Sofie in Canada

Closure and exposure

2006-06-02T06:41:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-31T01:42:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-26T08:23:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-24T23:39:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-22T20:40:00.001-07:00

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

2006-05-22T20:40:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-22T18:28:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-05T06:59:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-29T10:47:00.000-07:00

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.

Step in my spring

2006-04-28T13:44:00.000-07:00

Let me count the ways in which my life is lovely:

- the sun is out, the patios are filled with people and Toronto is regaining the endearing beauty it had when I first got here in August
- school is out - 'nuff said
- I've been getting some papers and tests back and so far, the marks are all good
- a combination of tea, lots of rest and prescription drugs has gotten me back on my feet and I feel all healthy again. Also, I never heard back from the campus doctor so I take it my blood tests came back negative. Or she misplaced the results. Either way, I continue living in ignorant bliss.
- I'm in Toronto, a city with a comedy club on every block & the comedian whose show I caught last night made me laugh until I cried (his bit on Ray Charles gave me a belly ache) - God bless you, Fraser Young. And Jay Malone, the MC, call me!
- We have a new roommate at Tartu, Alisha, and she rocks. In other suite news, the light in our bathroom finally got fixed which means I can go back to reading "For the Love of the Sheikh" and find out how Shahir will react when Kirsten tells him that their one passionate night of trembling and quivering romance has left her pregnant. Also been eager to finish that Cosmo article "Is your body normal?"
- Brendan has booked his flight to Europe, which brings the total number of "Awesome People I Met in Canada Who Will Be in Belgium This Summer" to 3 (Liz will be there in June and Ralph in August) - fun!
- I just talked to my mom on the phone and she assured me that she still loves me. Okay so maybe I didn't really have doubts about that per se, but it's still nice to hear.
- my cell phone provider is thanking me for my loyalty over the past year by slicing 20 bucks off my last bill
- I felt a bit iffy about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt staying in an African luxury resort (I take it they're paying for their stay, and that money would trickle down so at least the employees of the resort benefit somewhat, but still), but it turns out that their mere presence in the country is boosting Namibian tourism, which is fantastic
- tonight, Oksana and I are going to a salsa club in Yorkville to dance our little hearts out

Now I think there's a lot right there to be grateful for.

Cause & Consequence

2006-04-26T10:45:00.000-07:00

People have disparate ways of responding to unusual events. Case in point: post-9/11 US response versus post-London subway UK response: the two countries reacted hugely differently to these terrorist acts in terms of the language they used, the way they treated the press coverage and, of course, in terms of military action. Increasingly, I get a visual of people who are blindfolded and holding a baseball bat. When something touches them they take an impulsive swing, which either has no effect whatsoever or only further deteriorates their situation. For example:

- CNN reports: "The record Atlantic hurricane season last year can be attributed to global warming, several top experts, including a leading U.S. government storm researcher, said on Monday. "The hurricanes we are seeing are indeed a direct result of climate change and it's no longer something we'll see in the future, it's happening now," said Greg Holland, a division director at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Holland told a packed hall at the American Meteorological Society's 27th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology that the wind and warmer water conditions that fuel storms that form in the Caribbean are "increasingly due to greenhouse gases. There seems to be no other conclusion you can logically draw." [...] The Bush administration contends global warming is an unproven theory [...] Adam Lea, a postdoctoral student at Britain's University College London in Dorking, Surrey, presented research based on British, German, Russian and Canadian studies that concludes half of the increased hurricane activity in the tropics could be attributed to global warming [...] This year, the weather service's Tropical Prediction Center expects more hurricanes than usual, but not as many as last year's record 14". Oh well, that makes it okay then. A ridiculous amount of North Americans can continue to overheat and overairco their homes, and drive around urban centres in oversized cars, because there won't be quite as many hurricanes in the coming year. Any ideas on how to change people's behavioral patterns perhaps?

- The homicide that took place in Belgium a couple of weeks ago. A young man was killed in bright daylight over an MP3-player by two men initially described as North African. The extreme right party was having a field day until, oh wait, actually, our bad, when we said North African we didn't mean Moroccan so much as Polish. Yeah. Oh, what, the community is upset at being stereotyped? Well, that's unfortunate. Here's the governments new plan: open a new youth prison and increase police presence. Nice. Discipline, surveillance and incarceration. That's what New York did in the early 90s to clean up Harlem and today they have the world's highest percentage of imprisoned people.
There appears to be no mentioning of structural factors such as the low rate of non-whites graduating from highschool, let alone making it into higher education. Unemployment perhaps? Underrepresentation in the media and the legislative body? The consequent lack of positive rolemodels coupled with the psychological effect of blatant materialist consumerism?

- Cancer prevention. While I was sitting at the doctor's office the other day for my marathon wait, I had a good chance to look at the educational posters that decorate the walls. One of them was filled with pointers for minimizing your chances of getting cancer: eat lots of fruit and veggies. Don't smoke. Exercize. Don't tan. And then there are a lot of semi-iffy urban myths involving the pill, deodarant, tight jeans and a million other items. All well and good - even if we all know someone who lived a healthy life and still faced the dreaded diagnosis. But where on the list does it say "Don't live near a landfill" or "Stay away from rivers in which corporations illegally dump their chemical waste"? Anything about "Don't live on a planet if its ozone layer isn't technically a layer anymore"? Are you really telling me that the First Nations people living on an Ontario reserve not to far out of this city are dealing with an absurdly high number of miscarriages (as well as a striking asymmetry between the number of males and females that are born) would be helped by upping their vitamin C intake? Methinks perhaps the toxic waste dumped neatly around their reserve may have a bit of a role in it too. Just a bit.

Anyway, I guess my point is that it is important to find a balance between individual action (the kind of car you drive, the way you deal with your trash, the food you consume) and structural issues (where the Almighty Government should be stepping up) in tackling issues of violence and pollution. Citizens and consumers have very powerful voices. Presidents, governors and politicians have their fingers at a whole line of buttons. And any kind of polarization is likely to lead to a situation of disfunction: if it's all up to individuals, where does that leave fundamental structural factors? If it's all up to the government, where does that leave democracy, agency and common sense?
We're all on the same small globe - not nearly as disconnected from each other as we tend to think. The "evil Other" may seem to be sitting on the other end of the boat -the point is that if it is leaking, sooner or later, we're going down too.

Deep Throat

2006-04-23T11:05:00.000-07:00

Okay, I really need to stop going out with people just because Plans Were Made despite feeling that I'm coming down with something nasty. I did it a while ago, when I went over to Masja and Michael's place even though my voice was nearly gone and I spent the following two days completely mute. And now I've gone and done it again. Well, at least it was good times:

Fleur & Martin

Ralph & Hilde

Brendan, myself and Renee

But now, the day before my final final I find myself with a very sore throat and neck and feeling very infected. I went to see the campus doctor today - and Hilde, being the phenomenal friend she is, accompanied me. After being assigned the 12.15 time slot (we got there around 10.30) we whooped out our copies of Elle Magazine and a bar of chocolate and gabbed the time away. When I was still stuck in the waiting room around one, it turned out I had mysteriously fallen off the schedule and now would not be able to see anyone until 3.15. Awesome.
So Hilde and I grabbed some lunch - all liquid for me - and at 3.30 I was finally facing a physician. Whose first statement was "You don't look very sick. Do you feel sick?". Umm. No, I just spent five hours here for the hell of it. Because the last thing I want to do is be home studying for my exam tomorrow and running the risk of getting a decent mark. I mean, come on, given the opportunity to stare at STD posters and lifesize condoms displays for the better part of your day while the gentleman to your left is finetuning his "get-the-mucus-that-is-lodged-in-your-lungs-up-to-your-nostrils" breathing technique, would anyone even think twice? Are you fucking kidding me?? If the amount of hair on her upper lip was any indication of the time span of her career as a physician, I can only conclude jadedness is the explanation for such an absurd opener. Anywho, I was poked and prodded and blood was drawn - the results will be in shortly - and I got a prescription for some throat medicine. I'm going to try and get some reading done tonight, drink a couple of gallons of tea with generous portions of Billy the Bee honey, and get a decent night's sleep. I guess bouts of illness present some of the most prominent moments in a 20-something's life when they wish they still lived with their mommy. But as long as I've got my girlfriends with me, I'll be a-okay.

Vita mea

2006-04-21T15:05:00.000-07:00

It's hard to come to terms with the fact that the end of April is already in sight...I just got back from the International Student Center's Farewell Party - what the deuce? It's the classic scenario, though, spring tends to be the funnest exchange season - ask anyone. You've settled in to this new life, you've met some cool people with whom you've amassed enough shared moments of embarrassment and hilarity to serve as the basis of a deeply profound friendship, the weather gets nicer every day and the advent of The Big Sad Ending only encourages you to squeeze every last big of joy out of each free moment.

I finished my take home exam on Monday (and Tuesday morning...) and went out with Brendan afterward to celebrate almost-being-done. We went over to "Simon Sushi" on Spadina - by far the most delicious (and fairly priced) salmon bento I've tasted so far. Afterward, we headed down to the Skydome and saw the Toronto Blue Jays kick NY Yankee ass with 48.000 other fans.

Wednesday, Hilde and I met up with Ralph - a U of T Chemistry student who is coming on exchange to Leuven next year and who had some questions about Belgian life. He turned out to be the nicest guy, very social and accidentally hilarious. I'm sure he'll do just fine for himself in the old continent. The weather was too nice to spend any time indoors, so after lunch I took to the Toronto streets for some summer shopping. Knowing I slowly had to get my ass into gear, I brought my textbook and notes for my final final (next Tuesday) to the Future Bakery patio Thursday morning and enjoyed a sunny study session with Hilde, Fleur, Brendan and Renee. I finished off the blissfully snoozy day with Oksana, Anna and some delicious ice cream...

In distinctly feminist news, two things to report: my cousin Katja - who's dad is my godfather - is now officially a professor! The first female prof in the family, so my mom and dad felt it their duty to travel up to the Netherlands and witness the big moment in person. I've always been proud of her determination, even as a little girl I had a sense of her courage and dauntlessness, but this title caps it off beautifully.
And then here, I got an article published in a local feminist magazine called "The F Word" (the editorial encourages everyone to "keep giving a fuck" which I love - indifference is far too prevalent as an attidude). It's very brief, basically a comparison between the European approach to fitness with the North American one in terms of emphasis on health vs. beauty & present enjoyment vs. future results, nothing groundbreaking. And yet when I was walking down Spadina Avenue post-sushi and saw a guy (!) cross the street, holding the magazine under his arm...I'm pretty sure I straightened my shoulders a little.

Break away

2006-04-17T12:19:00.000-07:00

Hilde, me and Fleur - hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil

"The Brunswick House" is right on my street and yet I'd never been in there, turned off by the way several people had dismissed the place as gross, sleazy and just plain wrong. So of course, being her, Hilde had to go and investigate and got Fleur, Viv and I to venture into the lion's den this past Thursday. The place turned out to be great fun - a big dancefloor, cheesy 2004 music (think Sean Paul) and corny pick-up lines. One guy showed off his geographical knowledge by educating me on "The Three Netherlands". The what now? "Yeah, you know, the three Netherlands. Belgium, Holland and Denmark. Those are the three!" Oh honey. Honey. Have another beer. It's okay.

My buddy Hilde

Friday morning, I went over to Brendan's house and we drove up to his parents' cottage up North. We spent three blissfully quiet days on their property - walking through the woods, playing with the dog, enjoying mom's cooking (her blueberry pancakes are to die for, and the maple syrup is produced by one of the neighbours, good, pure, natural, heavenly stuff), sitting by the fire, canooing up the river and forgetting all about the city and cell phones and email for a while.

This is one of the many gorgeous views of the river. I sat on that little bench reading some Kurt Vonnegut...and life was good.

Stubbs - the smartest Jack Russel in the world

What a gorgeous, gorgeous country.

Sunkissed

2006-04-08T16:34:00.000-07:00

I was so excited to publish my 100th post last week...and then things just went dry. It's not that nothing interesting has been happening (There were breakfasts and dinners, interesting news stories, jazz bars, shopping excursions, plus Liz's mom and sister came to visit all the way from Down Under), I just haven't had the urge to write and string it together somehow. Plus, I've been working on papers like a madwoman - those are all done, now I have four final exams to deal with and this year is officially ov-a. Holy mackrel, huh? This second term was absurdly short.

I may not be able to offer any verbal distraction, but instead there are pictures to be admired!

Tina & Oksana pre-party Friday night

Oksana & me - I'm not being lame, I was actually on the phone with someone when a camera appeared in the room

My adorable roommates Tina & Jen in the Tartu kitchen

Oksana & Renee at Lettieri in Yorkville, an upscale coffee place

Renee & me - taking a break from the books

It's been a nice week - unpredictable weather's but on the days that the sun is out and winter coats remain indoors when you yourself do not, spirits soar. Toronto is an entirely different place in the summer: prettier, bigger, more active, louder, more exotic, more alluring. Can't wait to dive into it again once school's out...

A bit of Belgium on Bloor

2006-03-27T09:57:00.000-08:00

Last night, Hilde and I (we let Brendan and Chris come too, cause we're just nice that way) went to see Belgian rockers dEUS in "Lee's Palace", a small venue right on Bloor Street. Walking up to the building, we passed lead singer Tom Barman who was chatting on his cell phone outside. The doorman then turned out to be from the Dutch city of Tilburg and told our stunned faces to "geniet van jullie avond"!

The opening act was so-so, ridiculously loud and not too innovative. Their name was absurdly long too, something Eastern Conference blah. Irrelevant. But then...then the boys came on.

Hilde and I stared up in adoration for a solid hour as they played a few songs from their latest album "Pocket Revolution" and a bunch of solid old ones. They looked fantastic and sounded even better. After the show, we all stuck around and got to chat with the lead singer...

and with the main guitarist. It was awesome hearing their Antwerp accent ("En wa studeerde gelle?"), asking them about the next city they were playing in (Detroit and then New York) and chatting about whatever came up.

Chris and Brendan asked us if the word "Deus" means anything in Dutch too and were not accepting of our negative answer. Chris tried to sell us the idea that maybe the word was made up of the French "de" and the English "us" and so carried the extra meaning of "of us" or "ours". And you know what, last night, they really did feel like they were ours.

