yes".

But I said "Yes".

So that's how I found myself in the back seat of a rental car, being driven to Toronto. Being inside a car was exciting. I hadn't been inside a car in months.

Girlfriend wasn't in the car. She didn't want to come.

"Are you sure Girlfriend doesn't want to come?" said Ester, who was driving.

“I asked her but she doesn't want to,” I said.

“She can still make it if she gets a bus.”

“I don't think Girlfriend is going to get on an eight-hour bus,” I said.

Thinking back, it was probably weird that I was going on a road trip with two of Girlfriend's friends, two people I barely knew, while Girlfriend stayed at home. But I just thought "fuck it" and off I went.

Thousand Islands

We stopped on the way to Toronto at the Thousand Islands.

Thousand Islands is a place in the Saint Lawrence River where the river becomes very very wide and placid, like a lake, and there are lots of little islands dotted around everywhere.

Thousand Island dressing comes from here. Yes, the pale pink industrialized sludge you find in the Harvester. I always thought it came from the Caribbean or something, and so when I ate it, I vaguely thought of sun and palm trees. Little did I know that Thousand Island dressing comes from the frozen plains of CANADA. And that there's an actual real place in Canada called the Thousand Islands.

There was a big tour boat called Thousand Islander III. I don't know what happened to Thousand Islander I and Thousand Islander II. Maybe they hit one of the thousand islands and sank. We each paid $24 for a ticket and climbed aboard. The propellers of the boat started churning water and the boat slowly moved off into the river.

If you get a chance to see the Thousand Islands, then I recommend it. Imagine a big lake full of tiny islands. Some of the islands are tiny but they have houses on them. It reminded me of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, sailing around these tiny islands. Who the fuck lives on them, I don't know. Yet there were people living there. Many islands had a house and I saw actual people walking around on the islands. It was like watching The Sims.

The smallest inhabited island is roughly 17 metres long and 17 metres wide, the same size as a tennis court. It's called Just Enough Room Island (it's true, I'm not making it up) and has enough space for a house and a couple of deckchairs. It's also the smallest inhabited island in the world. That is, if there isn't a man marooned on a tiny desert island somewhere with just some crabs and a couple of palm trees to sustain him.

It was ironic that most of these people must have moved to the islands for privacy, and yet, several times a day, a tour boat goes past their windows, with said tour boat filled with tourists. You could be having an elaborate wank, for example, with your willy in a vacuum cleaner and a cucumber up your arse (not something I have ever tried), only for a tour boat full of tourists to go past your window, with everyone aboard taking your photo as you struggle to get your penis free from the vacuum cleaner, and you fall over backwards onto the cucumber and it goes right up your arse, further than any cucumber ever should, right up into your bowels, and you're on the floor writhing around in agony while the tourists laugh and film you, and someone uploads the video to Pornhub and it goes viral and becomes the site's most-watched video overnight, and you're on all the news channels as "cucumber guy", and even though your face and genitals are blurred out, people know exactly where you live now and they all come hoping to catch you having another cucumber wank, and some of them bring cucumbers and throw them at your house. And that's why I don't live at Thousand Islands.

And I noticed something else. All these people living on islands were a terrifying glimpse of the future where global warming causes sea levels to rise and we're all forced to eke out a miserable existence on tiny islands, trading fish bones with each other for scraps and fending off pirates with water cannons. We'd build temples to Poseidon and create an aquatic-themed currency based on coral.

The irony is that in the event of climate change flooding disasters, these houses would be some of the first to get washed away since they're only a few metres above river level. But by then it won't matter because we'll all be getting gills surgically attached to our necks so we can breathe underwater.

Anyway, here are some photos.

Then we drove the rest of the way down to Toronto. It was getting dark when we finally arrived.

Ester seemed to be a bit lost. It was hard to tell because she was speaking Catalan to Gemma the whole time.

While Ester is busy finding the hostel, I'll tell you about Toronto's mayor's, Rob Ford.

So Rob Ford is the mayor known for smoking crack cocaine. In 2013, a video circulated of Rob Ford — the major of Toronto, let me remind you — standing in the living room of local gang members and smoking crack cocaine. Yes, crack cocaine. It's a video you can watch for yourself on YouTube, a video where Rob Ford — once again, let me remind you, the mayor of Toronto — lights up a crack pipe and takes a drag on it.

"Yes I have smoked crack cocaine," he later admitted at a press conference. "Probably in one of my drunken stupors."

From then on, newspapers referred to Ford as "Toronto's crack-smoking mayor", as if that was his real title. And, weirdly, despite admitting to smoking crack cocaine and getting pulled over for drink-driving, Ford had a higher approval rating at the time than Barack Obama. Now how's that for a mayor?

During his four years as Toronto's mayor, he also knocked over an elderly councillor, got drunk and slurred his words at a street festival, got charged for drink driving, and said, "I never said I wanted to eat eat her pussy, I'm happily married. I've got more than enough to eat at home."

And he's fat. He looks like one of those people in Wall-E who are so fat they can't walk anymore and they have to carried around everywhere by floating stretchers. He looks like the Kingpin, the Spiderman villain. He looks like Dennis Hopper playing King Koopa in the Mario Brothers movie.

