Snow

It has been pointed out to me that I'm obsessed with the weather, particularly snow.

That's largely due to the fact that we don't get much snow in Sydney.....

Above are some pics of the view from our place on Thursday morning, after it snowed on Wed night.

Apparently there's a lot more coming tomorrow :-)

I miss my dog

I miss Diesel.

I know we couldn't bring her to Canada with us, but I still really wish she were here.....

Canadian Wildlife

I have fallen in love with the squirrels that are all over Toronto.

They are just so freaking cute !!

November/December

The last month and a half have been an interesting ride....

I started work at a fairly large company doing filing, photocopying, packing envelopes, and a tiny bit of data entry. All this for the princely sum of $12 an hour.
This came to an end after about 4 weeks.
Strangely enough I wasn't upset about that :-)
Did meet some nice Canadians at that job though, which was cool.
Since that ended, I've been trying to find another position, but as it's the silly season I don't really anticipate I'll be able to find something before the new year.
On the plus side, this is allowing me to polish up my online poker skills ;-)

The weather has been a learning curve.
The first time it snowed I was excited - actually I still get excited, but mentally I'm only 7.
There has only really been 2 dumps here in the downtown area of Toronto, neither of them really big, only about 3cm each.
Apparently when it drops too much below zero, it gets too cold to snow.
Gee can't wait for that....
The coldest we've had so far is about -15 (with the windchill factored in).

My definition of cold has gone through a fairly radical change.
We went out the other night, and it was only -4
I said that to C, and then we were both a little bit amused about the fact that it now ONLY -4.
Too funny.

In November we went down to Niagara to catch up with some people from C's Sydney office.
We ended up partying at the Casino until all hours.
But the really cool thing was they bought me 2 more jars of Vegemite !!!
I was already halfway through my stock and was starting to panic at the thought of running out.
And you just cannot get the stuff in Toronto...

We also drove up to Montreal to stay with a friend of C's from a Contiki trip - S, her hubby H & their very cute (and loud) little girl for a weekend. It was a really nice weekend away, and S & H were really cool, and very French. It was quite amusing to realise how people from Quebec really regarding the rest of Canada. Of course I've since realised that the rest of Canada don't think much of the Quebecians either.
The highlight of the trip was a night out at a French style bistro. Really nice place, fantastic food.
But the really funny thing was their special of the day..... Kangaroo !!!
What are the chances ?

Apart from that, not too much going on.
Although we did book a holiday for Feb.
We're off on a cruise in the Carribean for 5 nights, and then we're doing the Florda Keys for a couple of days.
C keeps telling me that once Winter really hits, I will need a week in the sun.
I'm not convinced, I'm still enjoying the novelty of the cold at the moment.
Maybe in a couple more weeks I'll be over it.
Depends if we get a white christmas or not !

Another first

It snowed on me today.
Itty bitty snowflakes, but it was still snow.
I got some funny looks when I was trying to catch the snowflakes, but I had fun :-)

And more photos

some photos from the apartment window in good weather, and bad

Some photos per request

I have been asked to add some photos, so here are some from Niagara Falls.....

Finally some good news !

It's been 3 weeks since I last blogged.
I've been waiting for some good news to blog on, which I finally got today.

So the last 3 weeks....
We moved in on Thurs 2nd (well I moved us in, C just came home to a new place after work !) with no more issues from the movers. They actually turned out to be really cool, even out the beds together for me :-)
Sat 4th we went to the Toronto Islands intending on hiring some pushbikes and cycling round this islands. Unfortunately for us, the islands have closed the touristy stuff for the season.
So C made me walk all over the islands, which was about a 10km walk.
Not much else happened that week, apart from me looking for a job.... and not finding one.

The next weekend (11th/12th/13th) was the long weekend for Canadian Thanksgiving.
C and I spent the weekend in a town called Gananoque in an area called the Thousand Islands.
A really pretty area on the north east side of Lake Ontario, it's about 5 hours from Toronto.
We took a 5 cruise one of the days, 1.5 hours to get to a place called Boldt Castle, 2 hours there, then the 1.5 back.
The catch to this is, that the island Boldt Castle is on - which is a tiny island, holding the castle and nothing else - is an American island.
So every single person on the boat, had to be passed through American customs.
Seriously.
Because I've never been in the states, I was the very last person processed.
I was fingerprinted, had fill out their standard 'are you a Nazi ?/Have you been convicted of anything ?' questionnaire.
So I'm now in the US database....
Very scary.