Friendly faces

2006-03-24T07:54:00.000-08:00

I went on a date a couple nights ago the way only North Americans on sitcoms do: you meet someone, like what you see, you have a good chat, exchange numbers, call, and go out to dinner. Things are a tad awkward at first, but by the end of the night you've had a few laughs, a good discussion about some big issues and some small issues (He thought he could beat me in pop culture trivia, haha, what a fool. His "big question" was "Donald Trump just had a baby - what is this baby's name and who else shares that name?". Umm, for 25 billion points, the answer is: Barron and Barron Hilton, Paris's little brother. A-thank you. Next!), found some weird similarities ("How do you know about that word/book/band/album/place?? That is so random!") and it's been good times.

And yet. Walking home I was overcome by this surge of love for my friends and family, basically everyone I've known forever and feel comfortable around. People you don't have to impress all the time, where you don't have to work hard to make sure they think you're smart/fun/opinionated/kind/well-balanced/normal/ambitious and all those good things. It's kinda like when you've been shopping all day and you're near depression cause you tried on pants you shouldn't have tried on and they showed all these bulges you didn't know you had and now you feel like a fat cow and a midget too...how nice does it feel to call it a day, bid adieu to fitting rooms and overly helpful shop assistants ("How are we doing in there??") and slip into your old jeans, the ones you've had for five years and the ones you were really shopping to replace cause they're getting kinda ratty? I would say, just as nice as it feels to get a phone call from a good friend that starts not with "Hi, this is..." but with "Sooooo how was your date?? Tell me e-verything".

Do you feel Mod tonight?

2006-03-19T18:48:00.000-08:00

On Saturday night, I went to Mod Club (on College Street, smack in the middle of Little Italy) with Hilde (and her friend Brendon), Renee (and her classmate Connor), Fleur (and her roommate Manipaul) and Liz (and her residence buddy...um...from Kosovo. Vlora? Flora?) to see a band (not sure what their name is either). The lead singer is a good friend of Manipaul's and the bass player is buddies with Brendon, hence. The bouncers jerked us around a bit at first - they made us wait outside, deliberately creating a line-up so that people walking by would think the club was full and oh so difficult to get into. Ha. Fat chance. But eventually they let us in and we had a blast dancing away.

The show was okay, the guys (commonly refered to here as "Ginos", the Canadian equivalent of Johnnys) around us touchy-feely and the DJ ready to party.

Brendan and Hilde

Hilde et moi - she makes Toronto so much more beautiful to me

Fleur and Liz

Me and Renee

I never claimed to be above objectification

2006-03-19T11:10:00.000-08:00

What meets the eye

2006-03-18T10:17:00.000-08:00

For the second time since I've come to Canada I got my hair cut (might post some pictures later, no promises though. Not that it looks bad, I just have better things to do than figure out how to get a good shot of myself that's flattering yet not overtly "Oh she so did that to look less pale/thinner/more glamorous/like she does not live in a residence room that closely resembles a junkyard"). I returned to "House of Lords", where I got my hair done in August and where Tom went when he came to visit me this past December (One more time for my roommate Tina, it is not called "Lord of Hair" even though that would be a kickass name and not just for a hair salon - the possibilities are endless).

Even though I had called them the day before, I had to sit and wait for "Melanie". Not a big deal, hey, any chance I get to leaf through gossip magazines and do some people watching, I'm there. When Melanie showed up, it turned out she was British, pierced, tattooed (the parents of her goddaughter own a tattoo parlor) and hilarious. Walking through the salon toward my seat, the other "House of Lords" employees greeted her with sincerely joyous exclamations such as "Melanie, you're back!", "Hey, they let you out of jail!" and "Look who the cops let loose!". Hmm. Assuming it was some kind of inside joke, I proceeded reading "Scoop" magazine with intent concentration. I came across an ad for the TV show "America's Next Top Model", one of life's (or at least Reality TV's) most satisfying guilty pleasures, and, as it turned out, one that Melanie shared. We oohed and aahed over Nnenna (So graceful), Wendy (What is with the lack of eye lashes?) and Kari (Could her head BE any bigger?) and I expressed regret at missing this Wednesday's episode. I was not alone though, Melanie had missed it too: "I was in jail". Okay, alright, what exactly went down here? Whilst clipping away and carefully applying strips of tin foil for highlights, my new-found penitentiary pal told me that her male roommate's ex-girlfriend (not her best friend, who he used to date) had broken into her room, stolen her passport and "prescription meds" and had then proceeded to sell them to a girl who ended up in the hospital - Melanie's name was on the pill bottles, badabing badaboom, next thing she knows there are sirenes, a "Miss, you're going to have to come with us", a scary scary time being interrogated in a room with only a metal table and a chair that was screwed to the ground, and finally, release. Whoah. Right?
And yet, she did a fabulous job. My roommates all love my hair, I love it, Melanie offered me a drink, invited me to a party, made me laugh till my stomach hurt by mistakingly refering to "Cuts for Cancer" (a program that collects people's disgarded hair to produce wigs for children who have undergone chemotherapy) by "Cancer for Kids" (not something I choose to support), laughed till her stomach hurt by my coining a shitty dye job as "the Belgian Blotch" and was all-around lovable. But if you had asked me "Who would you rather see, Rafael the snooty jerk [He cut my friend Katie's hair a while ago and was a complete ass about her not being familiar with the hairdresser jargon - umm, no, that's why you went to school for it and she's a dancer, you tool] or Melanie the jailbird?" - chances are I would have passed on her.

I think I just find that so typical of life in Toronto: people are never who you could think they are. Purely based on appearance or facts, it is easy to jump to conclusions while in reality, people are revealed to be much richer, poorer, prettier, uglier, more genuine, less confident, kinder, crueller, more talented or less intelligent than could be assumed. There are constant surprises.

The same goes for establishments: the critically acclaimed Vietnamese restaurant on Bloor Street that Liz and I went to last week had the most repulsive, 3d world (sorry, "developing country that hasn't quite made it but we're sure it is only a matter of time before they too can indulge in excessive capitalist consumerism and leave those silly activities like goat herding and berry picking to others, go team!") washroom I have seen in my life. Ack. Compare that to a place like "Big Fat Burrito" on Kensington which is basically a garage with an oven and some bar stools -the washroom is so pretty and clean! I know the "never judge a book by its cover" theme is an old one, but it remains a good one. And an important one for me to keep in mind.

Although in my defence, something happened at the Godiva party that secretly made me really happy. I was talking to a random guy about traveling (his adventures in Europe, mine in North America) and the topic of "How many languages do you know" came up. It was not until he said "Ah, only two for me: English and Hindi" that I realized he was Indian. Black hair, dark skin, yup, Indian. And I honestly had not taken any kind of mental note of his non-whiteness up until that point - something I could not help but doing when I first arrived here (It sounds weird to Canadians, but coming from where I'm from being the only white person in an elevator, room or entire restaurant was very very new to me - sure puts the "immigration problem" in Europe into perspective. Seriously.) Now I think that's cool.

Our one-year wonder

2006-03-12T12:38:00.000-08:00

Lars, aged one and 5 days, is seen here wearing a fitted, cotton Canadian sweater in this season's hottest colour. His make-up and hair follow the minimalist trend so characteristic of the Spring 2006 collection, titled "Mom + Dad = Me". Asked about the philosophy behind these garments, the designer revealed a desire to turn away from post-9/11 conservatism and a return to the boisterous glamour of absolute cuteness.

Chocolate Chaos

2006-03-10T16:06:00.000-08:00

Feeling confused? Not anymore...

2006-03-09T16:03:00.000-08:00

You Are Likely a Third Born

At your darkest moments, you feel vulnerable.
At work and school, you do best when you're comparing things.
When you love someone, you tend to like to please them.

In friendship, you are loyal to one person.
Your ideal careers are: sales, police officer, newspaper reporter, inventor, poet, and animal trainer.
You will leave your mark on the world with inventions, poetry, and inspiration.

The Birth Order Predictor

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free.

In love, you feel the most alive when things are straight-forward, and you're told that you're loved.

You'd like to your lover to think you are flexible and ready for anything!

You would be forced to break up with someone who was ruthless, cold-blooded, and sarcastic.

Your ideal relationship is lasting. You want a relationship that looks to the future... one you can grow with.

Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment.

You think of marriage as something precious. You'll treasure marriage and treat it as sacred.

In this moment, you think of love as something you thirst for. You'll do anything for love, but you won't fall for it easily.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

You Are 23 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe.

13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world.

20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences.

30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more!

40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

This website - courtesy of Alli - also told me that the language I should learn is Swedish, my Irish name would be Fimelda McCarthy, the American city I resemble most closely is Boston, my inner child is quite happy and that I lived in Korea in a past life. Whew. This sure made my day a LOT easier.

International Women's Day

2006-03-08T09:38:00.000-08:00

Marie Popelin: after finishing her Law studies and finding it impossible to actually enter the male-dominated professional world, she devoted her life to fighting for the right of Belgian women to work as lawyers through her foundation "Ligue Belge du droit des Femmes". She passed away in 1913, and in 1922 legislation was finally adjusted.

Marie Spaak-Janson: the first woman in the Belgian Parliament

Isala van Diest: the first woman to open a medical office in 1884

Gabrielle Petit: master spy in the Belgian resistance during WWII

Marguerite Yourcenar: As an author, she published novels, poetry, essays and plays. She moved to the US to live with her lesbian lover and taught there at Sarah Lawrence University (NY).

Marguerite de Riemaecker-Legot: becomes First Female Minister of State in 1965

Dora van der Groen: actress and theatre director

Gabrielle Defrenne: air stewardess who sued her employers in 1968 on the basis of gender discrimination. Female employeeds were forced to retire at age 40 while their male colleagues were allowed to continue working

Ann Demeulemeester: critically acclaimed fashion designer, worn by Portia De Rossi & Cate Blanchett.

Martine Tanghe: one of the first female news anchors on national television

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker: internationally active dancer and founder of the ROSAS dance company as well as of the Performing Arts Research and Training Studios (PARTS).

Amelie Nothomb: author whose novels have received several Belgian and international awards

Ulla Werbrouck: Olympic gold medalist in 1996

Axelle Red: Singer, songwriter and UNICEF ambassador

Daniella Somers: world champion of kickboxing and boxing

Antje de Boeck: actress, awarded Best Actress at the film festivals of Ghent, Geneva and Valladolid and played the lead role in the movie "Daens", which was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards

Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin-Hardenne: two Belgian tennis players who reached the number one spot in the global listings

My mom and sister who manage to both be mothers, sisters, wives and therapists and have a career all at the same time.

Birthday boy

2006-03-07T10:03:00.000-08:00

What a beautiful day! Not only does this winter continue to blow Canadian minds - temperatures went up to 10 degrees today - it is also my nephew Lars's very first birthday. Even though it's pretty sad that I have been across the ocean for most of his young life and he's doing all that token stuff without me there to see it unfold, I'm sure the two of us will make up for it next year and become unprecendented partners in crime...Gelukkige verjaardag, Larsje.

Screeching laughter

2006-03-04T08:44:00.000-08:00

My friend Mike has a birthday this Sunday, so on Friday night his fabulous girlfriend Theresa got some peoples together in a top secret mission and took us all(Nick, Marissa, Colin, Claire, Candice, Felipe and myself) down to downtown Yuk Yuk's, one of Toronto's best known comedy clubs (http://www.yukyuks.com/info/YukClubs/TorontoClub/torHome.htm).
We saw four comedians - a little something for everyone: the first guy went for the rugged very local humour ("Yeah so politicians are so thrilled that the gun violence is going down in Toronto, fuck that man. It's just cause it's so cold! Who wants to a drive by when it's 30 below? It's like "I ain't rollin down this window mothafucka!", y'all just wait for springtime"), the second went down the goofy road, the third was incredibly crude (leave it to him to tell a joke involving AIDS, cancer, rape and incest all together) and the last one was the token women comedian (mostly ranting about what being single and over forty is like). All of them took plenty of swipes at the audience (which is why we made sure not to sit in the front five rows) which was kept well provided with drinks and pub food throughout the show.
We were all walking down the street afterward on our way to a fun bar for some drinks when we saw a man run across the street and get hit by a taxi cab (we were in the Entertainment District on a Friday night at 1 in the morning, there's more taxis than bouncers in the area). We heard a thud, saw him flying through the air and then land on the asphalt. And not move. Mike and Claire, who both know CPR and have used it several times in real-life situations (Mike has performed the Heimlich on both a baby and an 70-year old man, how's that for range), went over to him immediately while Colin called 911 on his cell. The guy was unconscious for a little while, but as soon as he came to insisted on standing up (even though that was probably the worst possible thing to do at the time). Not too much longer it looked like we were in the middle of a Third Watch episode: a fire truck showed up, two police cars - blasting sirenes - and an ambulance. As well as a lawyer. That's right. A real-life ambulance chaser, who probably has some way of tapping into police dispatching and sniffed his way to the scene of the crime. He had a camera, which he used profusely despite the police's objections, handed the victim his business card and had medical forms ready to be filled out. Unbelievable. Mike gave him some abuse a la "You're the biggest piece of shit I've ever seen" but it didn't seem to really get to him, I take it he's been called worse. To further degrade our esteem of humanity, the cab driver and the cab passengers...never got out. They stayed in their car the entire time. When the guy was hit. When he was lying on the street. When we came and crowded around him. When the cops arrived. When he was being examined by the medics. The entire time. I never saw the cabbie's face, but the girls in the back seat were giggling. Guess they didn't need to see a comedian to get their Friday night laughs.

Hometown on the horizon

2006-03-03T09:25:00.000-08:00

Through many different channels, a bunch of stuff about Leuven has come my way this week. Joeri drew my attention to www.drieduizend.be, a website with hundreds of pictures taken by non-professional photographers (though you could never tell looking at them) about random sights in Leuven. Markets, festivals, people going about their business, bands, parks...anything. I enjoy clicking around - as I'm sure other people for whom Leuven holds a special place will.

