Toronto streets

A quick note about activity on the streets. Toronto seems to have more activity on the streets than Vancouver. The homeless or people asking for handouts are a little more aggressive. I've seen two protests so far: one was a woman picketing in front of a Bell building, with signs and everything, asking them to giver her what they owe her; the other was a group of 20 - 30 people outside the Scientology building - in Guy Fawkes masks - protesting against the "cult". Down the street from here, at Dundas Square, is a popular spot for the religious types. You can find out all you want and more about Islam on a regular basis. It is also the favourite spot for the resident pamphlet-giver (he likes to shout out "BeLIEVE in the Lord!" at random intervals - presumably to scare the hell out of you). And yesterday I witnessed the naked bike ride through downtown.

Apparently Vancouver has a naked bike ride, too, but I have not seen it. I also realize that the Fisheries building and the Armed Forces recruitment centre do seem to attract people with megaphones and free time, so maybe it's not a significant difference. It feels different, though.

More flash and bang

I've just spent half an hour, an hour, watching a thunderstorm and the people in the Delta Chelsea across the street watching the storm. I thought I saw a very localized reflection of lighting in the windows of the hotel, but it was someone with a flash camera taking pictures. I'd love to see if any of them turned out.

I was chatting to Bitter over Facebook; the storm was full force in Georgetown, but not a whisper here. Within half an hour the sky was lighting up and the rain was pouring down.

Someone from the Vancouver office was here this week and caught Monday's storm. She'd never seen anything like it, being from the Lower Mainland.

I swear I saw a bolt of lightning right through another building across the street. Then five minutes later I saw all the lights come back on for several floors. Fuckin' fantastic!

Like a frightened mole

Crazy thunderstorms and heavy rain tonight. I haven't seen this much thunder and lightning (okay, heard thunder and seen lightning) since Alberta. I've experienced lightning about three times since coming to BC and more than that in the last two weeks.

Bitter took the Go Train this afternoon out to the country (Georgetown) to stay with family, so it's Jaded and Ebow for the next week.

Got caught in a downpour on the way home from work. Sunny all day, then it decides to rain about two minutes after I leave the building. I was able to duck into the PATH (the underground mall downtown) and make it almost all the way home (with a stop at the LCBO without leaving the safety of the tunnels). This was good practice for winter.

The day of infinite dogs

It's hot. Yesterday was 33 degrees and humid. We checked out the rooftop deck in the building, and it is on the roof. It's got some sidewalk blocks and that's it. No plants, nothing to sit on. I don't foresee many summer nights relaxing on the rooftop terrace.

Today was a little cooler, but still hot and sunny. We headed down to St. Lawrence Market to pick up a few things and to visit the many cheese shops. On the way we passed the Luminato Arts + Culture festival in the Yonge/Dundas square. Huge weather balloon things hanging over the square and live music on the stage. The highlight, though, was farther along when we stumbled upon Woofstock. Front, Wellington and Church streets were blocked off east of Yonge for "the largest outdoor festival for dogs in all of North America". Bitter was in doggie heaven - big dogs, little dogs, cute dogs, ugly dogs, brown dogs, white dogs, yellow dogs - hundreds of DOGS!! It was a good day.

No more bitching about furniture

We have the last of it. A table, two very comfy chairs and two chairs that are practically unusable. Ebow is in heaven, moving from one comfy chair to the other. As far as the other two, I have no idea how that design got past the testing phase. That's the risk you take when you buy online.

Bitter did a great job of assembling and arranging everything. She took the sliding doors off the solarium and stacked them against one wall of the dining room. With the 8' palm she pilfered rescued from the garbage room and the stainless steel table, it looks very cool. It really makes no sense without seeing it, but it does look cool.

In other news, we have two chairs for sale. Brand new. Barely used. They're awesome.

