Home sweet home...?
It's been about a month since I've moved to Toronto (and yes I did manage to fit most of my stuff into two-50 pound suitcases, but they didn't even check the weight at the airport! grrrr...), but its tough to say whether it feels like home or not. I have my room all set up now, which by the way is in the attic and I'm the only one there so its nice and quiet and isolated, and I get the whole top floor to myself! The house is comfortable, and I'm getting used to the city...but I'm not quite sure its home yet...but I'm not quite sure that its not home...its odd, i know.
So since I havn't really kept up with this blog thing I'll start with a few first impressions:
1. Its frickin humid in this city!!! The first week we were here was especially bad, with the temperature above 30 degrees the whole week and humidity so bad they actually had smog and humidity warnings! And this was the week when there were still quite a few people in the house and Jean-Nic, Carolyn and I were sharing a room that didn't have a fan or an air conditioner. It was brutal hell! I miss Calgary's dryness for sure.
2. There's a lot of smells in the city. It comes from the diversity for sure, but during my 15 minute walk to work in the mornings I always pass by at least 20 different and distinct smells, some good and some not so good.
3. Downtown Toronto is a total paradox, with old and new just minutes away, and sometimes even right next to each other. There are times when I feel like I'm in some posh corporate community, and other times when its almost as if civilization has taken a step back. There is definitely a lot of character in that as well.
4. The streets are always busy, which is the complete opposite of Calgary. If you go to downtown Calgary at 6pm, its a ghost town, whereas Toronto usually has a fairly decent sized crowd out at all times.
5. Racoons. What can I say about the raccoons! They're probably the equivalent of rabbits in Calgary, except that they're on average about 3 times bigger and 20 times more annoying, because not only do they eat your plants (as the rabbits do), but they also dig into your garbage unless you bungee cord them shut (and even then they sometimes win!), climbs trees, are not afraid of humans and are super scary. Eeeek. They're worse than deer too...nothing really compares. In fact, if a fight ensued between a grizzly and a raccoon, I think the city raccoons in Toronto would win!
Toronto is definitely more fluid and dynamic than Calgary, keeping in mind that I've switched from sub-urban Calgary to downtown Toronto, which is pretty drastic. The thing I miss the most in Calgary is the open space. There's very little downtown green space that's actually a decent size, and because that's the case, its hard to find quiet "secret" places that no one else goes to as well. Its also annoying that there arn't any big box grocery stores within walking distances...everything that is within walking distance is about 2 to 3 times as expensive as it should be!
In all honesty though, other than those first impressions, I havn't had much of a chance to explore Toronto in between all the transition, 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. It doesn't seem that long, but its damn exhausting, especially when you add the hot and humid weather to the equation. And on my days off I've been setting up my room, doing groceries and doing laundry, which pretty much takes the whole day! So hopefully next month I'm hoping to see and do more! Until then...
So since I havn't really kept up with this blog thing I'll start with a few first impressions:
1. Its frickin humid in this city!!! The first week we were here was especially bad, with the temperature above 30 degrees the whole week and humidity so bad they actually had smog and humidity warnings! And this was the week when there were still quite a few people in the house and Jean-Nic, Carolyn and I were sharing a room that didn't have a fan or an air conditioner. It was brutal hell! I miss Calgary's dryness for sure.
2. There's a lot of smells in the city. It comes from the diversity for sure, but during my 15 minute walk to work in the mornings I always pass by at least 20 different and distinct smells, some good and some not so good.
3. Downtown Toronto is a total paradox, with old and new just minutes away, and sometimes even right next to each other. There are times when I feel like I'm in some posh corporate community, and other times when its almost as if civilization has taken a step back. There is definitely a lot of character in that as well.
4. The streets are always busy, which is the complete opposite of Calgary. If you go to downtown Calgary at 6pm, its a ghost town, whereas Toronto usually has a fairly decent sized crowd out at all times.
5. Racoons. What can I say about the raccoons! They're probably the equivalent of rabbits in Calgary, except that they're on average about 3 times bigger and 20 times more annoying, because not only do they eat your plants (as the rabbits do), but they also dig into your garbage unless you bungee cord them shut (and even then they sometimes win!), climbs trees, are not afraid of humans and are super scary. Eeeek. They're worse than deer too...nothing really compares. In fact, if a fight ensued between a grizzly and a raccoon, I think the city raccoons in Toronto would win!
Toronto is definitely more fluid and dynamic than Calgary, keeping in mind that I've switched from sub-urban Calgary to downtown Toronto, which is pretty drastic. The thing I miss the most in Calgary is the open space. There's very little downtown green space that's actually a decent size, and because that's the case, its hard to find quiet "secret" places that no one else goes to as well. Its also annoying that there arn't any big box grocery stores within walking distances...everything that is within walking distance is about 2 to 3 times as expensive as it should be!
In all honesty though, other than those first impressions, I havn't had much of a chance to explore Toronto in between all the transition, 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. It doesn't seem that long, but its damn exhausting, especially when you add the hot and humid weather to the equation. And on my days off I've been setting up my room, doing groceries and doing laundry, which pretty much takes the whole day! So hopefully next month I'm hoping to see and do more! Until then...
posted by Harshitha at 4:55 AM
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