Two of my former bartender colleagues from Stuk are venturing into music and have their own websites: Jonathan can be found at www.milow.be (definitely check out the "One of it" video link, I enjoyed it a lot) and Lieven's home is at www.kidfear.be.

Model behavior

2006-02-27T17:18:00.000-08:00

Reading week has come to an end before I even fully realized it had started. Was gibt's? In order to not have a reading week that was all about the well, reading, I signed up for the North American Model United Nations session held at U of T. I was a delegate for Norway on the UNDP (development stuff) and for four days hung out at the Intercontinental Hotel on Bloor and Emmanuel College by Queen's Park to discuss microfinancing, the Millennium Development Goals, NGOs and how like, totally wicked Toronto is.
It was definitely a session of highs and lows. Highs: meeting some very cool people, getting a few good laughs, and all the social stuff. NAMUN organized a pub night at "Duke of York", which turned into a Belgian night extraordinaire. These two Belgian men in the T dot on a business trip, Bart and Michel (classic!), had stumbled into the DoY and were enjoying some pints of Stella when we were introduced. We ended up talking for hours - they were obviously KUL-alumni themselves - and I thoroughly enjoyed talking to them, in Flemish, of matters Flemish. The gala dinner on Saturday night was awesome too. Hilde borrowed me the gorgeous dress we found at Fashion Crimes over a month ago, I had my high heels on, and through some great cosmic coincidence, had my make-up professionally done! My roommate Oksana, who's a Management student, had won an image consulting session. And so, on Saturday night, a woman named Katia came over to her room to assess her hair, make-up, clothes, accesories, posture, teeth colour (no joke) and about a million other things. She had great advice, a good sense of style and couldn't resist having a go at me with eyebrow pencil (I know! It has never even...occured to me to use one. Really did make a difference though), lip gloss and mascara. She redid my hair (Not that my putting an elastic in it counts as "doing hair") and I strutted over to the gala like it was my job.
Other highlight of the conference: the opening ceremony speaker, dr David Morley, formerly boss of Doctors without Borders Canada. Very inspirational guy, who talked about working in Africa so poetically and genuinely that it, for a minute, makes you put all your cynicism on the UN as an organ and the world as a whole aside.

The lows: having to get up at 7.30 every day and spending those days with overly competitive, fiercely uptight people. I'm all about self-confidence, but I felt like so many of the other delegates needed a swift kick in the ass. The way they talk, what they say, the way they treat others, all seriously out of line. The big upside of that is that being around them made me realize a lot about how I am in large groups. I'm not a shit disturber, or a risk taker. I don't like to stick my neck out. I enjoy getting along with people, cracking jokes, cooperating, getting other people's support and opinions. I'm sure that those are all good qualities on a certain level, but at the same time I know that when I leave the university bubble and enter the real professional world I'm going to have to have more of a bite.

Yeah, human interaction is a wondrous thing. From the moment you first open your eyes, adults are hanging over your crib making faces and noises and encouraging you to mimic them. And really, your 12/13 years in school are based on a similar principle: what are the others doing? Am I like them? Who is considered most succesful? How come some people always seem surrounded by a group of admirers, while others fade into the background? Are people born leaders or is it other people's unwillingness to lead that creates the social hierarchy patterns? Are you forced to make do with your inherent qualities? If not, to what degree can you mold yourself into the person you want to be? And then, as you get older, you become a part of an increasing number of social circles each with their own interpersonal dynamics and both overt/subtle plays of power and competition. I can't help but think that those who seem to claw for control like emaciated cats are those most stuck in the high school drama-rama.

My mom emailed me yesterday and told me my nephew Lars is now walking all by himself...It kills me how one fact can simultaneously make me beam with pride and break my heart. I now have this wonderful vision of arriving at Zaventem airport and having an adorable little boy run up to me with a big toothless smile on his face. In reality, it'll probably be more of "What the deuce, who is that lady? And when, for the love of God, is anyone going to finally wipe my nose??" frightened look but hey, a girl can dream.

"Home is where my habits have a habitat" - Fiona Apple

2006-02-21T16:47:00.000-08:00

Though I'm not in the best of spirits - I'm coming down with a cold at a time when I have about 82 papers to write - for the last few days I've felt very much at peace with life in Toronto. The things I do on a daily basis (have breakfast, talk to my roommates, leave the building via the staircase and the lobby, walk down Bloor, look out my bedroom window, hang out with the girls, grab lunch somewhere, carry my brown bag around with my white cell phone in the specially designed pocket and my keys - with the green key chain - in the small front pocket, pack my gym bag) have gone from being new to being old to being my custom-made routine. And the best part about it is that it all feels so natural. The brown paper bags I carry my groceries in, my long black puffy winter coat, my fur-lined gloves, subway tokens, Canadian change, taxis, coffee cups...all so exotically North American at first, but now they're simply a part of my day. Normal. Evident. And lovely.

Stereotypes of sin

2006-02-19T15:46:00.000-08:00

On Friday morning I went and saw the campus doctor. I haven't had my period since October and I'm wondering what I've done to upset my body's balance like that. Stress? Weight fluctuation? Change in diet? A little bit of everything? There's probably no reason to worry, and predictably, I got the old "Give it another month or two and come back if nothing changes".

The phone call in which I made the appointment a week ago was pretty interesting. For one the person I spoke to asked me if I wanted to see a male or a female physician. I told her it didn't matter - I'm all about gender equality so why be a hypocrit now? A few people I talked to about this were surprised, though, considering the reason of my visit. Wouldn't a woman understand you better? Maybe. But I like to think doctors are professionals and take all their patients seriously. Is that naive of me?
The phone person also wanted to know what my complaint was and when I started explaining it, she gave me a very chipper: "Okay, so you think you might be pregnant?". I gave her a part indignant, part incredulous "Oh no. No no no, it's exactly because that's not an option that I'm concerned". I guess it makes sense for her to mention pregnancy in such a casual way, baby fears are probably a daily reality for a campus doctor.

It's a bit of a running joke at home that "Sofie doesn't want kids". In reality, it's not so much that I don't want them, it's that at this stage in my life (young, in school and single) they're not at all on my mind. And I haven't yet felt that mythical thunderbolt that sparks such certainty and a biological urgency in others. I might end up having kids. It's actually very likely that I will. But if I don't, I like to think I would be okay with that. Life would still be fulfilling and satisfying.

Discussing the period/pregnancy thing with my friends it's funny that I'm often the most so-called "anti-kid" (seeing TV commercials for paper towels in which little kids mess up beautiful white kitchens or their mother's gorgeous sweater makes me cringe, while other girls find it endearing) but at the same time also the most "pro-kid" in that if I were to become pregnant, I would not consider having an abortion. I think that at my age I am old enough to take responsibility for my actions. And, assuming my parents don't disown me, I would have the means to support a child. I'm not homeless or on drugs. I'm not mentally or physically handicapped. It'd be hard, but I could do it. Don't get me wrong, a baby would turn everything upside down and I am by no means underestimating the long-term psychological, emotional and financial strains of parenthood. All I'm saying is that I suspect - and that's all I can do, who knows what my reaction would be if it actually happened - that I would be courageous enough to deal with it. That I would feel an instant connection, an instant unconditional love. That my family would come to terms with it. That the crushing feeling of derailment would slowly diminish over time and I would end up seeing my life as my life again, happening to me while I was making other plans. And that one day I would look at my son or daughter sleeping peacefully and realize that I am incapable of imagining the world without them in it.

Pregnancy could both be seen as a privilege women have and as a burden - keeping them from enjoying sex as freely as men can (at least, those men who're undaunted by STDs and HIV). It's scary to think how easily parenthood - in my view the single most fundamental experience in anyone's life - can come upon you. How anyone can become one, even those who don't want or should be responsible for another human being. How men have an easier time, both physically and emotionally, to run away from it. How in most countries the legal system is such that it has internalized that disparity, just look at visitation rights and the protest of angry divorced men who go from seeing their children every day to seeing them every other weekend.

Speaking of the legal system, a judge in Italy ruled in a sexual assault case (between a man and his 14-year old stepdaughter) that the fact that she was no longer a virgin at the time of the crime serves as a mitigating factor. In other words, because this girl had already chosen to have sexual intercourse with boyfriends, her stepdad was more free to go after her. It makes me furious that being sexually active could be perceived by anyone as a green light for rape. You think that women being stoned to death for having a ruptured hymen on their wedding night (most likely not as a consequence of consensual sex, but that, apparently, is irrelevant) is something that happens only in backward villages populated by scruffy mountain folk? Think again. The virgin/whore stereotype has been popular in Western culture for centuries and clearly and sadly is still a reality in today's policy circles.(http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/02/17/italy.abuse.reut/index.html)

High standards

2006-02-19T12:03:00.000-08:00

On Friday afternoon, Oksana and I went shopping in a mall in Yorkdale. Walking into the American Eagle store and seeing all the summer stuff out - shorts, halter tops, flip flops - brought me right back to last August. Fresh off the boat, not a clue of what was to come, and so excited about being back in North America. It made me smile, and realize that both the US and Canada will forever bring about positive associations in my mind. Space. Time. Warmth. Convenience. Detachment. A good kind of emptiness. And a large dose of carefree-ity.

After a mildly successful shopping run, we subbed back downtown and I headed down to the Ros Lan restaurant in Chinatown, where ten of us - including Liz, Hilde, Martin and Jim - gathered for Zoe's birthday. Our Chinese friend Patrick made sure we were served the best dishes (rather than everyone getting a meal of their own, it's customary in the authentic Chinese places to order large portions (some vegggies, some meat, some seafood and lots of rice) and have everyone pick and choose to their own desire) at a decent price (I wrote about this before, Chinatown has prices for Westerners and prices for the Chinese...). For some reason my chopstick mojo had taken the night off so to my own disappointment I had to resort to a fork and a spoon (which worked surprisingly well, Alanis Morisette be damned) to manage my food. After dinner, most of us headed down to Einsteins, a bar on College Street, and Liz and I decided to go to Kensington the next day for some shopping.

We both froze our tooshes off, the wind chill brought the temperature down to minus 20, but it was good times. I found a pair of cute shoes, and Liz bought winter shades. The sun here is fiercely bright and quite low so wearing sunglasses in February really does make a lot of sense. After having walked around for a couple of hours we ducked into a coffee place, enjoyed the defrosting of our toes, and talked about the matters of life. At 20 Liz is a bit younger than I am, but she, just like Oksana, always manages to make me think she's 2 yours my senior instead. Very mature, well-informed and level headed. We talked about matters Australian (the beach, skiing, surf clubs, politics, drug traffickers that get the death penalty in Thailand and on Bali, girls our age who are the prime target of those same traffickers when we travel through airports, the fact that they call flip flops thongs, the popularity of wine over beer and the anomaly that is vegemite) and Belgian, and about matters Danish (the Danish crown prince married an Australian woman, setting off nothing short of Mary mania the weeks leading up to the wedding - sweet jesus, the drug store sold Mary deodorant for Pete's sake! Apparently, the union seriously boosted Denmark's and Europe's profile down under) and European.

I was lying in bed last night thinking about the ways in which my time here in Toronto is different from my time in Aarhus, Denmark. For one, there's the physical distance between myself and my home. It does make a difference, especially in times of need, to realize that going home is a pretty big, and expensive, effort. Then there's the fact that I haven't been home in 6 and a half months, while my longest uninterrupted Denmark time was around 3 and a half. There's the fact that I'm older and more experienced and generally just a different person. The (lack of a) language barrier. The friends I had here before the plane I was on even touched ground. In more general terms, I think a big difference is the fact that Denmark made me more aware and understanding of myself as a person and my immediate environment, while being here is making me more aware and understanding of myself as a world citizen. Looking at Belgium and Europe from across the ocean is making me realize so much about my socio-economic status, the privilege I have experienced over the past 22 years and the increasing intricacies of global relations. In the rest of the world it means something very particular to be European. In general, there is a sense of admiration for "the old world", but, as the cartoon protests have shown time and again, Europe is also loathed and feared.

I'm taking part in a Model United Nations session next week - like the Model European Parliament sessions I did in high school, only bigger. As most of the delegates will be North America, people are assigned countries, rather than representing their own. I'm going to be the voice of Norway in the UNDP - very cool. I was doing some research on their foreign policy and came across a document that listed countries according to their standard of living (http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/pdf/HDR05_HDI.pdf). Norway, a country I've always wanted to visit, holds the top spot. Other big players and countries that I've spent at least a couple of months in: Canada (5), Belgium (9), the United States (10) and Denmark (14). The four lowest-placed countries on the list that I've visited are Turkey (94), Tunesia (89), Portugal (27) and Greece (24). Now that - and the fact that two other countries that have long been on my to do list, Australia and Iceland, fill out the top 3 - says a whole lot about what my individual world is. The fact that I am European, and that I'm from the background I am from is not a given. It has probably been the sole most important determining factor in how I've spent my time so far, but it could change at any moment. There's no reason for me to assume that I will forever fly around the world on my Euro passport as though it's a magic carpet. History is riddled with instances in which a class of people that was living the good life - pretty much all the colonial upper classes in Africa and Asia - until they were dethroned by those who wanted a piece of what they had. Could Europe and North America be seen as today's colonial powers? Is a revolt of the poor-getting-poorer a reality we need to face?

People who think I'm a brave little soldier for traveling around vastly underestimate the tribulations of the majority of the world population. For me to board a bus or a plane, and to arrive in a country where I already have a house key and a bunch of squeekly clean class rooms waiting, where corruption is frowned upon rather than a structural part of life, where you generally get what you work for...not a big deal. Having to leave your country to save your and your family's life? Arriving in a country where you don't speak the language and where your degree is not recognized? Where you have to start all over, and all the things you've worked for have been taken from you? That's where a sense of awe is truly granted.

