Closure and exposure

After writing the previous post, I managed to catch about two hours of sleep before heading over to Future's and saying goodbye to the Tartu girls - they were all kind enough to come out one last time for eggs & coffee and when I walked down trusted Bloor Street afterward...I had it rough, I can't lie. I started packing, feeling very woozy (I blame the smoggy heat, the lack of sleep and maybe some emotional turmoil thrown in) and was done by around 2. I spent my last hour in the Second Cup on the corner with sweet Oksana...and an uninvited guest. So random, as we were talking my eyes drifted to a man sitting at the table next to ours, facing me. A baseball hat, shades, a newspaper covering his face, a pair of short shorts and his man parts. That's right. All visible man parts. For a split second I thought "Oh how embarrassing, I should tell him he's having a wardrobe malfunction" (I think this proves that deep down I am still a kind, and very naive person), but then I realiwed he was just a creep. Seriously, man parts are not attractive, it's not like when a woman flashes and everyone cheers. Anywho, I got up to tell the Second Cup people about this guy but he got up and rushed out, not to be seen again. I've been trying to figure out what I could have said or done, but it seems nothing would have been good. Any reaction on my part would have probably enhanced his pleasure, right? Should I have thrown a cup of hot coffee in his direction?
Not too long after this Encounter of a Third and Pubic Kind, Vince, James and Meindert (Fleur's boyfriend, aka Dirt) showed up and gentlemanly carried my bags down to where I caught the airport shuttle. On that shuttle I got to talking with a guy from Vancouver called Christian, who was a sound artist - he mentioned something about noise art and politics and radio waves and conservatives, but truth be told I just kept the conversation going so I could stare at him. He kinda looked like Jordan Catalano/Jared Leto when he was still on that TV show "My so called Life" - stubble, green eyes, long lashes, the works. I must have been emitting some kind of signal that day, cause at the airport an American guy named Brandon struck up a two hour conversation with me about Bush, the environment, religion (He was Jewish), traveling (he was flying to Germany for an exchange), and a whole bunch of other topics. And then he threw up. I wish I was joking. He had gone drinking with some buddies before coming to the airport and all of a sudden his face went pale, he excused himself...and was sick all over the floor of gate 531. What is going on with men not keeping their body parts and fluids to themselves?

I started to fear a repetition of my July flight into Toronto when a voice over the intercom informed us that our flight had been delayed due to "Red Alert" which later turned out to be a tornado. True enough I didn't get to Munich on time for my flight, but I was able to board another one only one hour later, so no big deal. I jumped into the arms of my sister, brother and Stijn who had all taken some time in their busy lives - bless you all. After a quick unpacking at home, my siblings and I drove to Brussels to see two stand up comedians. The first one was classic deadpan British stuff, while the second one was from Toronto! What are the odds...Phil Nichol, actor, singer and has gotten a bunch of comedy awards. He was a tad vulgar (we got a good loook at his bum and pubic hair and he threw around all sorts of vagina - fuck - slut - sperm jokes) but hilarious, and so entertaining. He played off the audience like a true master, especially of an unfortunate woman named Mary Jo who told him his act offended her. Bad move on her part. The audience was mostly English speakers - Brits, Scots, Irish, Aussies, Canadians and Americans - who work in Brussels for the EU and it was great sitting there and listening to them talk before and after the show - felt very familiar.

I'm still weirded out at being back and very jetlagged (I slept right through my alarm this morning and completely missed my job interview...whoops) but I've gotten a very warm reception. I don't know how this blog will fare now that I am effectively not "Sofie In Canada" anymore, but should this turn out to be the last post thanks to those who visited over the course of the past year or so. Hope you got something out of it, I know I did.

The last day

It's almost five in the morning and I'm still up...my last night in Toronto - why waste it in slumber? It's been a good night. I came home a little while ago from Fleur and James's place and just finished writing letters to my former roommates (we're going out for one last breakfast tomorrow morning). I owe those girls a lot, they all played a huge role in making this past year what it was. Not just them though, a lot of people here welcomed me with open arms, introduced me to their friends and family, invited me to gigs and parties and were just all around wonderful.
I don't feel much sadness right now for the simple reason that it hasn't sunk in yet that I am about to leave. When I said goodbye to Clara in Denmark, I was so convinced I would see her again soon - somewhere, sometime - that it didn't seem like a very big deal to see her off at the airport. Now too I have a strong sense that I will be back in this city, sooner or later. I have had a full year, a very satisfying one. And I can only be grateful for that, to everyone who helped make it possible. To every person I passed on the street here. To every building I walked into. Every cab I took. Every look, every word - thank you.

