My First Weekend in Toronto

Greetings from Toronto!

As you all can tell, I made it here alright.  The flight went well, even though it was a red eye and I barely had an opportunity to get any sleep.  The bright side of not sleeping is that I got halfway through Frankenstein.  (If you’re asking me, “Why, of all books, would you read Frankenstein?” It’s because I had previously read “This Dark Endeavour” and it was awesome… but look at me!  It seems I’m having difficulty leaving the bookworm part of me behind.)  I also had plenty of time to wonder how effective an airplane emergency exit is if it’s located right next to the propeller. 

Regardless, I arrived bright eyed and bushy tailed early Saturday morning at my dorm at Knox College.  How is my dorm?  It’s large and luxurious… I hope I didn’t actually fool anyone with that statement.  A more apt description is small and cozy, but really people!  It’s a dorm! What do you expect?  It’s clean, has a bed, desk, 2 small bookshelves, and a closet.  It’s all I need for the next two years.  Well, I do need to add something to my room to give it that “Laura Flair,” but I’m not sure what yet, and quite frankly, even if I did know what, I’m too damn broke to be able to afford it.  But I guess that’s the curse we students must bare.  I have access to a cafeteria with an all-you-can-eat-plan and if you’re worried that means that the food is crap, fear not, it’s delicious.  I’ve already dined on salad, fruit pizza, hotdogs, and various other snacks and desserts.  (Notice how I mentioned the healthy stuff first?)  As far as location goes, I’m a whopping 5 mins to my classes in one direction, and 5 mins to food in the other.  All other amenities, like library and transit and coffee, are also within a short walk.  So far, so good I think! ...  Except for the fact that I can’t seem to get the internet yet >:-( That’s a work in progress which I’m hoping will be fixed in a day or so.  Otherwise, I’ll have to wait for my dorm to get it next week.  Forget the jet lag – I’m dealing with that fairly well – it’s this stupid internet lag that is causing me grief.  Stupid internet and my reliance on it.  I hope nothing too exciting is happening in the world that I’m completely missing out of :-S  If the apocalypse happens, someone will have to phone me to inform me about it.

And the university itself?  It’s got a character all of its own.  First of all, it’s huge.  It took me around an hour and a half, if not longer, walking at a brisk pace yesterday to lap the perimeter of campus. Fortunately for me, I don’t really need to be at the one end, so everything I need is close at hand.  And the buildings are an intriguing combination of architectural accomplishments mixed in with historic buildings from all eras in Canadian history.  It’s a little baffling in some regards because, for instance, there’s one block that has a really old church on the corner, and then directly behind it is a modern high rise.  Hell, my street is another example.  I live in a gorgeous old building, and right across the street is the chemistry lab, and believe me, they aren’t in an old dingy building.  Right now I’m in the ever so impressive Robarts Library (impressive, except for the fact that I can’t get internet here either right now.  As Charlie Brown so put it: good grief), and once again, across the street are some gorgeous old buildings, one of which looks like a cute Victorian house.  Plus, I should also give a nod to Queen’s Park right smack dab in the middle of it all.  In other words, it’s a visually diverse university.  (Maybe I should take up jogging in the park . . .)

University life is in full bloom already.  Ever since I arrived, I’ve encountered people dressed in purple coveralls with every exposed inch of skin painted purple.  I believe they are engineering students. But don’t worry, there wont be a shortage of purple paint because it’s not all the engineers that are in purple, just the ones leading the festivities.  I know this because they’ve ever so conveniently got “I am your leedur” on the back of their coveralls.  Though I can’t help but notice how, even though the purple people are everywhere, there seems to be a complete absence of purple people eaters.  Obviously the ecologists didn’t have any part in these festivities.  Regardless, I do highly enjoy their gatherings on the street corners.  I was amused when a hippo bus drove by and they got it to honk for them.  (Tee hee.)  There also seems to be a lot of cheering and singing and chanting going on outside my window at almost any time of the day.  Don’t these people know this is the end of freedom as we know it and the beginning of life as a student?  You know what else is a word that starts with “S?” Slave. 

Actually, contrary to what you might think after that last statement, I’m really looking forward to school.  Provided I don’t flunk out or realize I’ve made a horrible career decision – which I don’t think either are a concern… probably – this is the beginning of life WITH A CAREER!  Careers are good.  I’ll have money to do stuff, like go up the CN Tower at full price.  Plus I was starting to feel the itch that change was required and it was time to move on in life.  So not only am I excited for this next stage of things, but it’s something that NEEDS to happen.

