First snow and the biggest pizza we've ever seen

It's been getting pretty cold - as I write this, it's the warmest part of the day at 5pm and it's currently 6 degrees with an apparent temperature around 4 degrees.  Stephen's braving the cold to go out for a run in his t-shirt and shorts - we really need to get him some winter running gear.

At around lunchtime, we went for a walk - we were planning to walk to a Farmer's Market about 5km away, but our walk was interrupted when it started snowing!!!!

Look, real snow!  

Walking through the park - ski jackets are becoming more and more useful as they're both warm and waterproof.  Jumper/hoodie underneath is necessary too.  Needless to say, we decided to skip the Farmer's Market and instead went to a local cafe for a hot chocolate, before heading to the supermarket which was a bit closer :)

Check out my new winter boots!  They're good down to -40 degrees!  No coats yet, but we're working on it.

In other news, the pizza here is incredibly good.  However, we ordered pizza the other day, and I thought I'd order an extra-large as a joke - the joke was quickly on me when we received said pizza.

That's a normal sized dinner plate next to it - the pizza is 45cm (18 inches) across.  Turns out that an Australian large pizza is equivalent to a small or a medium pizza here depending on the chain.  We normally order 1 Australian large pizza for the two of us for dinner - this Canadian extra-large took us 3 days to finish. Carrying it home was a pretty good weights training session for me too.

Ongoing delivery sagas

The other day, our couch was delivered by the rudest delivery guys ever.  They were 45 minutes late and then ignored Stephen's instructions to wait for the Building Manager who would open the delivery lift and jumped in a resident's lift, dumped the couch in the middle of our floor, didn't put it together or set up it up and left without saying 2 words.  Wow.  After they'd left, we smoothed things over with the angry Building Manager, and set it up ourselves.

So now we have a couch!

As I said earlier, after the last delivery fiasco of the non-fitting couch, we decided to get a 2-seater couch because we knew it would fit.  It fit, but perhaps the next photo illustrates the issue better...

The couch is lost in the negative space.

We will have to buy it a new couch-friend once one of us gets a job.  Stephen says that we can't have a TV until then anyway, so it will be ok.  Personally I think the house is starting look a little too beige, but what other colours go with the bizarre yellowy-brown colours of the wall and floor?  Maybe I can get a giant black and red rug to brighten the place up a bit (shhh don't tell Stephen) :)

In other delivery news, my awesome new computer was supposed to arrive today - we got a phone call that said that it would be arriving sometime between 9am and 9pm (!) so to make sure that we were home.  Lucky we're unemployed bums, or we'd never be able to get a computer delivered.  We sat around the house all morning, until around 1pm when Stephen chanced to look over the balcony to see the delivery company van driving away... I called them up and asked what was going on, and they said that they need a code to get into the building, and providing our phone number isn't enough because the delivery guys won't call it.  Sigh.

I asked if I could pick the computer up, and they said sure - which all sounded fine except that I have to show identification containing my name, photo and address, otherwise they won't release it to me.  I have a passport (name and photo), and an Ontario Temporary Driver's License which is what they give you here while you wait for your license to be made and posted to you (which has my name and address only) - apparently showing both of those two forms of ID together are not valid because it has to be on a single piece of ID, so I can't pick up my computer.  Strange that with my passport they'll let me into their country, but not let me pick up a $1,000 computer.  So we went and argued with the Building Manager about the code, got the code, and now we're waiting until Monday when the computer should be delivered.  Fingers crossed that they don't buzz for the delivery (which goes through to Stephen's mobile phone) when Stephen's having his phone interview.

In other news, as per above I have an Ontario Temporary Driver's License (and a real one in the mail), but Stephen does not - the RTA sent me the correct driving history extract stating the issue date of my license, but VicRoads only sent him a list of his demerit points - you need to prove when your license was issued to swap your license over.  If you have that piece of paper it's pretty easy - you give them your current license, show your passport, give them the driving history extract, and they take your photo and issue you a temporary license.

