Toronto. From "C" to "C".

Our very first friend’s night trip finally came and went.

For eight years, this group of friends has been getting together on Thursday nights, rain or shine. And throughout the years, we've seen each other start school, finish school, get jobs, complain about them, and finally leave them to explore new ones. We've witnessed breakups, celebrated home purchases, marriages, and the births of our kids. But somewhere along the way, we have also seen some of us move away.

After careful planning around everybody's summer plans, we finally settled on a date for our very first road trip together. At the end of July we would all be driving to Toronto to visit our friend T, who moved there at the beginning of the year. She is expecting a baby at the beginning of September, so we decided to go there and throw her a baby shower.

At the end there were eight of us. We decided we would take two cars and leave on Thursday evening, so those of us working would only have to take one day off. Everybody showed up on time, we packed the two cars, and headed north. The drive to Toronto was long and tiring, but for the most part uneventful. That is until for some odd reason we decided to stop at the scariest gas station in Detroit. Looking back, that was not our proudest moment at all. I was truly afraid of getting out of the car, but could not decide what would be worse: Having my car being stolen with me in it, or being in the middle of a really bad area with no car at all. We now laugh about it, but the truth is that we were lucky to leave that place unharmed. I am certainly never going back.

We finally made it to Toronto Friday morning at around 3:00am. We said hi to T and her husband, chatted for a little while, and finally crashed. Later that day we threw the baby shower, and in the afternoon headed out to the beach. The sky was cloudy in the morning, but at the end turned out to be a beautiful day. We sat around for almost two hours talking; a little bit of everything. I couldn't remember the last time I sat around at the beach without having to be on alert, watching the kids. Although I missed my girls dearly, I was grateful to have that time to myself, and for the opportunity to reconnect with friends. On Saturday we were out pretty much all day, which was great for me as I am severely allergic to T's cat. Even though I took allergy medicine the entire time, fresh air was definitely what helped me the most. We walked and walked, going from one place to another: the Caribbean festival, the CN tower, the main square, and of course, china town. We were all proud of our friend Susan who is also very pregnant by now, yet never complained or even slowed down. We closed Saturday watching a bad movie at T's home, a good way to wind down from the busy day. But we were so tired, that we couldn't even watch the end. We just had to go to bed. On Sunday morning T's husband made us a really nice breakfast. We all sat around, ate, and talked a little bit more about kids, our parents, life in a new city, and the joys and challenges of welcoming a new baby into our lives. We knew that was our last chance to hang out together, at least for a long while.

On Sunday we headed back home. And even though I was anxious to see my family, the drive seemed a lot shorter that time around. Maybe it helped that we just kept talking, sharing previously untold stories, remembering classic ones, opening up in general, and doing a recap of our trip. We were also proud that we never got on each other's nerves, and despite having a bunch of girls together pretty much 24x7, there were no cat fights; zero pettiness. We also created new memories, whether they are a bad decision to make a stop in the worst part of town, the dumb questions asked by some stranger, or the locals who, partly because of our fault, almost picked a fight.

All in all it was a great trip, and I would certainly do it again. But even though Toronto was a nice city, the truth is that what made it so great was the company, the chats, the opportunity to become closer, and to remember why, through it all, we still make the effort to get together every Thursday night.