Snap happy

2006-02-13T08:48:00.000-08:00

I had a very fun week - went shopping with Renee for power suits (I'm going to try and take part in the Model UN conference here in TO in a couple of weeks, she's currently in New York and is going down to Boston in a few days to do something very similar), caught the Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time, saw my roommate Anna's premiere (she took part in the Hart House Drama Festival), hung out with her fellow thespians afterward in the Green Room on Bloor, did some work in between...and fled to Rockwood. I spent the weekend at Mike's parents' place up there - my second visit to the De Rose property and now I love it even more. Had to get away from the city and the crowds for a while, so I grabbed some reading (I have a midterm this Thursday) and just...hung out. I sat around the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a Sharpie Marker going over my notes, played with the labrador outside in the snow, used the Magic Bullet (shopping channel, anyone?) like it was my job (it chops garlic, shatters ice cubes, makes hummus, and probably could clip your toe nails too), chatted for hours with Mike and his lady Theresa, went to the nearby Mohawk Casino for an hour or so to watch people lose all their money, played Sudoku, and watched a very intense episode of "Grey's Anatomy" on the tube (for those of you who missed it: yes, the bomb went off, but Meredith survived. And Christina told Burke she loves him too). Is niiiice!

This cutie pie right here is my main squeeze Hilde

She put up a few cute pictures from the girls, so I er...stole them.

Jasinka, Renee, Fleur, myself & Liz at the Mexican place on Baldwin

Myself & Liz

Hilde & Jasinka

Seeing is believing

2006-02-10T11:21:00.000-08:00

The World Press Photo Awards have been handed out again and a Belgian news site has the winners up. I'm usually a bit sceptical about this...I always picture people in nice suits, sitting around a large glass table in a modern, heated state-of-the-art building discussing which image of a suffering person (starving, crying, shouting, begging, giving in) has the most "beauty" to it. But this year's selection is stunning, and actually seems pretty sincere.
http://www.vrtnieuws.net/nieuwsnet_master/versie2/mediatheek/foto-060210_WordPressPhoto/index.shtml?play

More cool pictures - but of a less political nature - under this link:
http://justjared.blogspot.com/2006/01/magazine-illusions.html

Judging by the cover

2006-02-06T10:12:00.000-08:00

For my Pop Culture class I have to write a book review - I chose a refereed work on Oprah Winfrey and her relationship to her middle-class American audience. I'm dragging in Jean Baudrillard's theory on the simulacrum to describe how she rehashes personal narratives and all makes them fit a certain mold and carry out a highly similar moral message. The prof, Ivan Kalmar, encouraged us to look at the London Review of Books for inspiration and boy did I find it. Not so much for the review proper, I want just about every...single...book they have in their "London Review Bookshop" (http://www.lrb.co.uk/lrbshop/index.php).
If anyone's listening, here's my wish list:

- More Than Words: Illustrated Letters From the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art by Liza Kirwin (editor): "a fascinating collection of illustrated letters from many of America’s best known artists including Frederic Edwin Church, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Frida Kahlo, Andrew Wyeth, Man Ray, Eero Saarinen, Alexander Calder and Andy Warhol".

- Letters: Summer 1926 - Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetaeva & Rainer Maria Rilke: "This correspondence between three of the 20th century’s greatest poets is a cultural document of extraordinary resonance. In 1926, Tsvetaeva was living in poverty and exile in Paris, Pasternak was in Moscow trying to reach accommodation with the Bolshevik regime and Rilke was dying in Switzerland. This triangle of mutual admiration and jealously was described by John Bayley as ‘an extraordinary correspondence’ which ‘makes us weep for what seems a vanished golden age of European culture.’"

- Zoo, or Letters not about Love by Viktor Shklovsky (Author) & Richard Sheldon (Translator): "While living in exile in Berlin, the Russian formalist theorist Viktor Shklovsky fell in (unrequited) love with Elsa Triolet. He wrote her several letters a day which she would only accept on the condition that he did not write to her about love. From this strange situation Shklovsky fashioned one of the great masterpieces of epistolary literature, in which, whatever the ostensible subject of the letters – the weather, literature, religion, the life of an exile – he returns obsessively to the single, overwhelming subject he is forbidden to address".

- The Book of Lost Books by Stuart Kelly: "In this erudite and entertaining survey of all the literature we can never read, Stuart Kelley gives many reasons why the books were lost. Fire is the main culprit, whether accidental, such as the loss of the works of the Greek tragedians in the library at Alexandria and of the first draft of Carlyle’s French Revolution, famously mistaken for kindling by the maid of J. S. Mill, or intentional, often at the hands of the author or their executors. Others were misplaced or stolen, like the first draft of T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom which disappeared at Reading station. Many were never finished, perhaps never even started. T.S. Eliot’s essay ‘Literature and the Export Trade’ seems to be entirely imaginary, the result of a flippant remark and an over-enthusiastic bibliographer. The whole thing is a marvellous response to deterministic accounts of literary history, allowing us to play endless ‘what if…’ games with the classics of world literature".

- The Genius of Language: Fifteen Writers Reflect on Their Mother Tongues by Wendy Lesser (editor): "Fifteen writers from fifteen countries, including Ariel Dorfman, Luc Santé, Josef Škvorecky and Ngugi wa Thiong’o, talk about the relationship between their mother tongues and English. They explore questions of identity, memory and childhood and reveal a fascination with the richness of language".

- Tragically I Was an Only Twin by Peter Cook: "This collection of sublime silliness ranges from Beyond the Fringe to the 1990s. In the opinion of Craig Brown, ‘If only his jokes had been less funny, Peter Cook might have been rated the equal of Pinter and Beckett, perhaps even their superior.’"

- My Dog Tulip by J.R. Ackerley: "Ackerley’s touching, funny biography of Tulip, a German shepherd dog who came unexpectedly into his possession when he was well into middle age, was described by Christopher Isherwood as one of the great masterpieces of animal literature. It is also, in a way, a story about love – impossible, limitless love; as Ackerley writes, ‘Tulip never let me down. She is nothing if not consistent. She knows where to draw the line, and it is always in the same place, a circle around us both.’"

Just because

2006-01-27T13:27:00.000-08:00

I've also clicked some buttons to try and make it easier for people to leave comments. Here's hoping!

Going through the (e)motions

2006-01-26T19:20:00.000-08:00

This past week, I've been working on an assignment for my Urban Anthropology class - we were supposed to wander aimlessly through the city and make observations. It's funny how something I do so often and enjoy so much became a burden once it was turned into an obligation. How do you plan a 'random' walk? I ended up wandering down Harbord Street, through Little Portugal to the way way West end of Queen Street near Trinity Bellwoods Park. I found a bunch of cool new places - which I guess means the assignment was successful. Definitely an excellent remedy against Cityshmerz. Think you're tired of a place? Chances are there are facets to it you are entirely unaware of and oblivious to...

Last Friday, Tina and Jen took Oksana, Anna, Anna's friend Kamila and myself to the Bright Pearl Restaurant in Chinatown (http://www.brightpearlseafood.com/) and introduced us to the wonderful world of dim sum. As Wikipedia informs us, "Dim sum is a Chinese light meal or brunch, eaten sometime from morning-to-early afternoon with family or friends. Dim sum consists of a wide spectrum of choices, from sweet to salty. It has combinations of meats, vegetables, seafoods, and fruits". This all sounds very nice and clean but what really happened is that we were brought into a giant room filled with round tables (kinda like your average 150 people wedding set-up) which turned out to be more like a market place. Waitresses push around carts, similar to those air stewardesses ram against your elbow when you have an aisle seat, with all sorts of little bits and bites: fried shrimp, egg rolls, spring rolls, meat balls, rice wrapped in bamboo leaves, tofu, lemon chicken, beef, wontons, turnip cake, mango cake, vegetable pancakes...you name it. You look at what's on the cart, either order 1 or 2 plates of whatever they are offering or send them on their way (this is all happening in million-miles-an-hour Kantonese so the four Westerners basically sat back and hoped for the best), they tick off your bill and at the end of the debauchery they add everything up. At a price of a buck 70 per dish, it's not a bad deal at all. We had a great time - talking about tastes and preferences (Sofie: "Oh, I love this, this is the one with the bacon", Tina: "What? Bacon?", Jen: "Oh she means [unreproducable word with gravity defying tonality], That's bacon to them") and how what Tina and Jen liked and approved of was generally the complete opposite of what we thought was deliciously exotic. Apparently it was pretty suspicious that they brought over the chicken cart within a minute of us sitting down as traditional dim sum is all about seafood - it's funny to think about how us walking in there immediately triggered a change in the sales pattern. But yeah, excellent times, fascinating, tasty and I recommend it to anyone. Though you might wanna bring an interpreter.

The next day, Katie and Oksana and I went to see "Cache" with Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil. The title of the movie's review in Now Magazine was pretty dead on, it definitely bashes European bourgeoisie in a not-so subtle way. The modern house near the city centre, the two cars, the many books, the kitchen equipped with a stylish cheese grater (souvenir from our trip to the Italian vineyards!), the cappucino machine, the moral certitude - and then it all comes crashing down.

Most of my other days were filled with boring work-for-school activities though I did get to pay a visit to the Toronto Archives (http://www.toronto.ca/archives/) that have some pretty cool pictures of the city back in the late 1900s. I've decided that 1880-1930 is going to be my new favorite historical period. The style, the fashion, the cars, the utopia of modernity - very bitter sweet.

Last night I had dinner with Lorraine - who just got back from a trip the Olde World; we met in Denmark, she's taught in France and is hoping to go back this September. The place is called Richtree, it's in the CBE building on Yonge and Wellington - pretty neat. Again a bit of a buffet/market vibe going on: there are 2 dozen stands at least, each with a different speciality: pasta, salad, oriental, seafood, sandwich, dessert, red meat, chicken...you walk around, pick and choose and pay at the end of your little tour. It's smack in the middle of the business district though, so lots of long black coats, brief cases, ties, high heels and high prices.
Around 8, we went down to the Harbourfront Theatre to see a dance show by Julia Sasso (http://www.juliasasso.com/) featuring two of Katie's teachers. Four men and one woman danced "The Betrayal" and it had a lot of brilliant elements to it. They performed the music they danced to live (I have no idea how they controlled their breathing the way they did), stripped down and put on a really energetic show with plenty of winks and nudges and laughs. Good stuff.

The Tartu girls are all busy with a bunch of projects, so our late night kitchen table confidentials are still going strong - there just always seems to be a lot to talk about. Anna was working on a movie trailer last weekend and summoned me, Oksana, Hilde's roommate Lindsay and three guys from Tartu to meet up in the small park on Madison Avenue and act to the best of our abilities. I was the movie star posing for a photographer, Oksana was the diva cussing out her assistant, Yuri was the stressed out director...It must have looked semi-okay cause Anna was chosen to be the artistic director of the entire movie.
Oksana's participating in an apprentice project and had to organise a fundraiser. Together, we transformed the kitchen into a sweat shop and painted a bunch of white t-shirts for the team members. With over 2500 bucks collected by the end of two days, Oksana's people won and she's on to round two!
Tina is looking into doing a health project abroad (possibly Costa Rica - how sweet would that be??) and I'm hoping to participate in the North American Model United Nations session taking place this reading week.

No wonder there is so little time to wander the streets.
Apparently other people do though, there's an entire website (http://www.foundmagazine.com/) dedicated to what people find on the street.

Lying down but looking up

2006-01-22T08:51:00.000-08:00

U of T life is really picking up the pace - I have assignments flooding in and a brain still slowly awakening from hibernation. I'm not ready for life-at-the-library again, so I spent plenty of time out and about this week. Breakfast at Future's, always a winner, and a luau on Wednesday. The party itself wasn't much to speak of (there is something sacriligeous about decking out a room like the Great Hall with plastic flowers in gaudy colours) but it was a fun bunch of girls (Hilde, Fleur and Renee (both Dutch), Tina, Michelle, Liz (Australian), Rika (Finnish), Francisca (Chilean), Viv & Eva). About half of us met up again the following night for dinner in Little Italy. We found a good pizza place on College and Beatrice and agreed to hit up the ISC Welcome Reception on Thursday. I wasn't the only old skooler mingling with the new arrivals - a posse of two Scots, an Irishman and a Swiss/American guy joined Hilde, Renee, Fleur and myself for some post-reception mayhem. This is about as much foreign exchange activity as I had all of last term! The "What'syournamewhereareyoufromwhatdoyoustudyivegotnothinglefttosaytoyou" conversations are excessively tedious, but generally you walk away with a few interesting connections, so I guess it's well worth it.

Undoubtedly the highlight of this week, however, was spending my Saturday at the Hart House Farm with my roommates. Tina, Anna, Oksana, Jen, Katie and I boarded a bus bright and early which took us away from the city and into the woods. Hart House - an organization affiliated with U of T - owns a property open to everyone who's up for some down and out time. The sky was a gorgeous blue all day, the fields covered in snow begging to be balled up and thrown around, and every last tree branch covered in a thin, sparkly layer of ice (with every slight gust of wind, the trees would creek and jingle). We first got to feast on a delicious organic lunch and then got a tour of the grounds (crunchy snow, maple syrup trees, gurgling creeks, ponds, hills and slopes). Around 3 we made our way to a sauna cabin in the middle of the woods. The set-up was absolutely perfect: we spread out our towels in the rudimentary - but very effective - wooden sauna (the windows in the roof gave a dazzling view of the sky), poured on some extra water now and then for the full steam ahead effect, and ran out every so often to take a dip in the iced over pond right outside! The feeling is mindboggling: there you are, in a small valley in the woods surrounded by rocky hills, you take ten steps from the cabin door to the pond, submerge yourself in the purest water, and then just stand there, watching the steam cloud up from your pores, feeling wave after wave of heat come up from the deepest insides of your body, your skin tingling, your head getting lighter by the second. Though we were generally strangers, the atmosphere was friendly, unassuming, and a bit giddy. People from Canada, Russia, Ukraine, Swiss, Belgium, Poland, Thailand, Korea all sitting around, joking, laughing, sharing drinks, playing cards, daring each other, rubbing each other's shoulders (our guide gave me by far the best massage I've had in my life), enjoying those few hours away from the city, the material, the articifial. My roommates and I eventually changed again, walked up to the main house of the property again - giggling, sighing, taking it all in - and sat down with some hot chocolate and apple pie in front of the fireplace. The bus ride back into the city was pretty quiet, most people nodding off, but not for me. A four-year old boy decided I would be the person he was going to sit next to and I heard all about Shrek, princesses, monsters, dragons, ice, his favourite pair of shoes, lava, giants, how his older brother broke his collarbone and had to wear a sling, and how he had asked his mom for a blue racing car for Christmas but she'd forgotten. Everyone who knows me know I'm not big on kids (especially not when they're loud and obnoxious like this one was at the start of our day trip) but by the end of it I felt happy to be around him. That I had been able to spend my day without my cell phone, without worrying about locking things away, shielding things, covering up, sucking in, concealing. That feeling is all the more precious because it evaporated as soon as we got back.