It's been pretty quiet over here in the last few days - we've done a lot of the hard work and now we're in a waiting phase:  waiting to hear back about jobs, waiting for deliveries of computers and study materials, waiting for delivery of my running shoes, waiting to hear back about a suitable rescue dog, waiting for the winter to come.  Hopefully the waiting ends soon.

Dear Canada

Dear Canada,
We've been in your country for 3 weeks now, and so far, most things here have been the same as or better than things in Australia.  We really like it here - especially the tasty burgers and the awesome trees and the great subway system!  However, there are a couple of important things that I think you are doing yourself a disservice by not addressing, and we thought we'd lay them out here so that you can be fully aware of your flaws.

1.  Cheese
You have a real cheese problem here.  Supermarket cheese comes in bizarre packages:

This is a 500g block - instead of being a sensible, block shape, it's some sort of long package that's only 2cm deep.  What's with that?  Not to mention all of the cheese being orange.
This is turning out to be a bit of an issue for us, as in Australia we bought this:

... only we bought a 1kg block nearly every week.  I know, we can buy "gourmet cheddar" here which is a standard colour, but it costs $30/kg.  Ouch.  You really need to fix this one before we go into some sort of cheese-deficit coma.

2.  Vita-Brits

I'm surprised that you don't have Vita-Brits here - maybe they're an Aussie thing?  Instead you sell these:

... but once again, instead of selling them in 1kg boxes, there are 24 biscuits in a package.  That lasts Stephen a week if he's not hungry.  Also, they're a funny shape and they taste funny :(  You guys are really missing out!  Let us introduce you to the joys of tasty, healthy Vita-Brits!  

3.  Crushed Tomatoes
Of all of the strange things that are different, we didn't expect a tin of crushed tomatoes to be one of them.  We use a lot of crushed tomatoes in our cooking.

In the Aussie crushed tomatoes, they have tomatoes and salt and a little bit of sugar.

In Canadian crushed tomatoes, they use tomatoes, salt and citric acid.  They taste like vomit.  Urgh.
I am still trying to work out how to get around this one.  Of all of the strange things to be different...

4.  Pools
This isn't a food-related thing.  But in Australia, they have many pools, everywhere, and they look like this:

Some of them are indoor and some of them are outdoor - most of them are 50m long and some of them are 25m long.

Here, I went to see the gym under our building which proudly stated on its website that it had an indoor pool, and they showed me something similar to this:

Me:  "How long is it?"
Gym employee:  "12m - and you won't find another indoor pool around here until you get to the city."

12m?!  That's a backyard pool!  Imagine doing a 1-2km swim in that!  Canada, no wonder you can't win any swimming medals if people are training in 12m pools!  They're probably really good at turning...

In Conclusion
So, Canada, these are just a couple of things that we think that you could look at addressing - your country is totally awesome, but we weren't expecting these few little niggling things to be broken.  We'll just chill out in the corner here while you get started.

Love from,
Vicki & Stephen

The weather is changing, slowly...

The locals have told us that it's been "unseasonably nice weather" - perhaps Toronto is being nice to us and letting us get into the swing of things a bit before we freeze to death.  It's been 15-20 degrees most days in the middle of the day, but chilly in the morning (4-6 degrees).

Yesterday was foggy on a scale that you never see in Brisbane and only see in Sydney once or twice a year:

The view from our balcony.

Next week, it looks like winter is getting down to business - forecasting highs of 8 degrees and lows of 4.  It was cold enough already!  My research has suggested that the first snows should probably hit at the end of November or the start of December, so we need to make sure we have some good winter clothes before then.  We've talked to a couple of people about winter clothing, and have been told to get a "good winter coat" and some "good winter boots".

The boots are the easiest - we've been recommended to look at ones like this:

Waterproof, big tread, high tops and lined with something warm.  They're not too expensive either, which is good.  I've also read that people tend to wear this sort of thing to and from work and keep some normal shoes at work for once they get there.  Now I just have to hope that they make them in bigfoot sizes....