Toronto accent

Last night, the Tartu crew (minus Oksana, who joined us later), Hilde and Renee joined me at a restaurant in Mirvish Village called "Southern Accent" - Brendan recommended it, but I'd never been. It's cajun-creole cuisine (jambalaya, gumbo, hush puppies, collard greens, oysters, chicken, fried everything), with live music on Thursdays (lucky break for us), they offer psychic readings (no one had the guts though. Or the 25 bucks to spare), the waiting staff was dressed in all black and all had an air of mystery to them - all in all an unusually eery experience. Great place. Tina, Anna and I ended up on the patio of Panorama, with a gorgeous nighttime view of the city and yet another delectable waiter, for dessert afterwards.


Anna and Tina


Jen and Alisha


Renee and Hilde

As the number of days left dwindles down, it becomes a priority to see people one more time, almost as if to punctuate the relationship. Inevitably, there is a lot of reflecting on the new people I've met, the old people I've gotten to know better, and the people I'm returning to. Going away for a year does a lot of different things to friendship. It speeds up the delapidation of friendships that were already brittle. Much like a romantic relationship, friendships don't survive separation unless they have something authentic and robust at their core. It also strengthens those that never even came close to being challenged. I have a few people in mind whom I haven't been talking all that much over the past ten months, but who I know I will see within days after my return. No questions asked, no beats skipped. Solid.

At the same time, there's a relativism that creeps in: I've found, both here and in Denmark, that I'm able to make new friends. Good friends whom I'm very grateful for. If I had gone to Finland and the US instead, though, I would have probably made good friends there as well. So how do you place that randomness? We all want people around to say "bless you" when we sneeze and throw us a surprise birthday party. To fill out our address books and cell phone contact lists. To come to our house, our sick bed, our funeral. To call, write and reach out - despite circumstances that may prevent it like being busy or far away or too tired. To give and take. At times I feel depressingly far removed from that, considering and fearing that to a serious degree friendship might be a matter of performed routines, habitual patterns and a fear of being lonely. And at other times I'm overcome by tenderness at people who give me all a friend can and then go an extra mile. It is impossible to predict where friendships start, how they evolve, and where they end up going - but they are always a possibility. They can be started, or revived, and nurtured. And hopefully, some of them solidify to the point where you feel like coincidence may be what initially brought you together, but authentic interest and admiration is what's keeping you going.

The Trip IV: Montreal - Ottawa - Toronto

After covering the touristy highlights of Quebec High and Low, we drove down to Montreal where we split up for dinner. My parents had a romantic...I'm gonna stop right there. And I met up with Gen, a friend I met in Toronto last summer through Adrian, for a delicious Thai meal. And umm, that was basically it, we left the next morning around ten! I don't know, for some reason me visiting Montreal just doesn't seem to work well, it was a bust in January too. I guess the time just isn't right. And no regrets, seeing Gen again was awesome and it was a great night.

We made a last minute decision to pop by Ottawa on our way back to the T dot - a visit of about two hours. Hey, we're efficient, what can I say. Park the car, walk up to Parliament Hill, admire the view, walk through the Byward Market, have lunch, drive around a bit and cruise on. We were all completely exhausted, so once we got to familiar Yonge Street, I crashed at Theresa's and my parents crawled into the Marriott (I know, poor things).

I am so grateful Tuesday was gorgeous, cause I was finally able to show visitors Toronto Island. Blue skies, excellent temperatures, cute houses, ice cream, the ferry came on time - perfection. And we all thoroughly enjoyed chilling out for a while. Around four, I went up the CN Tower for the first time! It wasn't as creepy as I had feared it would be and getting a good look at the places that have become so familiar to me (You can even see Tartu from up there) was nice. In that symbolic, New Age-y way I am such a sucker for.


I walked my parents through Front Street and King Street and then straight into Spring Rolls for dinner. I continued my let-me-show-you-where-I-have-been-spending-disproportionate-amounts-of-time tour on Wednesday, with the U of T campus and Future Bakery. A quick lunch on a Yorkville patio and it was time to get the airport shuttle...one more week left for me, though. And I'll make it a good one.

The Trip III: NYC - Boston - Quebec City

NYC day two started with a visit to the Central Station on 42nd Street. Part of the main hall was taped off for, as it turned out, a Chanel commercial featuring Mischa Barton!


