Category: General

So, yesterday we did a tour of Mississagua & Streetsville; I’m not sure what to say about that – see I’m lousy writing about having a good time. Good at prolonged whining, or telling you about what I’ve repaired on my car, sucky at describing places. I’d make one heck of a lousy travel writer.

Yeah, so we headed on the bus-tour of Mississauga and Streetsville; it’s interesting both how similar and how different to the UK the suburbia is. And indeed, how terrifyingly similar some of it is, and how shockingly different other bits are. The use of brick in the GTA seems to accentuate the similarities; but also means that there’s these subtle differences; like someone being in a parallel universe; so you get housing that looks very similar to that in the UK, but just *slightly* different. It’s just not quite the way you’d expect. It’s interesting; at least to me. But then I’m weird like that.

We also landed up at the Square One mall; malls, oddly are not the same the world over; but this one looked a lot like Cribbs in Bristol, which *was* odd.

Anyway, it was a fairly relaxed day, but shockingly tiring. That and my body still refuses to acknowledge that I’m not going to work in the morning and so persists in waking me up at 6 and going “ohmygodyou’regoingtobelate” followed by “oh, no, sorry, holiday. Um, we’re awake now, have you considered how you’ll decorate the bathroom enough”. Silly brain / body. Anyway, yeah, se we kicked back in the evening with Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (Mitchell (wacka-wacka-wacka-wacka)). Which was… well… it was Mystery Science Theatre; need I say more? Yeah, so we had that and Chinese. Well, everyone else had chinese, I had a A Mountain Of Food. Note to self: portions bigger, even than the portions I’d got used to in the UK. Order less. So that was my chilled out and relaxed holiday-day.

I’ve spent this morning in battle with vodaphone – my phone is *meant* to work over here. And it does, I can receive incoming calls, send and receive texts… only one Teensy Tinsy hitch. I can’t make outgoing calls, and I can’t top up my phone. I’ve run out of credit (messaging is a trifle more expensive when you’re roaming) and all my phone will do is say in a nice polite voice ‘Your service provider has not authorised us to provide service’. It says ‘ROGERS’ on it, in place of Vodaphone. But that’s all I can do. Which is, as they say, less than useful.

So I tried to register online to do top-ups, and it seems to be stuffed there too; ‘cos it tells me my phone is already registered for online services, but if I try to use them it says it’s not. Bah. So, yeah, hopefully they’ll get back to me…

Today, iirc, is Kensington Market / West End of Toronto day. So if you live here, wave to the cheerful canadiophile brit who’s wandering around going ‘ooooh. Shiny. Clean. Mmmm.’

I just had a really good day. I’ve got some pictures, but I’m not awake enough to post anything. Just thought I’d say to all the ‘you should do stuff now you’re in Canada’ types, I’ve done stuff :-)

Raaar.

Now, I sleep.

I tried to think of a more ‘sensible’ title to this, but frankly, that expresses it all. I am in Canada… Specifically, right at this moment I’m sat in Rochelle’s lounge, at her dining table, eating some of the food she left for me…

I’ve nipped out to the store once, but I’ll probably repeat it now I’m more aware of how to get back her place. And I now know that Rochelle’s not going to be back in time for dinner (which I thought) so I’ll be cooking for myself.

Mostly though, today is set aside for Not-doing-much-at all. I’ve got a Toronto guidebook I picked up at the airport to nose through and that’s about it. I might nip out and take some photos too.

Just to prove I’m here like.

So yeah, Nikki drove me to Cardiff airport, which it turns out is a bit of a dive really. Bristol – imho – is small, but quite pleasant. It’s light and airy. Has a few shops and cafe’s and fast food places, and it’s clean. Cardiff felt small, cramped and dark. The toilets were largely broken or vandalised, or just plain grotty – and yeah, it just wasn’t very nice.

Still, the massively cheaper flights made it worth it. Zoom – Sadly – does not provide a Flight/Auto socket in Super-basic-el-cheapo class, so all that work with the power adaptor was for naught. Still, the new battery meant I at least got to watch a couple of episodes of Life on Mars and read some Megatokyo before it all went a bit flat.

What was odd was that I sat on the flight and an older woman sat down next to me… She… is an ex nurse. She trained in the UK and then moved to Canada and practiced there until she retired. How freaky is that? Didja want anymore in the way of coincidence?

So, yeah, we had a good old natter on the plane. After landing I got interrogated. I think that’s the best word for it. Politely. Really politely (incidentally, what’s with all the cute dykey looking customs staff?) – yeah, so I stood there and answered what I can only call a *lot* of questions. Mostly about jobs, my life, what’s going on with my house / home life (‘cos it all got a bit complicated). Then as many questions as I could answer about Rochelle. Then about how long I was staying… it went on. The guy was really polite the whole time, friendly, cheerful. But incredibly thorough.

It’s funny, ‘cos security wise – I had a relaxed trip. Not like visiting the USA where they only just stopped short of x-raying me – and then asked me a few questions. No, here the security was non-existant, but the questions… To give you an idea, by the time I got to the baggage reclaim my flight was no-longer listed. My case was stood, looking rather sorry for itself, half way down the hall. Still, I was just glad to get into the Taxi and then into Rochelles, and then into bed.

Today I’ve not-quite been to Canadian tire. I did look at it, and I’ll probably wander in in-a-bit. I’m not obsessed, but their website just appears to contain *everything ever* – so I’m intrigued to see the store.

One of the things thats struck me about Canada (apart from the large amount of dual language stuff) is how much like home it feels. Alaska felt very different, although I was comfortable there – and love it loads, it felt very different to the UK. Canada, it looks very different – and is very different, but there’s some subtle ways in which it *feels* quite similar. It’s hard to explain. Listening to CBC Radio 1 – reminded me of Radio 4; and the Commercials remind me more of British than US commercials. And the supermarket – although it looks like it has more in common with it’s US counterparts, the contents was much more like the stuff you see in Europe. It’s interesting. It’s interesting what it shares with it’s neighbour, what it shares with Europe, and what is entirely Canada alone. Mmm. I must explore more :-)

That and my laptop’s batteries are starting to run out of umph…