Coats are more difficult.  The words are confusing - what's the difference between a coat, a jacket and a parka?  And there are so many different styles and types that it's hard to know what people will really be wearing.

There's this type, which is a "down filled parka" - I think they look ridiculous, but I imagine they're pretty warm.

And then there's this sort of thing, which is a windproof outer coat over a fleecy inner coat, and they can be worn together or separately.  

And what about work/business?  Do people wear this sort of thing, like in Sydney?

Is it warm enough?  What about if it's snowing?

It's all very confusing!  The worst part is that asking in stores is pretty much a no-no, as they'll just try to sell you whichever one they carry.

I'm sure we'll sort it out soon - there is a time-limit after all!  

Fixing furniture woes, a real bed, and a public transport nightmare

Saturday morning we headed out to the furniture sales store to try to fix the too-big-couch-issue.  I was pretty stressed about the whole thing, so Stephen said he'd handle it.  It actually all worked out better than we could have imagined - the guy was apologetic about it not fitting into our apartment and said we should have a look around for something else.  Sadly, there were no more awesome chaise lounges there :(  We settled for a 2-seater couch and a bench ottoman which we can put our feet up on - will have to do for now.  The guy discounted them a bit and they're delivering them for free - in two lots, because the couch is available on Tuesday but the ottoman won't be in until mid November.  So it all worked out fairly well I guess - although I don't get a chaise lounge, which makes me sad :(


Sunday morning we were woken up by a delivery call.  Companies in Toronto so far have been all about automated voice calling systems to let you know when something will be delivered - and they all seem to call at 8:30am, which is a bit rude.  Anyway, our real bed was finally delivered on Sunday morning.

Stephen was very excited.  Sleeping on the air mattress, which seemed to conduct freezing cold air from the cold floor up to our bodies, was getting very old, very fast.  

The finished product - hooray!  


The house feels a lot more home-like now that there's a bed, although I keep forgetting that it's there and tripping over it on the way to the closet.


On Sunday afternoon, we headed out to a local dog group's meet-up - we're looking at adopting a shelter dog, and the shelter suggested we take the opportunity to meet the breed.  Unfortunately for us, the meet-up was 30km away in Missisauga.  

We looked at our public transport maps, and thought it would be fine - take the subway to the end of the line, then take the GO Train (regional train) to the closest station and walk 1km.  Unfortunately, nothing went to plan.  We got off at the end of the subway line to discover that the GO Station next to it was closed on weekends (?!).  We asked someone for help and met our first rude unfriendly Canadian - "it's closed on Sunday" (full stop end of discussion).  


We decided to take a taxi 2 GO Stations down the line to station that was open on weekends - which we managed ok, although the meter goes up much faster in Toronto than in Sydney.  We bought GO Tickets from the machine and went to the platform - and waited, and waited.  Finally we realised from staring at the timetable that there are only about 6 trains a day and only on weekdays between 6am and 9am - the rest of the time it's run on buses.  The next bus wasn't for an hour.  Back to square one.


We found a local bus system map and discovered that a local bus would take us there, if we could get to the route.  We started walking... an hour later, we made it to the route, and discovered that the buses on that route are every hour as well, and the next bus wasn't for 45 minutes.  Missisauga, I stab at thee.  We gave up and found a bus that would take us back to the subway and headed home.  


At least a good thing to come out of the whole mess was that we discovered some of the, er, nuances of the GO system yesterday, when it didn't matter all that much, rather than today when we need to catch it to my job interview which is also held in Missisauga (I think the real estate is cheap out there).  I'm wavering on whether I think the retail sales job is a good idea or not (I'm concerned that we lose a lot of flexibility for it), but I'll see how I go today.  

Settling in and furniture woes

It's been 3 days since we moved in and we're still sleeping on an airbed (I can't wait for Sunday when our bed gets delivered), but after yesterday's intrepid adventures, we're no longer sitting on the floor!