Mammalian Diving Reflex

2006-01-15T20:15:00.000-08:00

The title of this post refers to a physiological reflex in humans whereby blood is concentrated around the vital organs, the brain and the heart, and the central nervous system. The extremities (nose, ears, limbs) are sacrificed (less blood flow ergo bigger risk of freezing or otherwise dying off) so as to ensure survival.

It is also the name of the theatre company whose show I went to see tonight with Anna and Oksana. In their performance, it came up with regards to Tony, a homeless man (he stands outside a 7/11 convenience store and holds the door open for you) who told the actors a story a few days ago (they played us the video of the interview tonight) about the time he overdosed on cocaine. He went into shock and his brother-in-law poured six buckets of ice cold water over him. The reflex kicked in, slowing down Tony's heart - which was in complete overdrive - and saving his life. This is only one of the many stories people (both the actors on stage as well as people from the audience) shared with each other tonight, in a small theater called "Buddies for Bad Times" on Yonge and College (http://www.buddiesinbadtimestheatre.com/main.cfm). There was a Colombian woman who had a cocaine beach party (when the boats sailing across the Panama bay feel the police on their tail they just dump their drug load into the water and the packages often find their way to the beach), the schizophrenic Simon who got arrested at age 13 for stealing root beer from a convenience store, Darren who fondly remembers a black out here in Toronto a couple of summers ago which had people leaving their rooms (no tv, no computer, no light to read a book by) and hanging out on the street and in parks, interacting with complete strangers.

It was a great night, not just because it was good to be out with my friends but also and mostly because Toronto often times gets too anynomous for me. And just like with the Peggy Baker performance all those months ago, I found myself able to open up. To watch a performance, discuss it with people, marvel at how reality and make-belief mix in everything we do. Yes, we find ourselves in this confined space that is downtown. And yes, a lot of us are sketchy. Bad people? No. But sketchy for sure - there is crime and violence and drug use and abuse and danger. But we are all still people with stories and backgrounds. Who do things they shouldn't, make wrong turns, get lucky, get out, get in, get away. And communication is generally still an option, between any which two people.

I find I adress people here far more easily, in part because small talk is a big part of Canadian culture and in part because I get to hide behind the mask of English. If I have a question, I go for it. And the large majority of replies are positive, even friendly. Wonder if I can keep that up when I go home. In general, doesn't the reflex mentioned above kick in on an emotional level? When we walk down the street, we know our heart is pumping and our brain is processing - but the rest of us is shut down for survival. Fingers don't reach out, eyes don't seek other eyes, all extremities are turned in and down. Streamlined, we move forward with a minimum of interruptions and contact. And we wonder why sometimes we feel so goddamn lonely...

Not that I had much reason to this weekend. Friday night, I met up with British Chris and one of his friends in Panorama - a bar on the 51st floor of a downtown skyscraper. Gorgeous view and stimulating conversation - Chris's friend (she works at the same lab doing HIV research) went to Yale, has applied to the top Ivy League schools for the coming year and sees herself working for Medicins sans Frontieres. Dressed to a T, fiercely opinionated, ambitious, fascinating (one of her friends is getting married soon, in New York City. The bachelorette party is in Tuscany. Yeah, that's right, in I-t-a-l-y. Dio mio) and I got to have cocktails with her! There are times when I don't even know how I find myself in company like that but I figure that as long as they don't find me out, I should enjoy it.

I went out with a different Chris the next night and we caught "Brokeback Mountain". Heath Ledger, Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams are phenomenal but the movie in general? Overhyped. I honestly don't see what's so amazing about it. It's good but it's not jaw-dropping, heart-stopping, eye-popping good. I think what bothered me most is the Hollywood casting. People in Wyoming aren't that goodlooking! They're just not, I'm sorry, pretty people like Jake Gyllenhaal and whoever played Ennis's daughter are not credible in roles such as these. The Golden Globes are being awarded tomorrow night so I'm going to try and get a bunch of the girls around the tv for that. There's been a ridiculous drop in temperatures (from a good 6 degrees to minus 15) in the outside world so I think a cosy kitchen is the best place for all of us to be. You don't need a black out to get people to connect.

It's nothing personal

2006-01-14T15:28:00.000-08:00

I'm in a weird place with this blog. I've lost track of who reads it (no thanks to hardly anyone ever leaving comments) and so I find myself censoring what I write, on many different levels, which is getting in the way of the whole purpose. How do I communicate what is occupying my thoughts if I can't speak freely? How do I toe the line between not giving away people's identities and getting lost in "I went out with someone...somewhere...the time spent together was...okay" territory? I would love to talk about how every girl in the suite was getting ready for a night on the town last night. And to describe the aftermath in our kitchen this morning around 11-ish. I'd love to put down who feels jilted, who fell even deeper in love, who had a little too much love for mister beer bottle and threw up but I don't feel like I really can.

En tout cas, my first week of classes is over and went super smoothly. The only new course I have this year is "Global Cities: Metropolis", a course in urban anthropology. The two first lectures (we meet twice a week, because this is a year-long course squeezed into only one term but with the same workload) were fascinating and I love the assignments coming up. The course also has its own blog and the prof is encouraging everyone to post observations made walking through Toronto. Genius!
In the year-long courses, I got my midterms back and they all went really well. An A-in "Language and Power Structure" and an A in "Film and Literature". The hardest term is yet to come with research papers and finals and what not, but at least I have those marks under my belt. Throw in having Hilde around as well as it being the warmest first week of January in Canadian history and it's been a pretty sweet way to start things off.

A handful of road trip pictures

2006-01-11T19:19:00.000-08:00

Niagara Falls

Times Square

Central Park

Northbound, driving back to Canada

La belle Quebec!

Say Cheese

2006-01-08T20:46:00.000-08:00

Having lunch at "The Big Fat Burrito" in Kensington Market - one of my favorites.

Trying on wigs at "Elixe" after shopping around the vintage area.

Round Two

2006-01-07T11:37:00.000-08:00

Friday afternoon brought Tom, Hilde and I to the police museum on College Street> Pretty neat, they had a bunch of "Press this button to find out if this gun is real or fake" type of activities. Too bad the gift shop was closed cause I would have gotten me some badass badges. After Tom went back to the hotel, us girls went over to "Fashion Crimes" on Queen Street and I found Hilde a gorgeous cocktail dress - a total steal.

Later that day we caught some live music at the Horseshoe Tavern on Queen Street with Alli, Chris and Hilde's roommate Monica. It was great to see Alli again (she's one of those people I can not see for three days and feel like it's been two months), but for some reason it was one of those nights where I preferred to sit back and listen rather than to do the talking and the entertaining.

I went on a semi-blind date yesterday. This random guy (muy caliente) came up to me in the library a little while ago, started chatting, and we exchanged numbers. We went out to a Second Cup for some coffee - broad daylight, lots of other people around - and talked for about an hour, but I highly doubt anything is happening in that department. Conversation wasn't all that stimulating and he was being way too forward for my taste (the fact that he's in a fraternity should have had red flags waving), insisting on holding my hand. WTF? Granted, I was glad he was when I almost slipped (we had a night of snowfall right after the boys left, so the sidewalks are covered in the stuff) but still. Plus he gave me the standard "I'm the kind of guy who needs to have fun all the time, I need a girl who's fun and passionate and full of energy and who loves to dance". Even if I am by no means fluent in boy speak, that is about as obvious a booty call as "What colour underwear do you have on?" Katie got the full report last night when we met up in "Living Well", a place on Yonge and St. Mary with ultracomfortable couches, friendly staff, and a sweet DJ (last night was Eurotrash night - I was a little bit offended when they played the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, I can't lie). I picked up one of their flyers and read that they have heaps of stand up comedy nights (Monday is not for the faint of heart, that's Transvestite Dirty Bingo night...) so I might check that out sometime soon.

Sunday, Hilde and I went down to Kensington Market for some lunch and some vintage. I picked up a cute spread for my bed, two funky scarves and a pair of earrings. I tried on a really cute, polka dotted, black fitted jacket in a Japanese store but at 50 bucks, the quality of the stitching really wasn't up to standard. If it would have been 25, I probably would have gotten it. Because I put something cute back for such a mature reason as "poor quality", Hilde and I headed down to "Exile" to try on wigs and take pictures of ourselves as redheads. Good times. She's the main photographer, so hilde.moors.be should have some shots up before too long.

So yeah, I'm really trying to make the most out of my days socially cause I know that once the second term kicks off (tomorrow...), there will always be assignments and reading to do. The first paper coming up is for my "Language and Power Structure" class and will probably be on code-switching with bilingual speakers (switching languages within the same conversation or even within the same sentence, something I'm not a stranger too) and I have a stack of books to plow through for that. Boo-urns.

Oh I should also take a little time to thank everyone who went through the trouble of getting me a birthday gift. Theresa gave me an autographed (!) book by Kim Catrall, aka Samantha Jones from "Sex and the City" - the most awesome. My roommates left a few days before Christmas, but gave me an envelope with a bunch of clues. It took a while, but I finally found all of them (the first one behind a poster, another stuck underneath the TV, one hidden in the Scrabble box...) and found a box of make-up! Chris and Andy bought me drinks, and Mike gave me a set of Belgian beers. My brother brought books, frames, calendars, socks, melo-cakes and chocolate goodies, Hilde brought a dazzling pair of earrings and a necklace, and yesterday I found a package in my mail box from Philip and Maarten. The contents: a copy of Humo, a copy of Blik (I especially loved the story about the woman whose silicone breasts had saved her life when she'd been attacked by a sword fish) and a self-made cd with the boys singing "Happy Birthday, Sofie", a hilarous spoken word fragment in World War Two radio-style (lots of white noise and archaic language) and a bunch of Belgian songs that are on the airwaves in the motherland right now. How could I possibly not feel good about life when there are people who care enough about me to present me with all these lovely things?

Can't hurt to try

2006-01-06T16:17:00.000-08:00

Today is Hilde's second day here and the boys' last. I am one lucky piglet for being able to constantly have some of my peoples around. When I first walked into Pearson Airport in August, Alli was there to pick me up. When I first got to Toronto, Theresa was there to put me up. Not too much longer, Clara came down from Montreal and lifted me up. Then my brother brightened what would otherwise have been very gloomy holidays and on the sad day that I have to say goodbye to him again, I have one of my best friends around to take my hand, give it a squeeze and say "You're gonna miss him, aren't ya".

Yesterday we walked all over Toronto giving Hilde her first glimpse of her new place of residence. I was stunned at how fast she took care of all her administrative nonsense and how matter-of-factly she browsed the Boxing Day sales with me. Sure, no one in their right mind ignores a 5 foot "70% OFF" sign, but for her to feel so at ease in a city she'd been in less than 24 hours deserves kudos.

Around six, we met up with Tom, Katie and Chris at the Spring Rolls restaurant on Dundas. Without a doubt my favourite chain in the city, funky interior and the food is always superb. After the waiters eyed us out of the room, we went over to a bar called "Elephant and Castle" on Yonge and Gerrard. I had an awesome time and when Hilde turned to me and said "I loved my first night!"...I felt all fuzzy on the inside, I can't lie.

Today the boys and the two of us met up at Mel's for a genuine American breakfast (hashbrowns, bacon, eggs, toast, maple syrup and bottomless coffee) and then headed down to the school campus and to the Police Museum. Random place to end up in...But that's what's so awesome about having a new person come in. They notice things about the city that you never did or did at one point but had already forgotten about and they ask you the very legitimate question "Why have you never been here?". There's really only one acceptable response.

Forever Young

2006-01-05T08:57:00.000-08:00

Back from the road trip and it was phenomenal! Our first day brought us to Niagara Falls - so very very cold and so very very foggy, but impressive nonetheless. You hear the falls before you actually see them, the sound comes floating towards you when you're still driving through the surprisingly Vegas-like streets of Niagara. We stacked up on groceries, crossed the border and cruised down to New York City. It took us a while, but we finally settled into a hotel and crashed for the night. The morning of the 29th we had to board a shuttle to the airport, an air train to a different terminal, a bus and a subway but did eventually make it to Manhattan. Despite the pouring rain we were all in complete awe. The architecture, the people, the beauty - everything you see on TV and in movies come to life. Yellow cabs, hotdog venders, smoke escaping from the sewers, NYPD police cars, ridiculously tall skyscrapers, Brooklyn Bridge, business people in long black coats, the works. We walked all the way down to the tip of Manhattan but it was too foggy to spot the Statue of Liberty. I stubbornly took a picture anyway, but you can see zilch.
The next day, coincidentally also my 22nd birthday, was gorgeous: blue skies, a crisp winter day - the perfect backdrop for about a gazillion pictures (some of which I hope to put up soon). We went into Macy's, saw the Chrysler building and Rockefeller Center, walked down 5th Avenue, and strolled through Central Park. Stunning. I sat down on a bench and had one of those "If time stood still now, it would be okay" moments. Absolutely perfect. As soon as we arrived in the city I was intent on spotting some celebrities and Central Park delivered just that. A group of four people passed us by, looking extraordinarily fashionable, and a second later I realized they were the cast from "The O.C."! I did some research today and lo and behold what www.people.com reveals: "O.C. couple and real-life loves Adam Brody and Rachel Bilson hit the streets of New York City on Thursday, where they hailed a cab (presumably not a Death Cab). Brody was in town to cohost a New Year's Eve bash with Carson Daly at the nightclub Marquee". Sweet!
The day got even better when we headed down to Noho (That's short for North Houston as opposed to Soho which apparantly is sooo 2004) for a delicious Thai meal in a place called SEA (short for South East Asia, they sure like their acronyms). My old friend Andrea happened to be in town with her roommate Lauren, as was my friend Chris (who was visiting his buddy Andrew) so the seven of us found ourselves eating and drinking (cosmopolitans of course, if Sex and the City taught us anything...) - very spontaneous and random, but good good times.
We bounced the following day, deciding that New Year's Eve would be a little too intense and drove up to Quebec City. The drive was gorgeous: mountains, pinetrees, and an increasingly thick layer of snow as we headed North. We found a hotel within minutes and headed downtown for a multi-course meal, with some live jazz playing in the back. The main topic of conversation was relationships (both parent-child as well as boy-girl) and their many pros, cons and pitfalls. We all felt a little too mature sitting their sipping our red wine and dissecting life and love - gettin' old gettin' old...
The first day of 2006 brought us to downtown Quebec, the frozen river, the cutesy streets, and the many many feet of snow. I puppied around a park for a while completely wrecking my shoes (I didn't pack the protective spray) but it's all good. At least now they look like they've endured many a Canadian winter. Totally worth it, I was on a travel high!
The last stop before heading back to the T dot was Montreal, where we stayed with my friend Genee and her roommate Saul. They share the cosiest appartment so we shamelessly vegged out for the night. We watched DVDs ("Napoleon Dynamite" & "Team America") and caught up on emails for the first time in days. I was hoping on doing some shopping downtown the next day but as it turned out January 2nd is still very much a holiday so the large majority of stores had their "Ferme" sign up. We visited the Notre Dame church, which I loved. The smell of insense, the stain-glass windows, the deep colours and golden shimmer of the icons. It all brought me back a few years.