We came back on Monday afternoon as we'd been invited to dinner by one C's colleagues for a real Canadian Thanksgiving.
The turkey was really nice and I got my first taste of pumpkin pie.
The pie didn't taste anything like pumpkin, it was a cinnamon based flavour.
Not something I'd ask for, but if I had to I could eat it again.
C of course, polished of 3 pieces.

The last week and a half has been very quiet, just more job searching for me.
And trying to get the car sorted.
We have to give back the Lexus we inherited from C's predecessor, so we'd been trying to get a new car lease.
The problems with that have been monumental.
We're not residents, we don't have any history over here, C doesn't have a full license and you can only get a lease for a minimum of 2 years.

So today we finally got possession of the new car, which is a big silver Cadillac.
And I got a job.
Finally.

Hopefully now that we have both of those things sorted, life will be a little smoother...
Maybe ?

SNAFU

We had a reasonably quiet weekend.
The only interesting thing we did was go to the drive-in on Fri night.
There was a double feature of Tropic Thunder & Eagle Eye.
2 really cool movies, Tropic Thunder was a lot funnier than I thought it was going to be, a lot more foul mouthed too !
And Eagle Eye was very cool with a creepy premise that is almost believable...

Monday and Tuesday were spent prepping for the move into the apartment today.
This morning I had an appointment to meet the removalists at the customs office at 8.30am.
When I called them to check the address, and they changed the time to 9am.
At 9am when I called they told me they where having issues locating the manifest documents, and that the driver who had brought the goods into Canada from the US couldn't be located.
(The supervisor was sitting in a car outside of his house trying to get hold of him !!)
After several more hours and about 10 more phone calls, we've now rescheduled the move to tomorrow.
Thus meaning we're back in the hotel tonight..... oh the joy of it....
It also means the booking for the tv and internet gets put back, and getting a job gets put back too. (ok, that bit's not too bad)

It seems like everything we try to do over here turns into a shitefight.
So over it !

Take me to the ball game

We got taken to the baseball last night, it was the BlueJays vs Yankees at the Rogers Centre.
It was pretty cool, which sorta suprised me a little.
I didn't think I'd enjoy it anywhere near as much as I did.
But by the 7th inning I was jumping up and yelling 'RUN' when one of the BlueJays players hit the ball....
They ended up losing 3-1, but it was quite a cool experience to watch.
Especially as we had 5th row seats just at first base, very nice.
C & I had a hotdog and some popcorn so we could have the whole experience.
The popcorn bag was double the biggest size you can get at the movies at home.
Needless to say, we didn't finish it :-)

I have a sneaking suspicion that I'll be adopting the Blue Jays.
They appear to be about as good as the Bunnies & Carlton....

4 Weeks In

The last 2 weeks have been a little bit like a rollercoaster.... Lots of ups and downs !

A quick update on the last 2 weeks
Week before last started quiet while C was off in Cleveland at a work conference, I was mainly stuck at the hotel due to having no car.
That Wednesday I went again with the real estate agent to look at yet more units for lease. Thought I found one too, but that fell through.
Fri I went for my Canadian drivers license and I passed !!!
I was really excited about it too, until they told me that the test I passed was only the intermediate license (Their P plates), and that I had to do a highway test (another $80) to get my full license.
GGGRRRRRRRRRR
Not Happy Jan !!

Then on Sat C & I went to a drive test centre to try and get ourselves on the waitlist for a test.
This was a really cool plan, evidenced by all the other people lined up with the same plan.
We waited for 3 hours and gave up, and went to watch a replay of the Wobblies v All Blacks game from the night before.
Sunday we went to St Jacobs, and litlle village like place similar to Berry.

Monday of last week, I went out yet again with the real estate agent.
This time we managed to secure a place.
Not the best place we'd looked at by far, but it's just near the Union Station so it's in a reasonably good location.
Also on Monday, C went for his driving test. He skipped the test I did and went straight to the 'highway test' for his full license.
Unfortunately he didn't pass :-(

Then some more bad news late last week.
The sweet car that we've been driving, the Lexus, is not allowed to stay in Canada.
So we have to get a lease car of our own.
I thought that was fine, as then we could get a monster truck or something cool like that :-)
(I'm a revhead and proud of it !)
The sticking point to that is that no-one over here does 12 month leases.
So either we have to buy a car (and say goodbye any thought of a nice car), or we take over someone else's lease.
Currently, we're trying to find a decent car/4WD to take the lease over on.