Sitting on the floor really hurts - especially on this dodgy wooden floor - it's cold and hard and unforgiving, and it hurts your back to sit for too long.  Not good for two nerds looking for their internet fix.  We hunted for furniture stores, but only one of them was on the subway line, so we decided to bite the bullet and hire a car for the day.

6 furniture stores later, we bought a couch, table and 4 chairs for around $1600 delivered - not too bad.  Somewhat amusingly, the guy kept trying to sell us his furniture protection plan, which I wasn't interested in - he kept going down in price until he threw it in for free.  I'm not really sure what benefit that had to him or why he'd do that - we had already said that we were buying the furniture and the price was agreed, why would he give us things for free?  Any salespeople want to explain this one to me?

We couldn't hack another night sitting on the floor while we were waiting for the furniture to be delivered, so we bought some barstools on the way home (along with a washing basket, mop/bucket, and a few more bulky or awkward home items - taking advantage of the car while we had it!).

Celebrating in true Aussie style!

Unfortunately, this morning at delivery time, things turned a bit sour - our new chaise lounge couldn't fit in the elevator.  Apparently instead of breaking into a 2-seater and a chaise, it breaks into a 3-seater and an ottoman - so it didn't fit.  I'm pretty angry - we couldn't know from looking at it on the sales floor that it broke up that way, and the salesman knew we lived in a condo apartment and didn't say that there would be a problem.  Now I imagine that we're going to have a fight on our hands to get the money refunded, and we'll probably have to fight against some sort of failed delivery fee.  Not very happy.

On the upside, the table did fit in the lift, so we now have a table and some chairs.

At least we have something to eat off now I guess.

We're starting to settle in now - I did some laundry yesterday, and I've decided that having a communal laundromat downstairs is actually pretty awesome, because you can use multiple machines to do multiple loads at the same time rather than one after the other - I'm a big fan.  Plus, these washing machines tell you how long until they're finished, so it's a simple matter of going down to the basement, putting the washing on, coming back upstairs and then going back down to the basement once it's finished - no waiting around.

Stephen bought some running shoes from the local Running Room and he's off testing them on a short run now - the Running Room runs a lot of clubs and training courses, and apparently they have a 16 week marathon coaching course that sounds pretty good, starting in January.  The benefit for us would be not only the training but also the prospect of making some new friends in the area, so we're pretty keen to give it a shot - we were having a good laugh over the fact that (if our couch was delivered) we would have had 10 seats in our house and still just the two of us to sit on them, so we need to get out there and meet people.

We've both applied for some jobs - Stephen's applied for a few .NET developer jobs in the area, and I've applied for a couple of Christmas retail casual jobs (mainly to meet people and get out of the house while I'm studying full-time until February).  I had a phone screen for one of mine this morning, and I have an interview on Monday - if they decide they want me, I'll be paid a whopping $11.25 an hour (ouch).  Stephen hasn't heard back about any of his jobs yet - what's the usual time period that you'd expect to wait to hear from a potential employer after submitting your resume?

Now, if you'll excuse me, now that we have a table, I have some serious gaming to catch up on :)

Moving in!

Monday afternoon we signed our lease and picked up our keys - it was pretty late and they said they wanted to give the unit a final clean before we moved in, so we headed back to the hotel for the night.

The next morning we arrived bright and early to our empty apartment.

Backpackers no more!

It's incredibly hard to take photos of an empty house and not have it look tiny, so just trust me, the place is huge :)  Here's a few photos...

Lounge/dining, with "cappucino bar" (apparently it's cool to call it that nowadays rather than "breakfast bar") to the kitchen.

Kitchen - the fridge and the dishwasher come included :)

View of the city from the second bedroom.

Now that we had an empty place, it was time to start furnishing!

We don't have a car (and we're not planning on getting one), so we invested in some carbon-footprint friendly moving technolgies ;)  Unfortunately, this one's a little short for us tall folk, we so might need to extend the handle or buy a new one.

Lacking any other option, we hit up the local Walmart (sorry Liz) to get started with making the place liveable:  crockers, cutlery, chopping boards, an inflatable bed to serve until ours arrives on Sunday, and the sheets and pillows for it.