So back in Toronto now and I've kicked off the second term by picking up my good friend Hilde from the airport! The wait took forever, so I ended up chatting to a bunch of other people at the Arrivals. One couple, who'd lived in Metz for years when the man was still in the Air Force, was waiting for their son's family to come in from Cancun. Another couple was waiting for an exchange student they were the host family of. Most random was this guy Jonathan who's going on exchange to Leuven in a couple of weeks! I gushed for ages about how much he would love it there, so here's hoping he's not disappointed.

Hilde and I cabbed it home - it's still surreal to me that she's actually here - and hung out in my room for the night. She brought me a dazzling pair of earrings (courtesy of her and Thomas) and a matching necklace (courtesy of Stijn), so I is blinged out to the max y'all!

This morning I introduced her to our hang-out spot, Future Bakery (aka Future's) where we split a veggie omelet. I'm really starting to like the guy that works there, the one who talked to Clara and I about Jack Johnson a few weeks ago. He was super nice about our order, whipping us up something that isn't technically on the menu and while we were eating...Jack Johnson came on. Melodious coincidence? Or his good memory and an excellent flirty move? Time will tell.

Merry Christmas

2005-12-25T13:39:00.000-08:00

My first Christmas away from home! But thankfully I have an older brother - and an older brother's best friend - willing to get on a plane and come all the way to Canada. It was wonderful picking them up from the airport yesterday. So wonderful in fact that I flat out burst into tears. So unlike me, I don't know what happened. I guess the spirit of Christmas had gotten to me more than I had realized - and that the importance of being with your family during this time is not just a sappy, commercially inspired load of crap.

The past couple of weeks have been pretty blah - I didn't finish my last final til the 19th. But there was time for some fun, too. Chris and I went to the tiny Bad Dog Theatre in Greektown to catch an improv version of Dickens's story called "A Twisted Christmas Carrol". It was hilarious, and also heartwarming to see that there are alternatives to artists Hilary Duffing their way to millions of dollars. There is genuine talent, that goes unrecognized and financially unrewarded. And regardless, those people get up on stages all over the city and perform for 30, 20 or 5 people in the audience. Because it makes them happy.
I also went to see a Raptors basketball game - the whole other side of entertainment. My seat was so high up I felt closer to God than I did to the actual game, but that's okay. I still got a sense of the game, the speed, and the adrenaline.

Over the past few days I did a bit of shopping, prepared for Tom and Laurens's arrival, accompanied my roommate Oksana to the airport, lots of little odds and ends, but the coming days should be of an entirely different pace. The boys and I are renting a car and driving it wherever the wind takes us! It should be quite the road trip considering the total lack of preparation, but I'm looking forward to it.

Lend me your ear

2005-12-13T19:53:00.000-08:00

Movies? Hardly ever. Pictures? Sometimes. But music...music can bring me to tears in an instant. I was listening to an old old mixed cd this afternoon - I'm cramming for a final, all distraction is good distraction - and it brought me back instantaneously to years ago. To the time when I decided which tunes I wanted to put on this disc. Myself as a 16-year old.

I put down my pen and stared out the window down at Bloor Street, the car tracks in the snow, the shoppers hurrying home. And I thought about this past summer when I first arrived in this city. It was right out of a movie: you know how rather than having the words "6 months later" appear on the screen, they'll show these two consecutive shots of the same house or street, one engulfed in sunshine, the next snowed under. Usually followed by a shot of the pensive protagonist staring out the window wondering about the Beloved.

I saw shots in my mind this afternoon just like that: Toronto in the August heat. Toronto now. Me. Months ago, years ago, really truly physically intensely feeling my old feelings. Where I was in my life when I played that album over and over again. How much in love I was with boys I never talk to anymore. How cool I thought my clothes were - big fat HA. How scared I was of my future. How seriously I took everything. What occupied my mind. What made me cry. What embarrassed me. What I obsessed over. Who was in my life. What I saw when I looked in a mirror. The different stages I've gone through and the ones yet to come. And now here I am, in my roommate Anna's room - two doors down from mine - listening to Feist, one of the albums sure to make my Canada Music List. The one I'll be listening to months from now, back in my room with the blue bedcover, the two white bedside tables and the large windows. A soundtrack to life.

Except that life doesn't rewind, or fast forward. It doesn't come out on DVD for you to pause and replay. "Now with never before seen footage!" All it does is bring you back, to good old days and to bad old days. So you swallow, blink a couple of times, and grin. And when the track finishes, you stop looking over your shoulder. You turn away from the window, pick up your pen and try to wrap your head around the fact that very soon, another year will have come to pass.

Learn to Learn

2005-12-11T11:06:00.000-08:00

Oh how I love this city when I actually have the time to enjoy what it has to offer! It's been an action-packed weekend, and I'm exhausted but happy as can be. I wrote my two finals on Thursday (which went okay), went to meet Clara at a Second Cup (we squeeled, hugged, got some Grande Lattes going and went on a big chat-fest), grabbed some dinner at an Italian place on Yonge street and then went to meet Oksana at the Manulife center to see "Rent". The movie was great - if you appreciate the art of musicals and don't cringe at the sight of people bursting into song at all odd times of the day - but what I loved most was finding myself there. I mean, a few months ago, who would've guessed that on one snowy December night, I would find myself in a Toronto movie theater, with Clara to my right and Oksana to my left? Who knew I would be here? Who knew they would be? Who knew life would turn out to be so wonderful?

We walked home down Bloor (the glamorous part: Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Hugo Boss, Cartier, Holt Renfrew, all that jazz) singing the bits of the score that had stuck in our heads ("Five hundred twenty five thousand six-hundred miiiinutes - how do you measure...measure a yeaaaaar"), making fresh winter boot prints in the snow, sticking our tongues out to catch the flakes, and loving it. Clara and I stayed up chatting in my kitchen until around 3 am, and didn't fall asleep til much later. Lots of catching up to do, lots of "What do you think...", "Did I tell you about...?", "Am I crazy for feeling that...?", lots of laughs and cringes and cups of tea.

On Friday morning, Oksana, Clara and I went down to Future Bakery for their delicious veggie omelet and the most random thing happened: Jack Johnson came on over the speakers. Clara is the one who introduced me to his music two years ago - I own all three albums now - so he's become a staple in my Aarhus memories. When I went back to Denmark for a weekend in September, I grabbed some dinner at Mackie's, the hamburger place we both loved. I was by myself, thinking about my peoples and Clara in particular...and Jack Johnson came on. What are the odds, at a random restaurant in Scandinavia? And now he came on at Future Bakery! It's like he follows the two of us wherever we go : )
Of course I had to be a big ditz about it and go "Oh my god, Clara, are you hearing this? This is Jack!" and our waiter heard me. He went to see Jack Johnson's show in October and told us that A/ he's really short in real life, B/his new album won't drop til 2007 and C/ he's going back to pro-surfing. I love how you can have proper conversations with servers here - as opposed to just ordering your food and being done with it. So here's to you Mister Future Bakery Man, I'm sure we'll see each other again...

In the afternoon, Clara and I headed down to Queen Street and went a little bit crazy in "Accesorize" (A British chain with the most gorgeous...accessories: jewelry, scarves, hats, bags, brooches, the works) and "Fashion Crimes" (commonly referred to as the Princess Store - the most beautiful dresses and gloves and tiaras and polka dotted taffeta skirts, it's every little girl's dream come true. No, really. Even if you were never a ballerina, never a girly girl, never into Barbies...you'll love it.) Alli came to meet us for dinner at Spring Rolls - and to show off her 400 dollar I-Pod, the lucky bastard - and because we lost track of time gabbing about clothes and relationships, we had to cab it to Katie's dance school at Winchester Street. We sat front row and saw 6 modern dances, all very different, some more successful than others. It was great seeing Katie on stage, but even better going out with her and her friends afterwards. I felt like life was imitating art and I had stumbled into my very own version of "Rent": the dark city street, a layer of snow on the fire escapes streaming down the sides of every building, the homeless guys huddled on a corner ("How are you tonight, princess? Spare a dime for us?"), the slightly bohemian outfits, the leather-clad couples saying their goodbyes on the steps of the gay bars on Church Street. We were freezing to our bones, so I shoved everyone into a pub and we got our body temperatures up to normal again with the aid of some Irish coffees and fancy martinis. Katie and her friends went over the show, badmouthed the snooty dancers, gushed over the talented ones, it was nice. And Clara and I both got early Christmas gifts! Katie gave Clara a gorgeous hair pin and I got a beautiful deep purple dragonfly brooch (such a perfect present: I got dragonfly earrings in the summer when the three of us went down to St Lawrence Market plus Clara has a dragonfly tattoo, so the brooch goes way beyond just being pretty).

After a second short night, Clara and I headed down to Theresa's appartment on Saturday morning, with fruit, yoghurt, raisin bread, juice, jam, cream cheese, milk and tea. Why go out to a breakfast place and freeze your buns off when you can make your own buffet in the living room? It was a great brunch - totally brought back the summer when Clara and I camped out at Theresa's for a couple of weeks. We even remembered to bring milk cause we knew from experience that Theresa's usually "just out, but I can run across the street to get some?". She's such a sweetheart, one of the most emphathic and funny people I know. The friend you'd wish everyone would have in their lives, you know?

I walked Clara down to the bus stop - here's hoping we'll see each other again in a few weeks when I take the boys up to Montreal - and headed down to the Eaton Center for some Christmas shopping. I thought it would be absolute mayhem (Saturday + biggest mall in downtown TO + mid-December), but it was actually pretty doable. I walked all the way down Queen Street, through Little Italy (which always reminds me of the neighbourhood "Home Alone" was shot in), past the parks (the only ones that aren't deserted these days are the ones with a hill steep enough to slide down of on a garbage bag - it's so cute to hear children screaming and dogs barking and parents cheering through the muffled quiet air of a winter afternoon), the fenced basketball courts, the small neighborhood churches, people shoveling snow in their frontyard. There is so much beauty in this city.

But it's still very much a big city. I took the subway home for the last part cause I was just that exhausted and that paints an entirely different picture: harsh neon lights, metal rattles, the conductor's voice, a tired black woman sitting across of me, an old scruffy man talking to himself, an Asian girl with her tight jeans tucked into her boots, a short pink jacket with a fur collar, fierce eye make-up and chewing gum like her life depends on it, lots of people with earphones on - you can always faintly hear the music they're listening too, whether it's the trance beats from the guy to the left or the R&B tune from the girl to the right -seeing a woman pushing a pram and holding a toddler by the hand walk into the wagon and being the only person offering her my seat. I was walking down the street a while ago and blatantly ignored someone's "Excuse me, miss" and that's still haunting me. Why did I do that? Why didn't I stop and give him a moment? What if he just wanted directions? What if I had dropped something and he just wanted to point that out to me? Probably because 90% of the times you DO give people your attention, they turn out to want your money. And then you feel like an idiot for briefly having thought otherwise.

As action-packed as this weekend was, I kept going strong. Yesterday night, Anna and I went down to Lee's Palace to catch a Jason Collette show - with Katie Tunstall opening. She's Scottish, and though she hasn't made much of a name for herself yet, most people would recognize "The Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" song with the "Noooo no, he's not the one for me - Ooo hoo" refrain. She was awesome, a bit of a mix between Feist and Fiona Apple. Jason Collette was alright, if completely wasted by the end of his set. I was feeling a bit woozy myself, having had so little sleep over the past few days so I fell into bed as soon as we got home. I'll probably be doing some studying at some point today (my next final is on the 19th) but it really was high time for me take time off. To go out, see my breath, feel my ears freeze, stop and look at a tiny architectural detail on a family house's porch, talk about life and love with my girls, see them smile and dance and drink and catch snowflakes in their hair.

Friendly skies

2005-12-06T15:34:00.000-08:00

I haven't written a decent post in way too long - and I'm afraid today won't bring any relief. But once this week is over, things should improve drastically. For one, I will have three out of four finals DONE which means more time, more sleep, and a happier me. And for two, Clara is coming down from Montreal on Thursday to chillax, catch our friend Katie's ballet performance, hang with Theresa, all that good stuff. I can't wait to see her, catch up, show her the new places I've discovered in the city (Helloooo Yorkville!) and basically...just have her around. Her visit is pretty much entirely out of the blue, but man, it could not have come at a better time. I'm in need of some seriously fun down time and she is just the person to deliver it.

False Alarms

2005-11-25T18:39:00.000-08:00

It's been quite the week over here in the chilly T-dot. My anthro paper was due on Thursday and took up a lot of my time - I finally realized something is very wrong here when I left the library at 11 PM the other day and thought to myself "Cool, getting an early night" WTF? - but I've done my best to chillax this weekend.