Unbeliveably, Rob Ford was still Toronto's mayor when Ester, Gemma and I drove into Toronto that warm, rainy night, even though he'd pubically admitted to smoking crack cocaine almost a year earlier.

Anyway, eventually, Ester and Gemma found where we needed to go. We parked and then temporarily parted ways: I went to my hostel and Gemma and Ester went to theirs.

My stomach was growling. I hadn't eaten all day. I ran to the local convenience store with only 25 minutes before the hostel locked the door for the night. Inside the brightly-lit store, all I found to eat was a packet of seeds. I mean, there was other stuff too, but it all contained gluten or dairy. So I bought a packet of seeds and made it to the hostel with five minutes to spare. Then I ate the seeds in the hostel's common room. Finally I went to bed.

Day 2

The first proper day in Toronto. I checked out of the hostel and went to meet Ester and Gemma at the CN tower. By the time I got there, they were already there, waiting.

"So do you want to go up the tower?" Ester asked me.

"Nah," I said. "I already did it." So Ester and Gemma went up without me.

I booked another hostel on my phone. The only problem was that it was on the other side of Toronto.

I started walking to my new hostel so I could drop my rucksack off. I felt like a seasoned traveller, staying in a different hostel every night and hopping across Toronto with nothing but my clothes and a backpack.

My rucksack was heavy though. I'd brought my laptop with me in case I needed to work, and this was turning out to be a bad idea. My laptop only weighed three kilos and I could feel every one of those three kilos as the straps of my rucksack dug into my shoulders.

Making things worse, Toronto's summer sun bore down on me from overhead, scorching my skin and making me feel dizzy. There were no trees to offer shade. It was like trekking through the Gobi desert, not Toronto.

As I was plodding along the street, suffering in my own private misery of sunstroke and back pain, the sound of drumming came from further on down the street. And brass instruments too - the kind of music old people dance to. And there were people in the distance, marching towards me. Or maybe it was a mirage?

Was I hallucinating from sunstroke? If I was hallucinating, then at least it could have been something good, like a cheerleading squad.

As the people got closer, I saw it was a cheerleading squad. Smiling, beautiful women were twirling flags in synchronisation. What the fuck? Was this really a dream? Had I passed out on the sidewalk from sunstroke and dehydration?

Next there were men in shiny clean uniforms marching down the street while playing brass instruments and drums.

And there was one guy dressed entirely in white, except for a purple, glittery sash. He was throwing a baton up in the air in increasingly elaborate ways.

And as far as I could tell, I was the only person watching this spectacle. There were no other spectators.

I could think of four possibilities for what was going on:

• I had sunstroke and was hallucinating the whole thing
• Justin Bieber had died and the people in Toronto were spontaneously celebrating
• They were throwing a parade in my honour
• Today was a special day and they were throwing a parade for it

Canadians love parades and they'll throw a parade for any reason at all. If you so much as fart then you can bet that a Canadian will hold a parade about it.

I've never liked parades. I don't see the appeal. All those people on Prozac dancing in formation, waving flags and banging drums. It's like a Broadway nightmare. And most of the time the floats are a mile apart from each other anyway so you have to wait half an hour in between each one, muttering to yourself and wishing you were dead. Maybe for that reason, I can never be a true Canadian. To be a true Canadian, you have to love parades.

The parade went on and on. And it wasn't just people, there were floats too. There was a float for the Cottage Grove Lions Club, whatever the fuck that is. On the float stood four topless men. They wore massive hats that covered their entire heads. Eyes had been painted on their nipples. Mouths had been painted on their bellies. They looked like a new race of disturbing belly hat people.

Above them was a sign that said, "Whistling our song for all to hear, When the blind need help lions are near". What that meant, I had no idea. I was more confused than ever. If you put a lion next to a blind person, then the lion would eat the blind person, surely? I can't imagine a lion helping a blind person to cross the road.

Finally, the parade died out. I had no idea what the parade was for.

Not until years later, that is, when I plugged the date into Google. It turns out the parade was some kind of international parade competition. So there you go.

Finally, after an hour of walking, I arrived at the hostel. My shoulders were fucked, my right shoulder in particular, from carrying my heavy rucksack.

Gemma and Ester texted me to say they were at the port. I cycled down there using a rental bike. On the way, I sped past the districts and neighbourhoods of Toronto. I had to admit parts of the city were pretty. It wasn't all a concrete hell.

I found Gemma and Ester at the port. Together we went to Jack Layton Ferry Terminal to get a ferry to Toronto Island Park. This was all new to me. I don't know who Jack Layton was but I'm sure he'd be happy to know there's a ferry terminal named after him..

Everyone crammed onto the ferry like cows being herded into a barn. The ferry was like a B-class version of the Staten Island ferry in New York.

At Toronto Island Park, there was a BEACH. I had no idea that Toronto had a beach. Toronto was getting better and better. Now I was beginning to wish I lived in Toronto instead of Montreal.