We took the elevator up the Empire State Building for a bird's eye view of the city, walked through SOHO (past designer boutiques and art galleries) down to the most Southern tip of Manhattan to see the Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge. Wall Street brought us to Trinity Church and a true blue public bus brought us back up to our hotel. Another sun-soaked day, capped off with dinner and white wine on a patio. Many of the nicest moments of this trip were actually spent around a table, discussing the big issues of Life. One of the things I brought up several times was how fascinating it is to redefine your emotional relationship with your family...as a kid, your parents are just there, present in the same way unquestioned way that your house and your 1st grade teacher are. Ideally, as time goes by, they become multidimensional people with their own backgrounds, flaws and hang-ups. At the same time, you become a more equal partner to them and you have the opportunity to get to know each other as adult individuals rather than people who happen to share some genetic material. But then the question is: do you get along? Do you become true friends or is it going to be a relationship of polite conversation and lame jokes? Do you allow your family members to know you?



NYC day three! We walked (do you see a pattern here? My feet doubled in size over the course of this trip) down Broadway, up Central Park (the West side this time), crossed by where the Jackie Kennedy Lake is, saw the front of the Guggenheim (in December, the boys and I still got to go in and look at the design, but by this stage reconstruction is so advanced that you can't even step into the lobby anymore) and spent the early afternoon in the Metropolitan Museum. After a couple hours of separate wandering, we met up on the roof - the most awesome. There's interesting art pieces, wooden benches to sit on, a coffee and juice bar and, most importantly, a 360 degree view of the city. If I ever publish a book, or manage to psychologically enslave someone who publishes a book, I'm making it so that the glamourous party is on that very location. We walked back to the hotel along Park Avenue and Madison Avenue, past all of the fancy stores and even fancier people - and i think my favorite part about that was seeing the people who didn't fit the picture. For every hundred people that pass you by dressed to the nines in designer gear, carrying a Prada handbag, big shades and a "I stopped making eye contact with other people years ago, I've been clean since 1992" attitude there's someone walking the same sidewalk who is...completely normal. A construction worker. A FedEx delivery guy. An oddball. An old lady with a cane, moving every so slowly. You know, real people.

When we arrived in Boston on Friday, I had a very similar thought. After an hour or so of walking around the center of the city (Old City Hall, the Market, the harbour...the only other time I had been to Boston was last September but I still knew my way around pretty well, I was impressed with my own memory. Who knows, maybe I won't turn out to be such a bad driver after all!) I realized I hadn't seen anyone truly glamorous or even exceptionally attractive. I was about to label Boston as just an unfortunate collection of plain Janes until it hit me that I had simply left Manhattan. And outside of Manhattan, there are people who mismatch their outfits. Who have visible belly fat and man boobs. Who are not tanned before summer has even started. Who have jobs and only shop on weekends. Huh. We managed to squeeze in a lobster dinner, but said goodbye to Beantown the next morning to cruise all the way to Quebec City...

After checking into the hotel and trying to convince my dad that no, the girl at the reception does not have a speech impediment, but he just had his first taste of Quebecois French we walked around the Old Town, found a nice restaurant and toasted to making it back to Canada in one piece.

The Trip II: Washington - NYC

Our second day in Washington brought us to more as-seen-on-tv-and-many-movies memorials, statues and buildings.


On our way through the city, we came across a sculpture garden filled with beautiful works, including a "Citizens of Calais".



After a visit to the gorgeous Franklin D. Roosevelt memorial - a large monument filled with waterfalls, statues and strikingly relevant quotes from the former prez and his wife - we lunched by the water and walked back to the hotel through a filthy rich neighborhood. It was filled with embassies and huge residential homes around which nannies and butlers were performing their daily duties. As aesthetically pleasing as these streets were, it felt uncomfortable walking down them knowing every single room within every single building had probably cost more to design, construct and decorate than what millions of families across the planet get by on on an annual basis. Especially knowing that the people who live in these homes are likely to be policy makers - how in touch can they really be with the world around them living in these beautiful, safe, Truman Show-esque parts of the city?