The girls and I had planned to go out this weekend, but by the time everyone made it into our cosy kitchen and had shaken the snow off their coats, no one was really in the mood to venture out again into the howling icy wind. It was really pretty cute how everyone walked in with that "Oh god, I'm gonna be the only one lame enough to want to stay in and everyone else is going to think I'm a big loser face" and to hear all the sighs of relief and the jubilant "Me neither!!"s. We popped open a bottle of rose wine, got out some board games and discussed our respective boy progresses. On Friday, Tina and I went shopping at the Eaton Center - where consumerist Christmas is at its peak - and I got to meet Alvin, her boyfriend of two years. At five, Oksana came to meet me and we popped into the Spring Roll restaurant on Dundas for an always delicious platter of pan-Asian cuisine and a mug of ginger tea. We headed down to the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario) afterward and saw the exhibit on Catherine the Great. It's always cool - and demystifying - to do these cultural things with someone who's got an insider's (in this case Russian) perspective.

On Saturday night then, there was a big ceremony on Nathan Philips Square by the Toronto City Hall: the Christmas lights have officially been lit! We were promised a 100.000 lights, not so sure if that actually happened, but it was good times nonetheless. Fireworks, dancers, Christmas carrols, what's not to love? After meeting Chris - the British friend of a friend I went out to dinner with last month - Anna and Oksana headed back to Tartu, and Chris and I went for cocktails (his treat) in "Il Bordello" on Queen Street. So nice to sit back, sip on some alcohol and unwind...

Not that this weekend has left me fully charged again, though. The girl in the room next to mine forgot to turn off her alarm clock - just like last weekend - so I was rudely awoken both Saturday and Sunday morning by an obnoxious beeping noise. No other option but to drag myself out of bed, put the kettle on and start my day begrudgingly early. Sure it helped me to get my ass to the gym for a class I would have otherwise definitely missed, but aaaaaaaargh. And then last night, the fire alarm went off in the building for the umpteenth time at 3.30 in the morning...I love Toronto, I do, but there are times when I would give an arm and a leg for just a few hours of silence - no loud people, no sirens, no cars, no lights, no nothing. It is im-possible to get away from it all.

A whole different kind of alarm came from the heimat last week, when my dad called to tell me my mom had undergone surgery and was in the hospital. Thankfully, things seem to going well for her, but I was definitely looking at cheap flights to Europe online. That in combination with my sister sending me adorable pictures of my nephew made the word "Zaventem" sound like "Garden of Eden" - if the circumstances were right ("Final exams have been cancelled, the flight will last 20 minutes, your luggage will be transported via a time portal and the total cost of your ticket, pumpkin, is a big smile") I'd be on a plane like it's my job.

I apologize for the lack of vibrancy in this post, but I appear to be running low on funny fuel these days. I'd love to take a few days off, catch up on sleep and emails and letters - but alas, it's full steam ahead up until the 8th. It's not that I mind doing the work, I'm just getting frustrated at having to do a half-ass job because there's too little time to produce something decent and well thought through. Bah humbug.

Power & Prejudice

2005-11-19T12:11:00.000-08:00

I have a lot...a lot of schoolwork to do. A look at my calendar either makes me cringe, sigh or change my mind about leaving my desk for a break. And generally when I have a lot to deal with academically, I start acting very sketchy. Last year, especially in spring when I was working on my thesis, I shuttled back and forth between my room downtown and my parents' house. Many nights, I'd get ready to go to bed (in either place) and start worrying about the other place: did I remember to look the front door? Did I remember to close my window? Did I turn off my radio? Blow out the candles? Those kinds of questions and a nagging feeling of "What if I didn't and all my stuff is gone or on fire and my year and next year are wrecked" made me get dressed and bike over to the other place at midnight, one, two in the morning. Of course, everything was always fine. But this happened repeatedly - one night I even biked back again to the first place cause I started worrying again! It sounds ridiculous now, but I couldn't help it. Similar kinda thing happened last night. I got out of bed at two, turned on my light and made sure my housekeys were in the room (and I hadn't left them on the door), my wallet was in my bag and my passport and creditcard were there. Anytime I go through my bag and can't immediately find my keys or wallet, I panic. Like big time hard-core hearts skips a beat panic.

And that got me thinking about what it is I'm so afraid of - what it is people are generally afraid of. Violence. Death. Poverty. And really, basically, at the bottom line: powerlessness. Not being in control of your own well-being, your own body, your own way of life. Maybe I've been watching too many dramatic riches-to-rags stories on Oprah, but the idea that control, material wealth, health are so easily lost - and are very hard if not impossible to regain - scares me.

After watching "Pride and Prejudice" last week, Oksana and I got to talking about the attraction of a rich man. Are we horrible people for regarding wealth as a big plus in a potential partner? Does it makes us materialistic and cold? Or does it make us realistic and in search of warmth? Not having to worry about money means living in a comfortable house, in a safe neighbourhood. It means having less to argue about with your partner. It means being treated as a source of power (for example as a consumer) by others (for example store clerks). It means being left alone. It means having access to good health care. It means power and it means control. And it is something I strive to have for the rest of my life.

White City

2005-11-17T14:25:00.000-08:00

We had our first bit of snow/hail/rain-ish downfall today! I walked out of my building to go to class around two in the afternoon, blissfully unaware, and there it was. It only lasted for a few minutes, but the strong wind had everyone covered pretty thoroughly. The forecast is more of the white stuff on tomorrow and Saturday. I'm sure that in a few weeks time I'll be cursing winter just like any other Canadian (four of my roommates have already been through several Toronto winters and the fifth one is from Siberia, so I have a feeling I'm the meteorological virgin of the bunch) but for now, I felt a jolt of excitement. The sky is a gorgeous fierce blue, the clouds a menacing grey, the tree branches bare black. Sunlight seems watered down, almost liquid compared to the thick, warm rays of summer. The ivy on the campus buildings is blood red, the sky scrapers in the background enveloped in fog. Toronto is absolutely stunning today.

Christmas preparations are on their way big time. Store windows are all decked out with fake snow, the streets are festively lit at night, and radio and tv are spewing ads ("Only 38 shopping days left til Christmas, folks!"). Coffee chains like Starbucks and Second Cup have started selling special season drinks (the gingerbread latte is delicious) and snacks too. I was walking down Bloor with my roommate Oksana a little while ago (we went to see "Pride and Prejudice" which made me even more intent on snagging a British husband in a few years), around 7 at night, bundled up in our winter coats, a cup of coffee to go, knowing where we were going, what we were doing there, how to go about it - and somehow it felt like big city life had been perfectly compressed into that one moment. Any feeling of alienation has completely subsided - I'm swimming around in life now instead of just getting my feet wet.

Oksana and I went out for brunch again this Sunday - this time at a place called "Overeasy". There was a huge line-up when we arrived, but I accidentally moved us swiftly past that obstacle. As the host, the person who decides who is seated where, walked past the line I turned to Oksana and went "Oooh, he's cute!" - not realizing who he was. Apparently my whispering voice isn't what it used to be, cause the man heard what I said and before I knew it we were being walked to a great table! Oh, the glee when I overheard the uptight people in front of us hiss "That's not fair, we were in line before they were and they got the better table!" - I guess sometimes it pays off to act like a giddy school girl.

School's been taking up most of my time - I have a paper on fairy tales to write and one on King Lear. And one on a book on Oprah. It's all really fun stuff, but I wish I had more time to devote to it. As it is, Tina, Oksana and I drag each other over the library every night (all the computers are generally occupied until around 9, so there's little point in coming any earlier) and walk home together around midnight. A very cool ritual has come of it though: when we get home we ditch our bags and coats in our rooms, put the kettle on and sit around for a good hour drinking tea and talking. Yesterday, we ended up talking about our high schools - my Catholic all-girl experience versus Oksana's hard-core Moscow experience versus Jen's private 10.000 a year experience versus Tina's Vancouver "there was a daycare for the students' kids" experience. Hey, we all turned out okay : ) It's good times sitting around with the girls like that, hearing the piercing cold wind howling outside. Definitely getting in the way of me getting a decent night's rest, but good times.

All that it is is a little change

2005-11-09T16:24:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm officially a middle-aged woman. I just got all teary-eyed watching a Jessica Lange/Michelle Pfeiffer/family conflict/dying of cancer/sexual abuse film. I was watching it in the library for my film class: we've read King Lear and are now watching all sorts of adaptations of it. And this movie has the father dividing his property between two daughters but remains closest to the third daughter-theme going, hence.

I'm sure my hormonal state is partly responsible, but it seriously touched me. The professor had us read an article by a Jewish-American prof who linked the play to his personal life and talked about the death of his mother and the heartbreaking last years when she was sick with Alzheimers. About how hard it is to have the role reversal after which children have to start taking care of their parents. And those parents flee into their own reality. Angered. Stubborn. Helpless.

Mortality. Saying goodbye. Being left behind. Feeling left behind. Crying. Hospital bed sheets and plastic food trays. Words. Gestures. Priorities. Shock. Disbelief. Frustration. Selfishness. The others. Self-conscious grief. Watching yourself as you walk across the room in your dark clothes. Guilt at being so damn self-conscious. Remorse. Regret. Exhaustion. And the inevitability of it all.

Better to burn out than to fade away

2005-11-07T17:36:00.000-08:00

Man, the world sure is ablaze these days, eh? My parents just got back from a weekend in Paris where cars are being torched, buildings are being damaged and people are generally up in arms. And then Toronto's weekend overview was pretty bleak too...the usual stabbing and shooting incidents, as well as one freak attack very close to home: "an eight-year-old girl and a 40-year-old man were attacked by a hammer-wielding man on Saturday evening on Spadina Avenue. "He smacked them in the head," Staff Sergeant Noel Lee said. Both victims were taken to hospital for stitches. A 49-year-old man is facing weapons charges". Excellent.

But I guess that's how the world works, huh? Incidents all over, and yet the large majority of people goes about their day as usual. My parents had a great weekend. I'm about to go to my step class. A girl in my class went to Tel Aviv aka Bomb Central last week and had a fabulous time being out and about. Is there a point to feeling unsafe? Or should we just accept that anything can happen anywhere at any time?

Dawn and re-dawn

2005-11-06T14:39:00.000-08:00

I've been in a spectacular mood for the past few days! Disturbingly, I think that fact is very much related to the end of a crazy school period with midterms and papers left, right 'n center. I can finally relax again, sleep in, watch TV without feeling guilty and hang out with my friends...

Thursday night, I went out to dinner with a British guy called Chris(topher) - funny story. Years and years ago, at the tender age of 16, I met Oliver, who went on to study medicine at Oxford, has become a legend there and is basically destined to become some sort of Kofi Annan between now and 2015. I haven't seen him in the past five years, but we've kept in touch via email and msn. When I told him I was coming to Toronna, he gave me his good friend - and fellow med student - Chris's email address and urged me to drop him a line sometime...which I did. So a couple of days ago, I walked down to Queen & Bathurst and waited around until I heard a voice with that delectable Oxford accent go "Sofie?" Chris turned out to be the nicest guy - very cute (not a preppy shirt in sight), very interesting, very interested (which is so important), we ended up being kicked out of the restaurant when it closed, that's how well the conversation went! For a first meeting, I think that's pretty spectacular. We ended up in a vegetarian restaurant called "Fressen" and had a delicious Australian Chiraz over a meal topped off with Callebaut chocolate mousse...Y-u-m-m. We talked about Europe, skiing, traveling, obviously Oliver as well, and it was perfect times. Why am I not in hysterics then? He has a girlfriend, so it wasn't a romantic thing, which probably added to the relaxed atmosphere of the night.

The best part about all of this, though, is that just talking to him gave me such an energy boost. Chris is in Toronto doing HIV research, which I think is the coolest. The man is basically helping to save the entire population of sub-Saharan Africa. He can be as modest about it as he wants, that's how it is. But rather than having that make me feel like an idiot who's not doing squat for the world, it inspired me. And it made me fall in love with Toronto all over again. Cause this is what's going on here: people creating, studying, researching, inventing, transforming, solving, improving, working. You tend to lose sight of that walking down the street, but the people around you, as average as they may appear to be, are making things happen - in business, in medicine, in the arts, who knows. And knowing that there are intelligent, good-hearted people around and that I have the opportunity to make my life about something relevant too (don't ask me how I'm planning on achieving that, cause I haven't worked out that part yet) is making me feel pretty darn good.

And so now I'm all about meeting up with Oliver this summer! It's been so long that it's nothing short of a miracle that the lines of communication are still even open between us - but now that I've gotten an insight into his life via one of his best friends, I'm more eager than ever to finally make that visit to Oxford, meet him again, and find out what he's like these days...

Friday after class, my roommate Tina and I went down to Chinatown to get some groceries. Being there with an Asian person is definitely different. As in, I didn't get ripped off quite as much as usual, haha. We picked out some good food, had this Chinese treat - I forget the name, it's doughy and it looks like bubble-wrap - and talked a bit about Chinese medicinal beliefs. In my Anthro of Food class, the prof talked about how food is split up into cooling and heating foods in ancient Chinese nutritional medicin, depending on the effect they have on the human body. So, for example, Tina told me that when she used to get zits as a teenager, her parents read that as an indication of her body having consumed too many heating foods ("It's that awful fried stuff at McDonald's!") and would make her down a few mugs of cabbage tea. It's interesting stuff and a potential topic for a paper. It's both fascinating and heartbreaking to walk into those little Chinese drugstores. They sell entire BAGS of dried seahorses and a whole bunch of other dead animals which I'm quite sure are supposed to be protected by international law...

On Friday night, I went over to Masja's house - a Dutch woman who's in my Language and Power Structure class on Monday night. She studied law back home, worked as a lawyer for a while, traveled to India, lived in Isreal for a while and is now here studying Anthropology and Hebrew. She's lucked out with her accomodation - a cute house smack in the middle of Little Italy. Walking around in her neighbourhood was straight out of an American family movie: rustling yellow leaves on the ground, front porches, people walking their dogs, the jack-o-lanterns in front of the windows, beautiful.
Masja's Quebecois-Colombian currently unemployed and very good-looking actor boyfriend Michael came over too and the three of us had a great time hanging out, having dinner, watching a movie. They're both pretty hilarious and they have quite the life stories to share. By the time the red wine got to me, it was way too late to walk home, so I ended up crashing on the couch. The next morning, we had coffee and a tasty breakfast and it felt so nice to be in a house, around a table, hearing Dutch ("Joh, soms denk ik flikker op stomme kutcanadees"), sipping from a big mug.