And we were set!  (Unfortunately, we froze to death as that's a thin cotton blanket, and it was cold - we were trying to hold out until our doona arrives from Australia.  I'm not sure how Canadian hot water heating works, but I have a suspicion that ours isn't working properly.  Needless to say, today we bought a backup doona.)

Would you believe our apartment comes with a fridge but no shower curtain?  I picked up this awesomely tacky one after managing to soak the entire bathroom taking a shower earlier.

Random photo:  they sell milk in BAGS here!  I'm not sure what exactly you're supposed to do with a 4L bag of milk.  How do you pour it?  How do you store it?  Very strange!

In true Lane family tradition, we celebrated the move-in with pizza on the floor for our move-in dinner :)

Since then we've had another trip to Walmart for some more essentials - pots and pans, a shower curtain, emergency doona, cooking utensils, glasses, and a bin.

Yesterday (move-in day) we called up and asked about getting the internet connected, and they said sure - you can have 3 months of internet free as a move-in bonus.  We were super-happy with this, but even better, the guy said "I'll have a technician out to you tomorrow morning to get it connected".  So the technician rocked up this morning, and by 11:30am we were connected and going - and it's super-fast.  Awesome!

So here Stephen is cooking dinner in our new place!

We've been having some trouble finding furniture - we bought a bed pretty easily (despite the week's wait for delivery), but everything else is incredibly expensive.  I was initially hoping to buy some cheap second-hand stuff on Craigslist, but that's proving impossible, so then I wanted to hit up something like Fantastic Furniture or Super A-Mart for some cheap tables and chairs and desks, but they don't seem to exist.  Tomorrow we'll try Ikea and see how that pans out.

More photos once our rooms actually have stuff in them!

Jess's Best Day Ever

Jess left for San Diego this morning, so yesterday we had a Jess-themed day which we have now dubbed "Jess's Best Day Ever", where we attempted to have as many of Jess's favourite things as possible in a single day.  (Note:  due to circumstances beyond our control, Jess's Best Day Ever was unfortunately Luc and bunny free.)

We started off by walking 5km (not one of Jess's favourite things) to obtain Cuban Sandwiches, which Jess raves about incessantly from her time in San Diego.  Cuban sandwiches aren't actually from Cuba (they were made by immigrants to Florida).  The sandwich seemed to consist of pulled pork (slow-cooked pork), ham, pickles, cheese and mustard, toasted.  It was pretty damn tasty.  (The chips were good too - and they had some sort of awesome chili garlic mayonaise with it.  Om nom nom.)


After the Cuban Sandwich lunch extravaganza, we decided to move onto another of Jess's favourite activities - cycling.  We hired these bikes from a dodgy commune-style "community bike shop" (I hated every minute of it).  I'm pretty sure the bikes were made in 1920 (Stephen says they were "well-loved and well looked after"), and one of them tried to eat the leg of my jeans causing me to nearly stack it, but once we got to the Martin Goodman Trail (lakeside cycle path), they were ok.

Stephen and Jess riding along the trail.  Look at how big the bike path is!  And there are no angry motorists!  Sydney could learn a lot!

Why did the Canadian Goose cross the bike path?  (No I didn't run them over, UQ alumni.)

Stephen riding with no hands!  Luckily, he didn't end up in the water - I don't think our medical insurance covers that.

Looking back to the city from the cycle path.  The trail actually goes for around 700km around the lake.

We went back via High Park (near our new home), and found an awesome playground!  Apparently it's a community-built playground, and it is huge!  The twins are going to love it if they make it over :)

About 10 seconds after this was taken, Jess started feeling sick and had to vacate the bouncing bridge.  Stomach of iron!

Stephen somehow launched himself over the giant puddle at the bottom and landed on the tyre - unfortunately, he couldn't work out how to get down without getting his feet soaked.  Jess tried to "help" with a poking stick, but for some reason that didn't work so well.  Luckily for Stephen, he managed some sort of acrobatic feat to land on solid ground.  