Other stuff we did that day was go to the distillery district for the Bacardi festival (possibly sponsored by Barcardi) and eat at a restaurant at Yonge-Dundas Square, which is the main square in Toronto. It's like Times Square in New York, with giant screens and billboards, but smaller.

Day 3

The next day, we walked around Toronto some more, to the Royal Ontario Museum and other places that were so boring I can barely remember them. Here are some photos of the Royal Ontario Museum.

Finally it was to go home. Or it was for me, at least. Gemma and Ester were continuing on an exciting journey around Canada. As for me, I was going back to Montreal.

So I said goodbye to Gemma and Ester. Or rather I tried to, but they'd already turned around and left.

Now, how do you get from Toronto to Montreal? Most people would take the Greyhound bus. It costs $30 and gets you to Montreal in eight hours.

But in an attempt to save a few dollars, I found a dodgy guy on the internet instead.

He said to meet in a car park at 2 pm. So I got there on time. As I approached the car, the guy spun around and glared at me.

"Are you Frank?" he barked.

"No. I’m Paul," I said.

"You're not Frank?"

"No. I’m Paul," I repeated.

His face softened. He looked sorry for berating me. I don’t know who Frank was or what Frank had done to him but I didn't ask. "Sorry," he said. "Jump in."

So I got in the car. There were six guys already in there. They all looked up at me hopefully as if I'd come to free them from prison.

But no, I was just here to take a ride. So I climbed into the empty seat in the back, between two other guys. I had my backpack nestled between my legs.

We set off. It soon became apparent that the driver was intent on making it to Montreal as fast as possible. We hurtled down the motorway, way over the speed limit. He was bent forward over the steering wheel as though his bodyweight could make the car go faster.

As he drove he would keep getting phone calls. He'd always answer them.

"You can't call me right now!" he'd say over the speakerphone. "I'm driving!"

If he knew he shouldn't be taking phone calls then why was he taking them?

I pictured tomorrow's news: Six Canadian men and one unattractive bald British man were killed yesterday in a horrific car accident. Despite wearing a seatbelt, the British man somehow went flying through the windscreen and landed in a nearby lake, where his body was then picked apart by a family of beavers. In other news, a Canadian boy found a winning lottery ticket on his way home from school. More on that later....

I slid my laptop out of my bag. Since there would be nothing to do for the next five hours, I thought I could use the time to write an essay.

So I sat there, in a car full of silent men, with a laptop balanced on my legs, and wrote an essay about an Emily Dickinson poem for a college student in Montreal. Though maybe, from the speed were we driving, I should’ve been writing my last will and testament instead.

After a couple of hours, he stopped the car at a service station. "Need to eat," he said. "Haven't eaten all day."

Hadn't eaten all day? That's not what you want to hear from someone who's driving a speeding car. Especially when you're inside the car with him.

Get this man some food, stat! I would have bought him a burger myself but he was already gone, striding to the McDonald's. He drove fast, he walked fast. He probably did everything fast. His life is just a blur. Sonic, his friends probably call him, if he could ever stop long enough to make friends.

Ten minutes later he came back. He was just finishing his burger. He ate fast too.

"Let's go," he said.

Buzzing around the car was a cloud of mosquitos. As soon as we opened the car doors to get, the cloud of mosquitos flew into the car.

"Oh, fuck," said the driver.

No one knew what to do. What do you do when there are mosquitos in the car? We all got in as fast as we could and closed the doors as quickly as possible before another cloud of mosquitos could arrive.

Now, inside the car with us were dozens of mosquitos. They were hiding, waiting to nestle on our skin and suck our blood.

I put my seatbelt on, checking several times that it was on securely. I couldn't see the mosquitos but they were there. Every few moments I'd feel something on my leg. I'd go to brush it away but there would be nothing. My brain was inventing phantom mosquitos.

The driver opened a window to let the mosquitos out. But of course, the mosquitos didn't want to leave. They wanted to stay in here, with the human buffet.

The driver went extra fast in the final hour. But would this be the final hour of the journey or the final hour of our lives? Only time, or our obituaries, would tell. The driver could sense Montreal was nearby, like a crazed, horny dog in heat smelling the pheromones from a female dog. He wanted to get to Montreal. He wanted the ordeal to be over as much as the rest of us.

But by the speed he was going, all our lives were hanging by a thread. One wrong move by the driver, one lapse in judgement, and we'd be dead. Please, God, please! Please let us live!

This may surprise you but we didn't die. We all got to Montreal alive and unhurt. I thanked the driver for the ride and for the near-death experience that would give me a fresh appreciation of life. I paid him $30, which was exactly the same amount as a Greyhound bus ticket, so I could have just taken the Greyhound instead and avoided risking my life.

When I got home, Girlfriend was waiting for me. And she was angry.

"You can't go to Toronto without me!" she said.

"I asked if you wanted to come," I said. "You said you didn't."

"So you should have stayed here! It's not normal, going to another city with someone else's friends!"

Having no friends myself, I didn't know the social etiquette for dealing with other people's friends.

Also, I inspected my legs and they were covered in mosquitos bites.