Fri night we went into Toronto's Little Italy for dinner.
I was entirely happy to find out that you can get decent Italian over here.

Sat we went to look at cars (no luck) and then into the city to have a look at the St Lawrence Markets.
The St Lawrence markets are a fresh food market that have pretty much everything you could want (except I didn't see any Vegemite..... have to look harder !).
And the food looks pretty good, I saw an Alaskan King Crab leg that was longer than my arm !!! (and this is not an exaggeration kiddies, it was actually as long as my freaking arm !)
And it's only a 20 minute from where we'll be living :-)
Sweeeeet !

Sunday was a quiet day with C watching the golf all day.... no surprise there :-)
Then today I did the same driving test C did - the 'highway' test.
And I passed.

So I am officially a better driver than C.
hehehehehehehehe

Life is good :-)

The Tennis

I've spent the last hour trying to fnd the men's final of the US Open tennis on tv.
Can't find it anywhere.
I'm more than a little shocked that the men's final is not on tv, when we watched the women's final last night.
They've got a sports talkback show on instead....

Things really are different over here.

2 weeks in

So we've been in Toronto for 2 weeks now, and it has been interesting to say the least.
We've had ups (Niagara Falls, a really cool airshow-with fighter jets-that we saw last weekend) and we've had downs (The huge hassle of the drivers licence, the 3 apartments we've applied for being already rented).

So I've quite enjoyed today, which has been the first day that has been all positive.
We both managed to pass the (hand written) paper driving test, which was actually quite hard, and nerve racking :-)
And we both managed to get social security numbers with not just minimal fuss - there was no fuss at all !

C is off to Cleveland on Monday for a couple of days, so I will be stuck here with no car trying to find us somewhere to live.
Oh the joy.....

Anyway, a couple of observations about Toronto.

The US Open tennis is on, right ?
Well, the TV stations over here keep putting the American Gridiron, the Canadian Gridiron & the Baseball on instead of the tennis. I didn't get to watch last night's quarter final because there was both baseball and gridiron on.
Nuts, absolutley nuts.

The Roads.
I've already been told that there are 2 seasons here - Winter & Roadwork seasons.
This is true, there is an absolute (pardon the pun) truckload of roadwork going on everywhere you look.
I can understand why though.
The roads are in pretty crappy repair, largely due to the severe weather over here.
The temperature range is about 70 degrees, 30 degrees down to minus 40.
Can't wait to experience that minus 40......

The Roads part duex
The expressways they have over here are awesome.
abso-effing-lutley awesome.
You can get an express road from anywhere to anywhere.
And they all join and merge so even if you take the wrong one (which I've done, even with the GPS) it's easy enough to either take another road or to get back on the one you're supposed to be on.
Of course the down side to the expressways is that while I've been driving on them (a lot)now for 2 weeks, I still could not tell you how to get to the local grocery store (a 2 minute drive).
I sincerely hope that I will start to understand them a little some point soon.

The Food.
There always appears to be 'low fat' option, but they sugar things up the wazoo !
I mean I like my sugar as much as the next person (hey ! I heard that laugh !) but I mean come on, does absolutely everything need to be glazed/powdered/creamed ???
The brekkie that we get here at the hotel is an example - one of the options is donuts, for brekkie. Yuk.
Even the fruit tins have a very heavy syrup coating the fruit, which sort of defeats the point of eating the fruit doesn't it ?

The People.
I have not met one mean/nasty/rude Canadian yet.
And they all have smile on their face all the time !
Must be something in the water....

The Weather
It has been mid to high twenties since we got here, with the exception of today which has been low twenties/high teens.
I've been reliably told this is very unusual for this time of year, and I've also been told last winter was very unusual - record snowfall, VERY VERY effing cold, instead of just VERY effing cold.
I'm hoping this means a 'mild' winter is in store.
You know, only minus 30 instead of minus 40 ;-)

The TV.
They have a mix of really cool ads, and ads that clearly have some sort of cultural reference that we're missing (like I'm sure a lot of foreigners would miss the point of the XXXX ads with the stumpcam).
And the slogans for some of the products ?
Weird.
Advil (headache tablets) - their ever so brilliant tag line ?
Advil - One if often enough.
Very strange.