Anyway, since this is my first and last (for a while anyway) weekend of freedom in Toronto, I wasn’t going to spend it all unpacking and thinking about school.  Saturday, after hastily unpacking and setting my room in a generally satisfying fashion, I met up with Chandra in the afternoon.  We were both famished by the time we met up, and decided lunch was priority.  Fortunately, Chandra has been here a few weeks and knew of a super cute and busy little Chinese restaurant nearby called Mother’s Dumplings (or I think that’s what it’s called… I can’t use the internet to check.  Grrr).  We paid next to nothing, and yet got so much food I had two meals afterwards, which was quite convenient because the cafeteria which serves me didn’t open until Sun night.  After that, we met up with Silvey and made our first attempt to go up the CN tower.  Our attempt failed because we didn’t get there until 8:30 and realized it would take at least an hour and a half to see it, plus there was a lengthy line up.  Safety first made us consider doing it on Sunday when we could get there as early as possible, and afterwards see everyone home safely.  But we weren’t going to let a change of plans ruin our evening, so we went to BP for appies instead.

Sunday was another busy day.  I managed to squeeze in some shopping early that morning for stuff that I just couldn’t fit in my suitcase, but would need (hangers, hair product, slippers, paper, blah blah blah).  And then came the fun stuff, like checking out Kensington market.  I must admit, the market isn’t actually as big as I thought it would be and it only took maybe half an hour to casually stroll through it.  However, if I had money, I would go back because there were a lot of really cute casual clothes.  If I had to describe the overall feel of it, think hippy, but more modern.  It wasn’t like a big mall filled with trendy crap.  It was more earthy and fun.  And there was a car all spray painted in a very hippy fashion with “Community Vehicular Reclamation Project” written on the side and shrubbery growing out of it from all sides.  How fun is that! 

Having learned from yesterday, we made sure we had our tickets for the CN tower for 8 PM (why 8, because I had a $10 coupon that was good for after 8.  Hurray for cheap deals!  Otherwise it would have cost us $35.  Ouch).  The tower itself was kinda fun to ride up and the view from the top was nice,  though it would take a lot to get me to pay full price to do it.  Looking back, the coolest thing about the tower was probably the glass floor.  Yes, that’s right.  Someone had the brilliant idea of building a giant radio tower, and then putting a glass floor in one corner of it.  I found it a good test of if my survival instincts were in place.  As it turns out, they were.  I had to build up a lot of courage to step out onto the glass which overlooked the cement several hundred meters below me.  The survival instincts in the children next to me seemed lacking however; they thought it was lots of fun to jump and stomp on the glass as hard as they could.  Fortunately for them, human engineering has come a long way since the first wheel, and the glass was 5 times stronger than regulations require any floor to be.  Strong enough to hold 3 stomping children, or 14 hippos.  The hippos would be interesting to see, since the entire floor wasn’t big enough for 14 hippos, even if we stacked them on top of each other.  Maybe we could make that the next test of human ingenuity: how can we fit 14 hippos on the glass floor of the CN Tower.

Monday, I finished off my weekend by saving orphans in Japan.  How, you ask?  By eating sushi.  I call that a win win scenario!  I attended Genkijapan, an outdoor restaurant where all proceeds went to kids orphaned by the earthquake.  (If ever I was worried about not finding sushi where I am, it was all a waste of sweat, blood, and tears; there’s a huge cluster of sushi restaurants just south of me.)  After that, it was time to buckle down and explore my neighborhood a little better, after all, this is going to be home for a while now.  I’m thrilled to say that there’s several exciting museums located at the north end of the university, including the Royal Ontario Museum and a shoe museum.  (What?  I’m a woman.  What do you expect?!)  There’s also a whole bunch of designer shops on Bloor St.  Or maybe it was Bay St?  Whatever, I’m still learning!  Anyway, if ever I get an itch for Prada, Chanel, Gucci, Coach and all those other ones I can’t remember by name because they are way beyond my pay grade, I’ll know where to go.  Convenient as the local Prada store is, I inconveniently haven’t found a nearby grocery store yet.  Though one of the many really nice people I’ve met on my floor tells me there is one not far from where I was.  If nothing else and I get desperate, I know of both Zellers and a Loblaw off of one of the sub stations.

And that brings me to my long day today spent waiting in several lines to get all my student related stuff in order.  (And yet I still don’t have internet!!)  At this point, all I should have to do is show up to class dressed and with my head in tow.   Hence, in theory, I am ready for whatever orientation might throw at me tomorrow.  So bring it on!