We finished off the day with Indian take-out and a couple of beers in our hotel room.  


Thanks for your visit Jess!  Next time we hope to have a house to put you up in!  :)  

Up the Tower....

Catching up on photos from the last week...

Stephen and Jess took a trip up the tower (I was too scared :)).

Looking straight down the tower through the glass floor, starring Jess's feet.  (Looking at this photo, I was very glad I didn't go up.)

Toronto Islands (as per an earlier blog post), from the top of the tower, at sunset.

Looking back over downtown.

This is on a different day, but I forgot to upload this one previously - we had Poutine for lunch! Poutine seems to be a Canadian national food - the basic recipe is hot chips with hot cheese curds and gravy on them, but it gets amended for "gourmet" poutine like the bacon one you see on the left.  It looks pretty disgusting but it's pretty damn tasty :)  

It looks like we might have a home...

Yes, a home!  We were having some issues finding a place due to the fact that both of us are unemployed, but we stumbled on a place that will take us based on our savings (we had to show 3x the yearly rent in a Canadian bank account - ouch).  And, as luck would have it, it's actually the nicest place we've looked at by miles.

It's in a group of "condos" (apartment blocks which are all run by a central managing company), and it's a 2-bedroom place, 865 square feet (huge!), and it's got a big living/dining room area with a somewhat open plan kitchen (hooray!).  It's on the 21st floor (I am going to have to get used to the height) and from the second bedroom it has beautiful views of the city.

It's right next to High Park, which is a huge parkland area - 400 acres worth, full of cycling/running paths and squirrels!  There's a great cycling path all of the way along the lakeshore too - apparently it's 700km long, so we'll have plenty of training room.  The place is also 300m from the High Park Subway station (the green line is the subway) so we're very close to transport for a change :)

In Canada, apartments come with appliances - every apartment comes with a fridge and a stove/oven, and some come with a washing machine and dryer too.  Our place also comes with a dishwasher, and it has a laundry room downstairs.  In the complex there's a whole bunch of stuff - 2 outdoor pools, a gym that includes an indoor heated lap pool (extra cost for this though), and a movie room.  It also allows pets, so we'll be finding a puppy as soon as we can :)

We're signing the lease on Monday, and we're hoping to get the keys on Monday arvo or Tuesday, so we'll post photos once we get in to the place.  So excited!  Now we have to buy a bed, bedsheets, some cutlery and crockery...

(High Park!)

Our First Ice Hockey Game

After Niagara Falls, we headed across the Rainbow Bridge to the USA, to visit Buffalo NY to watch the Buffalo Sabres take on the New Jersey Devils in a bottom-of-the-table clash.

Stephen particularly enjoyed driving around in the PT Cruiser.

We visited the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) on the way for awesome all-day-breakfast yummy-ness - with all you can eat pancakes!  What's with Americans and overcooking their bacon though?  This bacon was so cooked that it crumbled into tiny pieces when you tried to cut it!

After not too long we were there!  The arena before the game starts - it's filling up!  It was a Wednesday night match between two bottom-of-the-table teams, they play 80+ matches a season, and it was still a sell-out crowd.  Crazy.

Once we arrived we discovered that we were in some sort of members' section with in-seat service!  You order your beer/hot chocolate/popcorn etc on your tab, and the guy brings it to you at any time during the game.  Pretty awesome.

Warm-up goal shooting - just like the AFL :)

More of warm-up.  The teams has a lot of players on it and they seemed to sub-off the whole team at random - we didn't really get it.

There was a punch-up on the ice - all of the other players moved away, and the umpires just stood there and watched.  It was bizarre.  They were really getting into it too!

They played all 3 periods of the game without a score, so it went into 5 minutes of extra time - about a minute in, New Jersey scored a goal and the entire crowd stood up and walked out.  Apparently it was golden goal time - we were incredibly confused.

It was a fun night though - we'll definitely have to try to get some tickets for a Maple Leafs' game (despite the exorbitant prices).  Perhaps we'd better learn the rules first though :)