Now we're cooking

Our first homemade meal in Toronto. We made Greek salad last night. Yes, we went high-tech. The food and accompaniments were easy enough to procure, however, when the time came to make it, we discovered a minor setback - no salad bowl. We eventually used a combination of the bowls we ate out of and what I can only guess is a glass ice bucket that was here when we got here. It was a bit awkward, but it worked, we ate, and we enjoyed it.

Update: Just after posting, the question was asked, "Why didn't you use a pot?" I just want to know where this genius was when we needed him.

West meets east

So, on Saturday, during the few precious moments we weren't sitting on our new couch, we made it into Chinatown. A quick search will tell you that there are several Chinatowns in Toronto and area. We went to the only one that really matters - the one that's a 10 minute walk from where we live. Open air food markets, shops selling fifty kinds of crap, and signs you can't read. Pretty much like the ones in Vancouver or San Francisco, but they might be a good source of cheap fruits and vegetables. Every time I mention the Dominion store around the corner from our place, people say, "Oh, that's the expensive one." And there doesn't seem to be an answer to, "Well, where's a cheaper one?" This may be the answer.

From Chinatown we drifted into Kensington Market. Very cool shops and restaurants, narrow streets, lots of people. One store was nothing but spices. We will have to return here.

On the way home we passed through Chinatown again. It always comes back to Chinatown.

A place to sit your ass

We have a couch! Something soft to sit on! We're spending some quality time this weekend sitting on our new piece of furniture watching some TV. Oh, yes. We have a TV! A 32" LCD. Yay us! We officially have more gadgets than furniture. So, sitting on the couch watching TV and drinking coffee. Because we have a coffee maker now too! Oh, the joy of living!

Toronto restaurants part 3

We've had better luck so far this week.

Salad King off Yonge at Gould is a great, cheap Thai place. No idea why "salad," but it doesn't really matter. It's busy and loud with long stainless steel tables - almost like communal tables. Lots on the menu and everything we saw looked good.

The Beer Bistro at King and Yonge is a little pricey for what you get, but they have a great selection of beer - many of them Belgian. We had a Gulden Draak for the first time since leaving Vancouver. All the meals have beer in them somewhere. The Kobe beef tacos were a little disappointing because they tasted like chili. The spicy mussels were good. We sat in the back at a counter that opened right into the kitchen - the chef's table. That let us watch the kitchen while we ate (we saw them make our food) and got us free fries.

Toronto restaurants part 2

I wanted to use the Restaurants application I've been using in Facebook or a restaurant review website (like dinehere.ca for Vancouver) for the places we eat here, but we haven't been able to find any online source that has any significant number of restaurants listed.

The Beacher Cafe at Queen Street East and Maclean was a nice cafe along the main drag through The Beaches. When we didn't see anything appetizer-y on the menu they were kind enough to whip together some hummus and pita bread for us.

Hemingway's at Cumberland Street and Old York Lane is apparently one of the places to be seen in Yorkville. We didn't see anyone and I don't think anyone was looking at us. Very nice rooftop patio. The food was good.

Cafe Nervosa at Yorkville Avenue and Bellair St had good desserts and very good coffee. We will have to come back for the coffee.

Toula in the Westin at Queen's Qay and Bay had the worst service ever. The food was okay, but the service was slow to the point of rude despite the fact that only two other tables were occupied. Yes, two. It would have been three, but another couple left shortly after being seated. It's a nice view over the water from the 38th floor, and it looks as though it should rotate, but doesn't.

We'll meet them on the beaches

We took a bit of a break on Sunday after buying pants for work on Monday.

(I didn't bring any dress pants with me since they all needed to be replaced anyway. We didn't expect to be doing the other shopping that we did, so pants got left until the last minute. Not a great idea, especially when they need to be hemmed. The good news - there's a place that will do hemming in the main floor of our building. The bad news - they're closed on Sunday. Two pairs of pants ended up being dropped off this morning and picked up tonight. The pair I wore today were temporarily shored up - with Bitter's help - but don't tell anyone.)

