Adventures in Hamilton, Ontario

Last updated on April 14th, 2021 at 09:40 am

Hamilton, Ontario is a lovely city about an hour west of Toronto that’s been developing steadily over the years. There’s plenty to do and see there if you plan to go and give it a visit. But it’s when you don’t plan to visit Hamilton where things can go a little… left. This is a story of an unexpected visit to Hamilton when I was nineteen and how I handled it.

An unexpected trip to Hamilton: The setup.

In retrospect, I should have never really walked out the front door this morning if I knew things would end up like this. Nothing good comes out of getting out of bed feeling like crap.

So I got that essay mediocrely done in school, and went to class and helped that girl out, so that was all good. Then I handed in the essay and we were doing fairy take remakes in my Worlds of Childhood tutorial—our Snow Black story was well-received—but then things started to go wrong.

In Calculus, where I had a test, I started to feel sickly and dizzy. So, I cut the test short and decided to go home. So I got on the bus to go home—but I didn’t really realize just how sick and tired I was. I took the bus… and promptly fell asleep.

Now you have to understand—normally this isn’t cause for alarm, as I usually wind up waking up at the Square One terminal, where I get off to go home. But then again, I’m not usually this sick.

And then you wake up in a different city.

So I eventually woke up, and being in the tired-ass state I was, I asked to get off the bus. The driver, nice as he was, obliged, and being the stupid, tired guy I was, I asked where the bus was going to next. The better question would have been where the hell am I. So I was ready to scrounge around in my wallet after gaining my head back a bit, ready to grab some cash to head home.

Then I realized my wallet wasn’t there. At all.

Panicking, I ran after the bus, wanting to get it back, but being as sick as I was, I couldn’t catch up. So here I was in some random place, without a wallet. All I had on me was my:

• Driver’s licence
• School ID for York University
• Mississauga bus pass
• Nokia 3320 cell phone
• House keys
• and some packs of Halls and SweeTarts

So the first motion of order was to find out where the hell I was. I looked around, then decided to look at some signs to get my bearings. Then I saw it. The logo with a Marauder (a large species of eagle) dead in the centre. I was in Hamilton at McMaster University. I had completely overshot my home city and ended up in the boonies.

So what did I do? Call my boy Amir who lives on campus. Fortunately, he was in and came to claim me, laughing the entire time. Also, fortunately, he owed me $20, so I had a way to get home. So I’m okay, no need to worry.

But if there is some sort of power watching over me, I beseech you—please let me get my wallet back 😔 It had the $100 I was going to pay back to my mom and the bulk of my ID 😢 Please?

So that’s been my day so far. On the bright side, I’ve seen people that I haven’t seen in a while, and things are generally good. I just can’t believe I was so stupid. Oh well. More coming when I finally get home.

Peace,