Our brush with the life of the rich & fabulous, however, did not end there. When we arrived in NYC on Tuesday, it turned out that our hotel was located on 42nd Street, a mere two blocks away from the Chrysler Building! Our first day brought us to a museum on Fifth Avenue, alongside Central Park, that houses the private collection of Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919), one of America’s most successful coke and steel industrialists (http://www.frick.org/index.htm) His main guiding principle is presented as having been personal taste: he bought whatever he enjoyed looking at.
As a result, the collection is fairly eclectic in terms of geographical and temporal origins of the paintings, sculptures and decorative elements but somehow there was a modest harmony to each room. I couldn't help keeping an eye out for any Dutch and Flemish pieces (I hate that I do that!) and found a gorgeous self-portrait by Rembrandt, some excellent portraits by Hals and a well-known Memling dating as far back as 1470 (Such a cliche, but seriously, someone sat down and created this over five hundred years ago. Five...hundred. And we're still looking at it today. Blows my mind. Still. Always will) I'm usually not keen on those massive audio guides they provide you with in museums that kinda look like cell phones from 1987 but this time around I brought myself to typing in a few numbers and the stories that came with some of the art pieces were fascinating: rags to riches, saucy affairs, long journeys and dark secrets. Despite all of the technology the 21st century is characterized by, or maybe because of it, previous centuries always seem more adventurous to me: communicating by written letters, clawing your way up the social ladder, suffering shipwreck, the plague, aristocratic decadence, man-on-man combat, discovering entirely new sections of the world...lives of risk and of the unknown.


Post-museum we took a walk through gorgeous Central Park. I remember feeling perfectly content when I was there with Tom and Laurens last December and this time around was no different.

The Trip I: Toronto - Niagara - Washington

I've been way too busy and way too removed from decent/affordable internet access these past couple of weeks to post anything, but over the next few days I'm hoping to write a play-by-play (with pictures!) about what I've been up to...

Mainly, my parents have come to visit! They got to Toronto late Wednesday night and called me on my cell to let me know they had gotten to the hotel safely - I was at a bar in Kensington Market called Supermarket with Hilde, Fleur, Brendan and two Irish friends of Hilde's. The next morning I went to meet them at the hotel and they seemed surprised at my total lack of extreme makeover, "You're still wearing that shirt! You're still blonde! You're still normal!" After breakfast we walked down Yonge Street, through the skyscraping Financial District and over to the Skydome where we caught a Blue Jays Game with Brendan and Hilde (The Jays won, woot woot).


Brendan and I at the game

Afterwards it was pouring rain so we all fled into an Italian place on Front Street and enjoyed a late lunch/early dinner-ish kinda thing. We walked up Spadina, through Chinatown and Kensington Market, down Bloor, past Tartu, through Yorkville, into a Starbucks to dry up and re-caffeine and finally down Yonge again.

The following morning I made my very last trip to Ideal Coffee with Brendan (got my standard latte with some poppyseed bread), said goodbye in a decidedly non-sappy way, grabbed my bags and hopped into the rental car. We sped down to Niagara, where we saw the Falls up close and personal. For dinner, we drove to Niagara on the Lake, a very cutesy little town with lots of English country style shops.


Niagara Falls

The next day was a lotta lotta driving - in poor weather conditions - down to Harrisburg. Which is basically...a stop on our way to Washington and not much more. Then again, this kind of small, chain-dominated (KFC, McDonald's, TGIF, Wal-Mart etc.) place is also very much a part of the US experience. Further boosting the Americana of it all, we shared our hotel floor with a group of teenage cheerleaders in town for a championship. Seeing them walk around in their outfits, reading the posters they put up on their room doors, and hearing them chat over breakfast - it was nice to part of a story of some sort when you're in the middle of nowhere like that.

On Sunday then, we drove into Washington and got straight into tourism. We walked down to the White House, where a group of women - including Susan Sarandon - was holding a peace really. Despite the ominous clouds and, not long afterward, pouring rain, we managed to catch the stomach pinching beauty of the thousands upon thousands of white crosses at the military cemetery of Arlington. My dad was quite bitter about the immense loss of young lives in a "and look what we're doing with ourselves and our freedom these days" kind of way. There is something perverse about bussing around this massive area listening to a guide jabber on about statues of fallen heroes when you know that under each small cross is a story, a final gasp, a gruesome or maybe tragically trivial death. I also remember the bus guide saying something about the estimate that the cemetery would probably "be full by 2040" in an entirely matter-of-fact tone...take a moment to consider what that means exactly. Has the political media machine done such a tremendous job that people now consider thousands of deaths an inevitable and necessary sacrifice?

Full Cycle

I have moved out of the residence that I have been calling home for about 9 months. Back at Theresa's appartment now, the same place Clara and I stayed at last August. I have been getting one flashback after the next: packing my bags, marveling at the amount of stuff I have, the bare walls, the plane ticket, no school...it all feels eerily familiar.
So here I am, at the other end of the adventure, feeling like I could do it all over again. It's been a wonderful year in many ways. And, as always, I feel like I'm leaving on a high note, conveniently forgetting the moments that were less-than-stellar. The weather's getting nicer by the day, I've lost that sense of self-conscious foreigness that I carried with me the first few weeks and have become just another person on the sidewalk, I have the time to hang out with friends on patios and watch documentaries (I caught three during the festival over the past two weeks), I've met a sweet Canadian boy with whom I've established more couplish routines already than I care to admit...it's a beautiful life I have here. And, just like after Denmark, I'm leaving it behind soon for no other reason than the fact that a predetermined time slot is coming to an end.