So, for our Sunday break we took the streetcar ("Ride the Rocket") out to The Beaches. It was a beautiful day, gorgeous sun. We walked along the boardwalk and I think there were actually too many dogs for Bitter to spot them all. It reminded us of the strip in White Rock. People and families and dogs out enjoying a walk in the sun.

We came back into the city and went up to trendy Yorkville with our swap partner and a friend for dinner. No celebrities, but lots of expensive cars. The mildly embarrassing moment of the evening was when Bitter took the opportunity to tell the owner of a brand new Ferrari that I and our new friend were in love with his car. Don't mess with her. Really. Don't.

Toronto restaurants part 1

Despite spending most of our time shopping for necessities, we've managed to eat at a number of establishments already. Oh, wait - that's because we still can't cook at home.

Donatello at Elm & Bay is a nice Italian restaurant. Our swap partner works there as a hostess. She got us a good seat by the window our first night here. The goat cheese and crab ravioli was very good. The bruschetta was also good. We would like to go back.

Danijela's Simply Delicious at Queen & Lansdowne was very good. We've been told that the service and the food is a bit random, but the night we were there it was excellent.

Stratengers at Queen & Bermount was okay. The sign says it's an institution or some such. The food was fine, but the service was quite slow. No real desire to return.

Mochizuki at Elm & Bay is the first sushi Bitter has had in Toronto. Much less scary than she thought. You can sit at the bar in the centre of the restaurant and little plates of sushi come by on a conveyor belt. You grab the plates you like (different colour plates are different prices) and they charge you by the number of plates you have at the end. Pretty good, we will probably go back, but would like to try some of the cooked dishes.

Not quite what we expected

We made it to Toronto safe and sound. Ebow was very good for the bulk of the trip, but had a bit of an accident on the landing - much to his embarrassment. The place is a little disheartening. We knew it wouldn't be as furnished as what we left in Vancouver, but all we had on arrival was a bed, a few bathroom things, and a few kitchen things - glasses and plates, but not even cutlery. It's been three days and we haven't been able to cook anything yet. That means three days of shopping. At this point we would really like something to sit on. Now we have the wireless router set up so we can sit in bed and search for furniture online instead of sitting on the laminate floor or on the box the dishes came in.

We walked to down Queen Street East today into Leslieville, looking for furniture stores. It's amazing that they think we're willing to pay $1200 for a couch that our parents would have thrown out in the 70s. The weather was beautiful, though, and I even got a bit of a sunburn.

Ebow misses his cat tree. Hopefully, we'll get him one on Monday. He spends most of his time sleeping on the bed - the only soft surface in the place. It's much smaller here and he's started to scratch at random things - no doubt looking for the secret door to the rest of the apartment. It would be nice if he found it soon. Maybe there's a chair in it.

Haven't you gone yet?!

It's been a busy week. The last strata meeting was Thursday, so once the AGM minutes are done, I'm no longer council secretary. Work in Vancouver was done on Friday. For being gone for only a year we've spent a lot of time saying goodbye. Two on Friday night, one on Saturday, and two more today. The bulk of the time over the last three days has been final preparations to move, though. For doing a house swap we seem to be doing a lot of packing, too. Most personal items are now in storage, with a few more to go tomorrow (poor Ebow will be without his cat tree). Clothes to take with us on the plane are basically done and everything we're shipping is finally ready to go.

As usually happens when we move, we realize how much stuff we have. And we have too much stuff. Far too much. The next year will be an interesting experiment living more simply - despite everything we're taking with us. When we get back, the plan is to get rid of even more. We need to travel more lightly through life.

Friday night was a wonderful (but expensive) dinner at Hapa Izakaya. Sunday was a wonderful (but expensive) dinner at Raincity Grill. This morning was a reasonable and good (but very slow) brunch at Locus with non-stop Americanos. Tonight was a cheap (but good) dinner from Red Burrito.

A little bit of panic as we question what we're doing again and whether the house swap will turn out to be a good thing or not. One more day to wrap everything up and clean - then we leave for Toronto. This had damn well better be worth it.