Hopefully I'll have more on the home front soon.
Really hopefully !

Niagara Falls

I drove us down to Niagara Falls today, which was fun in itself :-)
The in-car gps is so awesome we've given her a name.... Mary.
N0 idea why, just seemed to fit.

So we went on the Maid of Mist cruise at Niagara, which was in a word - WET.
But it was pretty cool to see the falls.
Then we went on a big ferris wheel at the falls, and got an awesome view over Niagara and the falls.

All in all a nicer day than the last couple :-)
Apart from finding out the apartment we wanted has already been leased...
But that's ok, I've got a cuppa and some bikkies - all is right with the world

Definitely not the RTA

After the debacle of attempting to get our licenses on Monday, we had another bash at it on Tuesday.
I drove us out to a DriveTest centre (driving on the wrong side of the road !) and we waited for about 1.2 hours in the information queue.
The lady was very nice, but she didn't have any good news for us.
Our Australian licences aren't worth diddly squat.
The fact that we drove to the DriveTest centre (evidence that we CAN drive, wouldn't you think ?) means diddly squat.

So we have to get copies of our driving records from home faxed to the Oz consulate here, then take that back to the DriveTest centre so that when we sit the written (hand written, mind you !) and take the driving test we can go straight to a G2 license.
A G1 license is basically a P platers license, and the G2 would probably be something between a green Ps and your blacks.
I am SO over this crap.

Anyway, so that was yesterday.
Today has been a lot more fun :-)

We went out with the real estate lady to see units for us in downtown Toronto.
Of the 4 units we saw, 1 was good, 1 was ok and 2 were bad.
The good one is located just near the Rogers Centre on the 5th floor, which suited me a little more than the 15th, 18th or 25th floors !!
Midgets like me don't like heights....
After that, we went back to the agents office and started the application.
On the way to lunch after all the fun of that, I rolled my ankle crossing the street.
Fortuntely no cars were coming at the time :-)
So I'm now limping a little bit - only a little bit, as it's not too bad a sprain as these things go.

So far my Canadian trip has not been all roses.

Here's hoping tomorrow's trip to Niagara Falls is at least some improvement....
Of course knowing my luck, I'll end going over in a barrel somehow :-(

Not quite the RTA

Yesterday was a quiet day, went for a walk to the grocery store to grab some supplies.
Discovered that Canada has some interesting differences from home...
Milk - you can't get full cream milk here. Your options are 0%, 1%, 2% & 3.25%.
Cheese - is quite expensive, and it's ORANGE !!!
Juice - the one we got tastes like a very very sugary cordial mix
Butter - you can't get anything a spreadable real butter, they have lots of 'whipped butter', and a canola butter mix, but it tastes more like margarine than butter... yuk !
So after our shopping expedition, we got a cab back to the hotel as neither of us really fancied walking for an hour with heavy grocery bags weighing us down.
Then had dinner with the guy that C is replacing, who handed the car over at the end of the night.
I love the car, it's a black Lexus that does everything short of making a cuppa for you !
It's got leather seats, a sunroof, a gps built in (one that takes voice command no less), ipod connector for the radio, reversing camera & seats that heat or cool on command !!!

So today we were actually able to get out of the very industrial area we have been stuck in.
We drove off to get our bank account set up, which was no prob.
Then onward to the licensing bureau to get our Canadian licenses. The place was a little shopfront that really made me appreciate our local RTA.
We stood in line for over an hour waiting for our turn.
When we got to the front of the queue we said that we wanted to get our Canadian licences. The lady serving us looked at us blankly and said "oh no, you can't do that here. You need to go to this place" as she handed us a slip of paper.
C asked her if we had to do a driving test when we got to the other place to which she replied that she had no idea, that was another organisation entirely....

So anytime I want to complain about stuff back home being a pain, I want to remember this. A country 1.3 times the size of ours, with a population about 1.5 times ours doesn't even have a cohesive roads, transit & licensing organisation.

Welcome to Canada....

Pictures of Dubai

Saw my first Canadian wildlife today !

I saw a squirrel while out getting lunch.

Not quite the bear that I'm supposed to be looking for, but cute none the less :-)

Thought I'd load some photos of Dubai while I had a moment...

