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....
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
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 :-)
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 :-)
Monday, September 8, 2008
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.
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.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
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 !
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 !
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