All yesterday's parties

Two more farewell parties this weekend. One Friday night where we met up with The Three Wild Women at the Boathouse - bad influences, all. It's an experience being the only guy in a group of rambunctious women and a ready supply of alcohol. Some topics of conversation my mother never warned me about.

The other party was here last night with some friends. The scotch lasted just long enough, but we could have used just a little more for martinis. It was very good to see everyone.

It's also good to have friends who can put you in your place sometimes. I was reprimanded several times for being too typically "Jaded". I think I need to hear it a little more often - from sources other than Bitter.

The Case of the Artful Blogger

It's only indirectly related to this blog and our experiences, but Bitter's trip home brought it to mind. Her brother has had a blog for several years now. Most of the posts are filled with ambiguous references and obscure (and sometimes mixed) metaphors. Why write but to communicate? There are legitimate reasons for withholding from your reader - increasing interest, creating mystery, etc. - it's part of storytelling. But ultimately there must be answers; there must be some sort of revelation. Otherwise you're just a cock-tease. How successful would the Sherlock Holmes stories have been if Holmes had caught the criminals, but left it to Watson to figure out how?

Tick, tick, tick...

It's two weeks until we leave. Because we delayed the move by a few weeks I've already gotten, "what are you still doing here?" at work. My friend and co-worker is off to New Orleans for what I'm sure will be an awesome vacation. The next time we'll both be in the office, it'll be the same office.

Travel updates

The revised house swap contract was sent off yesterday, but no response yet. To be fair there's a lot to look at, but she's been very prompt with responses in the past. Of course, she had to wait for us, so...

Bitter arrived in Edmonton yesterday. The mountains were wonderful, the Fox Hotel in Banff was very nice (I'd never heard of it either), and everything worked out fine, despite the fact that she didn't take any of the 42 recommended courses of action - flying to Calgary, then driving up through Banff and Jasper to Edmonton (I'm not sure this was recommended - it's almost reasonable); her mother flying to Vancouver, then both driving to Edmonton; flying to Edmonton, then driving down to Banff and back to Edmonton. Is an accident that happened over 12 years ago the reason for all the alternatives? By that logic, no one should be allowed to do anything.

Today with her family, tomorrow afternoon and dinner with mine. No visit with her brother this time. It's too hard with such a short visit. I don't see the problem, since he seems intent on distancing himself from his immediate family, but I'm not directly related either.

The music was just too damn good

I'm Jaded and alone this week. Bitter is on her drive through the Rockies for a trip home before the move east. Friday was her last day at the clothing company everyone loves to hate. She said goodbye to four years and many friends. The next day she said goodbye to the one who slept on our couch after the liquid farewell party.

(Now that she's off work, the promise is that she'll stop chewing her nails.)

The trip today got off to a good start - not quite as early as Bitter hoped, but pretty close. She went armed with several CDs made specially for her for the trip, which should should take 15-20 hours driving time - Vancouver to Banff, Banff to Jasper, Jasper to Edmonton. By Abbotsford one of the lovingly hand-crafted CDs refused to play further and also became stuck in the CD player. Since several songs played fine, I put full blame on the CD player. And because a working CD player is important on a long journey, the vehicle was replaced. Sadly, the CD was lost. The remaining ones will just have to pick up the slack.

A matter of trust. And judicious practicality.

I went to see a lawyer today to look over the house swap agreement. Very scary. His focus is on protecting yourself, so he's all about what can go wrong - which is good. But there's so much that can go wrong. I know it's about making sure both sides are protected, but it sounds so unfriendly. Even making sure the other party is who they say they are, that they have ownership of the property, that they have employment and that they have good credit.

I don't think we need to do everything, but this weekend we'll have to go through and add some things and clarify some others. You want to trust people, but the truth is - especially when you meet them over the intarweb - you need to take some basic precautions and make some basic provisions to protect everyone. They don't know how irresponsible we are either.