The eagle has landed

Our last couple of days since we left Sydney have been a little busy...
I’ve decided I like flying business class, it makes very long flights bearable. Etihad was excellent, good food and very good service.
We arrived in Dubai at midnight local time after a 14 hour flight, and made good time to J & G’s place. They live in a housing estate about 15 minutes outside of downtown Dubai. The estate is massive, and it’s all expats living there so.
We got up on Wednesday morning and went for a drive around Dubai (In the 49% degree heat – and I’m not exaggerating !).We stopped at a fake souk called the Madanat (fake as in built with aircon for westerners) had lunch and then drove out on the Palm Jemeirah. Awesome construction feat, man made island shaped like a palm, and they’re building 2 more ! The amazing thing about Dubai (apart from the ridiculous heat and the constant dust haze) is the construction. Dubai is pretty much one big construction site (hence the dust haze). The Palm Jemeirah’s land has been all finished, but they’re still doing heaps of construction on the homes and the units. Wed arv we went to the pool at about 4.30 (once the pool was shaded enough for my ghostly white skin) and stayed there for 2 hours). Then for dinner we went to the Dubai Polo Club for dinner, very British Colonial.
Thursday we got up and went to the Emirates Mall, saw Ski Dubai but didn’t have a go – we’re going to be living in snow pretty soon, so we decided against it. Off to the pool again for several hours, then a quiet night at home with J, G & little A (a very cute, really really smart 3 y.o.)
Friday we got up and had brekkie at the Burj Al Arab (that 7 star hotel that looks like it has big white sails that you’ve seen Agassi & Federer playing tennis on the helipad) which was a bit of a disaster to start with. We’d booked into the set menu brekkie, but the set menu was 2 options, both of them egg based, and G doesn’t eat egg !
So we ended up having brekkie at the asian buffet, but we only had 45 minutes to eat it so it was a bit of a seek and destroy mission. After our big brekkie, we went for a drive into the old area of Dubai and took a cruise on the Dubai Creek (it was a river, but they call it the creek). For the first time since the airport I felt like we were actually in the middle east. Everything else has been fairly generic, experiences we could have had anywhere else in the world. Not that I didn’t enjoy myself heaps, but it wasn’t really your typical middle eastern stopover.
Fri night was takeaway at home before we got picked up for our trip back to the airport.
A good flight again, thanks to chemical assistance. Otherwise the little baby 2 rows behind me crying for the entire 14 hours may have ruined the flight for me.
Anyway, I had a great time catching up with J & G, getting to know little A as the awesome little person she is J
So now we’re in Toronto, the visas were approved at the airport this morning without any issues at all, and we’re all good to go.

Off to grab some lunch now :-)

Deaprture Day

Today has been a little manic.
Got up early to finish packing and cleaning, then stopped to have brekkie with both sets of parents.
Tried to finish packing and cleaning, but the dog wanted to play...
Little b*tch had me by the sleeve of my jumper and was dragging me round the backyard by it !
I think she knew we were going and that was her way of saying 'don't go !' :-)
Then the driver arrived 1/2 hour early, so we had to finish packing while he was waiting... oops.

Then we got in the car (very flash black van) and the day got less manic.
Checked in with no wait, through immigration with no wait, and am now sitting in the QF lounge with a hot choc typing this - I LOVE this business class stuff :-D

Onwards to Dubai !

T-1

Last day in sunny Sydney for about 16 months :-(
Got lots done, but still heaps to do before we fly out tomorrow.
Not quite panic stations, but getting there !

T-3

Saw some friends today for brekkie and lunch, last time I'll see them for 16 months.
Unless they come and visit....

Still heaps to organise, but we're leaving on Tuesday even if we're not done :-)

T-5

Well, my first day of unemployment was fun, busy though.
Still heaps to do before we go, but it's creeping closer...

T-6

Finished up work today.
I am now unemployed and strangely happy about it :-)

Mission objective for the next couple of days is to sort the house out for our new tenants, and to book a photographer for the wedding.
If we wait until we get back to book, we might have issues getting a good photographer.
But if we book now, we should have our pick.

Fun and games !

T-7

This time next week, I'll be sitting in a plane on my way to Dubai to see 3 of my fave people....
How cool is that ?

Still have heaps to do before we go, but starting to get excited !

T-12

Still no visas...

T-13

Less than 2 weeks to go... OMG !!!

Found out our seats for the planes yesterday afternoon.
We're not sitting next to each other.
Probably just as well, 14 hours is a long time to put up with me...

T-14 Days

Well, we leave in 14 days.
If the flipping visas ever come through.....