My parents arrive here tomorrow and we'll be traveling down to the US and up to QC together. After our road trip, I have one more week of solitary Toronto - I really wanted to say goodbye on my own, by myself, privately.

I'm genuinely looking forward to my summer, it is shaping up quite nicely and should keep me busy enough not to sit around too much and wonder. But I worry that soon I will begin to yearn for things and people an ocean away. Unlike Arhus, I can't just hop on a bus and drive up to the T dot. If I want to come back here, it will take considerable time and money...Thankfully, Toronto is coming to me through a few different channels.

For one, I'll see Liz in Belgium. On Thursday night, Renee, Fleur, Hilde and I went out to dinner with her to celebrate her last night in Toronto.


Fleur, Hilde and I at Kalendar

For two, Brendan's doing a bit of a Grand Tour of Europe and should end up in the lowlands for a couple of weeks around early July.



For three, we'll be traveling up to Amsterdam together where we'll be reunited with Fleur and Renee.



For four, I got my bestest girl Hilde to share my fate.


So Toronto certainly won't be cut off from me too abruptly. For most of the summer, I'll have the best of both worlds: my family and friends, my hometown, lots of city trips and the lovely presence of some of my biggest Torontonian connections.

Question quality

Quality is relative. So sometimes it takes a display of high quality to make us realize just how mediocre or even poor the circumstances are that we had started to perceive of as standard. Take food, for example. A glass of freshly squeezed orange juice instead of the old tetrapac. Herbs out of the chef's backyard instead of out of a plastic container. Delicious, right? Makes you look at your daily fare a bit differently and think that maybe shopping organically, and doing your own cooking does make a difference and may be worth some of your time and money.

Walking into the salsa club last night was just like that. People were dressed much nicer than at the average club: button down shirts for the men, heels for the women and a minimal amount of trashiness. I loved the music too: unique, with character, presumably sung by people who are genuinely talented and have not all been streamlined into pop-dom. People actually moved out of the way and let you pass instead of marching forward, shoulder-checking whoever is unwise enough to cross their path. And people danced. Well. And enjoyed their bodies, not for being a particular shape or size but for the way in which it can be strong and elegant and used to guide, challenge, and seduce your partner in a swirling, fluid mix of celebration and display. Compare that to your average freshmen club in the Entertainment District where girls in miniskirts fall down drunk and it's impossible make your way through a crowd without being groped...and it makes you wonder why anyone would choose that over this.

And then this morning, over breakfast, the TV ended up on a new show on MTV called "Yo Momma". The host is Wilmer Valderrama who admittedly was hilarious as Fez on "That 70s Show" but has otherwise not proven to be a man of significant talent or relevance. He's mostly famous for dating famous girls like Mandy Moore and Lindsay Lohan. The concept is a verbal battle: two groups of people spewing insults at each other. The most clever one wins - whoop dee doo. After watching about 30 seconds and seeing the smug grin on the host's face, his leather jacket and the sportscar parked in the back I changed the channel with a fairly severe curse. Alisha overheard me muttering and went "Whoah, easy there" (I do have a feeling my profanity levels have risen over the past year, and I don't notice it enough but that's an entirely different issue) but it honestly aggravates and infuriates me. Here is a guy who for some reason has been given media exposure, who reaches tens of thousands of young people across America and this is the best he can come up with? This is what he chooses to throw out there and what more than likely makes him a shitload of money? With the world being the way it is? And he thinks he's doing something even remotely commendable? Sickening. Do I think TV should be 24/7 news bulletins, documentaries and telethons for charity? No. Do I only spend time reading up on world affairs? Absolutely not. Am I therefore looking down at people who watch MTV? Not at all. I'm looking down at the people who come up with show concepts such as these, provide the funding, arrange the promotion and then drive home to their posh California homes in their shiny cars patting themselves on the back. It is an utter and sad waste of time, money and human potential for everyone involved, from the creators to every single viewer. And it should not be standard. It should not even be a joke. It should be the cause of another drop in MTV ratings (The programming now compared to the early nineties when I watched it alongside my siblings...ridiculous, music barely even comes into it anymore. And classic shows like "The Real World" have degenerated into Big Brother-esque eyesores) because teenagers have better things to do than be exposed to this junk. And because they are aware of that fact. That's my hope.