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Showing posts from January, 2018

It's snowing!

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After frankly an embarrassing fortnight in which London has seen more snow than Toronto (and we’d made such a fuss at home about needing down-filled jackets), we’re experiencing our first proper Canadian snowfall. Persistent flurries throughout the afternoon have turned the city white; footpaths are crisp and crunchy underfoot. Around colleagues, who are now in the third month of a long winter, we’re working hard to contain our excitement. Snowflakes dancing and whirling in the wind, leaving a silvery carpet below, are captivating, beautiful. Admittedly our delight was mitigated a little as we emerged from our workplaces to facefuls of ice, and our journeys home were more slippery and busy than usual, but a snow-covered Toronto is a magical sight. In our first couple of weeks at least, the weather generally has been more manageable than we’d feared. Yes, ten degrees (Celsius) below freezing is common (and with the wind chill that’s closer to -15), but the blizzards we wat

Getting around

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We’ve survived our first working week in Toronto! But with new jobs come new commutes, and the challenge of negotiating one of the world’s major cities. I can walk to work in about 35 minutes, but Harriet is based in the leafy northern suburbs of Toronto and becoming well acquainted with Canadian public transport. Toronto is built on a grid system and so easy to navigate on foot. Yonge Street (pronounced ‘Young’) – which has a (disputed) claim to be the longest street anywhere – acts as a dividing line down the middle. The main commercial thoroughfare, it marks the point at which intersecting streets are named east or west, and hosts Hudson’s Bay and the Eaton Centre as well as the Hockey Hall of Fame. Yonge-Dundas Square, towards the north of Downtown, is Toronto’s Times Square or Piccadilly Circus. As I walk westwards from Yonge each morning my choice of street depends on the weather: those further south can be exposed to a bitter January wind. Front Street used to mark t

Settling in

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Our first weekend in Toronto has been a heady mix of shopping, culture and bagels. Inevitably we’ve become familiar with a whole new family of national shops, from the upmarket designer labels in the Eaton Centre and the department store Hudson’s Bay through to Best Buy – the Canadian equivalent of Curry’s – and Canadian Tire, which sells, well, everything really, from pots and pans to paint and popcorn. They even offer a blade-sharpening service for your ice skates. Most appliances are the same as back in the UK, with the occasional exception: all Canadian toasters, for instance, come with a bagel warming setting for those chilly winter mornings. Suffice to say that after numerous trips back and forth our condo now feels much more homely. We’re living in the St Lawrence district, apparently one of Toronto’s hotspots with a reputation for fine dining and tiny dogs. It’s named after the St Lawrence Market, Canada’s answer to Oxford’s Covered Market, which is just around the

Arrival

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Well, after months of excitement and planning, we have finally made it to Canada. After arriving yesterday in a light sprinkling of snow, our first 24 hours in Toronto have been a flurry of activity: we’ve obtained temporary work permits, gained the keys to our new condo, unpacked all five suitcases, acquired our social insurance numbers, applied for provincial healthcare, opened bank accounts, taken out cellphone contracts, joined the public library, found our way around our local supermarket, and traversed the length (if not yet the width) of downtown Toronto in search of some delightful homeware. All of which is not to say that our arrival in Toronto has been entirely challenge-free. We quickly discovered the Canadian love of queuing, and have spent several of the last 24 hours standing in line to submit the next form. We’ve also been perplexed by the rich variety of sheets which North Americans use to adorn their beds: our bleary-eyed visit to Homesense at about 1am GMT