The day got even better when I met up with my roommate Oksana on Queen Street for a day of shopping! The first stop: the Accesorize store - a British chain with gorgeous bags, hats and jewelry - that opened last Tuesday. We gave the saleswomen's "Is this your first time in our store?" question a very snooty "Oh puh-lease woman, we're European here" answer and drooled over every single item in the store. Better than sex, I tell ya! I ended up buying two pairs of earrings, one of which I'm wearing right now. After much more shopping, we took a breather at "Cafe Crepe" - which serves both salt and sweet crepes with just about any topping imaginable. It's a beautiful establishment, very stylish. And to be there sitting across a good friend felt very nice. Oksana's hilarious, just the fact of her being from Moscow makes her a heroine in my eyes. The Bond girl accent, the flair, the cultural background...the best.

I was supposed to go out with Oksana later that night and hang out with her Russian friends, but the previous night caught up with me and I ended up just chilling a la casa. This morning I went over to Alli's and hung out with her and Julia - whom I hadn't seen in weeks. And again I felt so...happy. My friend Hilde - who's coming here for the second term - and I were talking the other day and all of a sudden she went "Oh man, we're going to be friends in Toronto!!". To my "Umm...has this only just dawned on you?" she replied "Meh, it dawns and redawns" and I totally get what she means. All weekend now I've been having those moments where I realize again how beautiful this city is, how amazing it is that I'm living here, in North America. How lucky I am to be able to spend time with kind, funny, interesting people who understand me, make me laugh, want to know how I'm doing, support me, root for me, and want good things for me. Just think how much more of that I would have if I dropped out of school... ; )

Up to the last minute

2005-11-03T10:09:00.000-08:00

Hmmm, it looks like Thursday is turning into my Post a Message Day. Again, little updates as I had a midterm on Tuesday, another one today and my Rubens paper is due domani. So far, I don't think I've been doing too badly on any of these academic achievements - we'll see.

It's not all work and books, though! Last Thursday I went out for Halloween dressed as a punk-ish lady bug. I had wings, antennas, an all black outift, fishnets, red converse sneakers, a red wrist band and red leg warmers - and I got a lot of "awwwws", even from the homeless people! My Russian roommate Oksana thought I was the cutest thing ever and has since proceeded to make "bug" my nickname. Coming from her, though, I kinda like it, I can't lie.

Alli and Jarrod were dressed up as white trash and I peed myself when I saw them: mullet wigs, trashy trashy clothes, bad make-up, gum, a fake pregnant belly - they were decked out. After dropping by the Information Studies party, we headed down to the Dance Cave where the silly bouncer man refused to let me in. So I ran all the way home - "Stand By Me", anyone? - to get some ID and ran all the way back, only to enter into a club...that was totally empty. I don't know if we were early or what, but the place was d-e-a-d. No worries though, I wasn't planning on making a late night out of it anyway, so I talked to a bunch of people and walked home with Ian a little later.

My roommates are becoming dearer to me with every day that goes by! Oksana, Jen, Tina and I had lunch on Friday in the Fox and Fiddle, right by our building. We gabbed about celebrities, men, future plans, it was good times. I love coming home to these gals - there's always someone around to ask you how you day has been, tell you about the test they had or walk down to Timmie's with you to grab some coffee. Sunday morning, I had breakfast at the legendary Future Bakery with Oksana - if there is a better way to start off your day - as a single person, mind you - I'd love to hear it. Oh and I'm making it my mission to start off a free coffee refill policy in European restaurants. This paying for each cup you drink system just isn't gonna fly anymore.

It was my mom's birthday yesterday, so I called home and had a nice, long chat with my folks. It's weird not having been home in over three months - and it'll be even stranger being back. But I'm under the impression that - just like in Denmark - distance makes for tighter relationships to people. You cut out all the white noise of daily drama and focus on the bigger picture: "Having this person in my life is a good thing". Done and done.

Shoebox of photographs

2005-10-27T14:18:00.000-07:00

Man, I haven't updated in a WHILE! Last Thursday, my friend Kate turned 21 and her mom flew in from Alberta for the occasion (Katie's a childhood friend of Clara's so Mrs Katie's Mom and Mrs Clara's Mom know each other very well too, as do the dads). We went out to dinner in a cute restaurant in Cabbagetown called "The Pear Tree"
(http://www.whynotdine.com/Canadian_Restaurants/Toronto_Restaurant
_Reviews/Brunch/Traditional_Brunch_Toronto/) though getting there proved quite the ordeal. At one point, I was walking by myself (in the dark dark night) down a little street lined with parked cars - and between two cars there's this guy half-lying on the street, half-leaning on a car hood just staring out at me. He scared the bejesus out of me, but somehow I just sort of kept walking and was fine about it. A clear sign that living in the T dot is making me more thick skinned about weirdos and freakshows. This city has a LOT of 'm, let me tell you. The weather's gotten a lot colder (I got fuzz-lined boots and fuzz-lined gloves!) so by now having a homeless person hanging out in the lobby of my building is a staple. So tragic, though, you walk through the door and a bum shouts out "Welcome home!" to you when he doesn't even live there...or anywhere else...it's weird.

Anywho, Katie's birthday. Dinner was delicious and conversation very fun - apparently Clara's mom had said good things about me (God bless you, Mary) to Katie's mom, so it all felt very cosy and familiar. I made Kate a mini-scrapbook with pictures of all the stuff we've done together: the Harbourfront ballet, the beach, the Peggy Baker show, the Ex, St Lawrence Market...
I printed off some pictures for myself as well and framed them - doesn't look too shabby if I say so myself.
After dinner, we met up with some of Katie's dance friends (Yasmine, Brody, Emily, Tanner...) and went out to a place called "Crews and Tango" on Church street (http://www.crews-tango.com/contact_us.html), a full-out gay and lesbian bar. And yes, I did get my butt squeezed while waiting in line for the ladies' washroom. Good times, though.

I got up bright and early the next morning, cause I had signed up for a walking tour with the International Student Centre. We were going to look at a few old cemeteries (Halloween is coming up!) around the TO area and it seemed fun...until I actually got there. Don't ask me why, but for some reason walking tour in my head translated as Bus Tour, so when I got the subway station and realized we'd be walking all day (in the rain...) I was not a happy camper. In addition, no one else there looked familiar and my stomach hurt - so I made a brave decision, did the first 30 seconds of the walking tour and then smoothly slipped into the subway station's second entrance. I was home again about 15 minutes later, enjoying a nice cup of tea, and doing some reading. One of my all time favorite Tina Waller quotes comes to mind: "I am a great believer that if you have a strong hunch not to go somewhere then you will always be happier tucked up warm and safe in bed". Amen, sista! This whole doing-what-you-feel-like-even-though-it-is-not-entirely-respectful event got a very sinister aftertaste though: the next day a lethal shooting took place right outside that very same subway station. Gulp.

Monday night after class, I met up with Adrian and his girlfriend Eszter. They'd been spending the last two weeks up in Ottawa, but came down to Toronna as that is where Eszter's flight took off from on Tuesday. We went out to the famous Sushi on Bloor restaurant and I enjoyed my first ever teriyaki spring rolls with wasabi. Can't say I'm all about it, it tastes kind of...oh I don't know, RAW but it was fun trying it out. Adrian's planning on moving to Paris next year (to live with Eszter and study) and it was really cute listening to him gush about Europe. It is an awesome place, though, I won't disagree with that.

On Tuesday, I FINALLY got my Rubens paper image photocopied - this little project had been driving me crazy. I was paying through the nose for nice paper and messing up one attempt after the other, but now I've finally got an acceptable print. The woman serving me at Kinko's was bi-zar though, holy cannoli. She was either on drugs or mentally impaired, but there was something very off about her. Big advantage: she forgot to charge me.

Later that day, I met up with my roommate Oksana at the library - poor thing had been studying her toosh off for hours, so we took a coffee break together. Walking into the library though, I was greeted by a prosthetic leg...Its owner was sitting on the ground a little further and kindly requested some change. How about hell to the N-O? Jesus, could ya keep your limbs to yourself? I remember seeing scenes like that in Madrid too, about ten years ago, and they've been forever engraved in my memory. No need. No need for that at all.

Yesterday night was America's Next Top Model night again (they sent Kyle home! Kyle! Who is so sweet and gorgeous! It kills me...), and again there was a special co-occasion. Juliana (of room 3 fame) is moving out at the end of this week! We don't know if anyone new will move in (probably yes), when (probably soon), who (fingers crossed) - but I choose to be optimistic. I still get along great with all the other girls, so even if the new one turns out to be a she-devil, she'll serve nicely as entertainment. Tonight I'm going over to Alli's for dinner and hitting up the first (and possibly last) Halloween Party of the season - now how am I going to differentiate between real and fake freaks?

Ce n'est que du bonheur

2005-10-20T18:43:00.000-07:00

I was just reading over my posts in the last three months (let me count the ways in which I can procrastinate) and it's funny to think how many things don't even make it in there. Shooting a film with Anna, meeting a Danish guy, having lunch with Lorraine at "Green Mango", the dollarama store, going out with Mike and Nick in Little Italy, shopping for a Halloween costume in Dufferin Mall, finding that I'm finding my way around campus, going over to the library at the end of Alli's shift, the radio stations I like, the random encounters with people on the street and in class, the planning that went into Tina's birthday surprise...I'm really glad I've been able to keep it up though. I think that as time goes by, all those little reports will become increasingly valuable. Kinda like those emails you save in a special folder cause reading them just makes you so happy.

So Achilles and a tortoise walk into a bar...

2005-10-19T15:14:00.000-07:00

I got my anthro paper back today (see how I'm already using slang - at least this time around it didn't make me forever to figure it out, unlike "poco" did in Denmark - that turned out to be Post Colonial btw) and as it turns out I didn't get a D at all on that other exam! My two grades so far are B minus, which I think is pretty acceptable.

It's been busy busy days - the usual school humdrum and enjoying the cultural and culinary joys of the T dot. My roommate Anna is broadening my knowledge of the Indie scene by taking me to see "The Organ" on Saturday and "Feist" on Tuesday night. "The Organ" played in a club called Revival down in Little Italy. The bouncers were super friendly ("Welcome to Canada!" - why thank you freakishly tall black man!) and the club itself was fun. All the bands on stage - "Galaxy" and "Gentleman wrench" opened - though were pretty gloomy. You know, vintage clothing that is supposed to make your body look odd (Think Maggie Gyllenhaal: knee-length shorts, socks in open-toed shoes, unflattering bangs, boy jeans), the most languid facial expressions imaginable, that whole "This stage is soooo boring" act. Which really is pretty hilarious. It made me think too about how quickly counter-culture becomes absorbed by culture, and how easily a "new" look becomes just another cliche. And then Alli in all her sagesse (and over a delicious pancake breakfast at Mel's - our new favorite place down the street) pointed out that you get a feeling with this people that they are more transparent than "ordinary" people walking down the street. That the explicitly "different" are also the more explicitly one-dimensional.
The show on Tuesday was a whole different story. For one, we got out of the subway at Broadview and the line-up was honestly four blocks long, completely ridiculous. Fortunately, Anna and I got to strut to the beginning of the line and I got to utter the phrase "I'm on the list". Haha, so petty yet so fun. We got to go right in and had awesome seats. The Music Hall reminded me a lot of the Stadschouwburg in Leuven: red velvet seats, balconies, all that. What give it that extra edge was the fact that the bands on stage ("Apostle of Hustle", "Jason Colette" & "Feist") were rocking out - no dramatic play, no stiff opera, but rock bands. In a theatre. Very awesome. One of Toronto's biggest bands is called "Broken Social Scene" and they are one of those big groups where people come and go at will as opposed to having a fixed set-up. That totally translated onto Tuesday's gig as the three shows were really...one big show. People kept popping up on stage, grabbing a guitar or a microphone and joining in. The musicians were immensely talented and the joy they felt at being up on stage with people they love as one big family just added to the energy of the room. It was informal without being chaotic, sweet without being cheesy. Leslie Feist...is a goddess. Amazing voice, kind of Bjorkian, but way more controlled. On top of that, she's a fierce drummer AND she plays the electric guitar! The opening gigs were cool too - I definitely recommend them: very upbeat music, honest, good quality. The night really lifted my spirits - there was a sincere warmth to it.

Yesterday was America's Next Top Model night again - this time with the added bonus of celebrating my roommate Tina's 21st birthday! We had dinner together and bought her an icecream cake...made of green tea ice cream (her favorite). Yeah. Not a huge fan, but I'm sure it's sort of good for you?!

On more temporarily distant social news, Hilde has finally announced her arrival! I can't even say how excited I am - the airport is not going to be big enough to contain the squeeling, haha. As it works out, she'll be here when my older brother and his friend are still here, so we can all chillax together! Very good stuff.

Alright, I'm off to a step class and a film class and then work on that Rubens paper that's still very much not pulled together at all. Peace!

Time of your life

2005-10-16T17:24:00.000-07:00

"Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road / Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go / So make the best of this test, and don't ask why / It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time / It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right. I hope you had the time of your life" - Green Day (Yes, I'm going philosophical on your ass)

One of the phrases I have heard most over the past couple of months is "have the time of your life" - and it's a phrase that puzzles me. I know it's just an expression and is not to be taken literally. I mean, when people say your wedding day is the happiest day of your life, they don't really mean that either, right? Unless you're involved in big time drama, like a kidnapping, I think it's entirely impossible to pinpoint a day and say "You know, when I was released and saw the sky again for the first time in six months, that was the happiest day of my life". And then there's just the degree to which that idea is depressing: if you're past the happiest day or the happiest part of your life...is the rest just bland? Counting down til the end?

This year is different from my Denmark year in innumerable ways. One of which is, in the words of my good friend Marieke, it's less of a bubble. It's real and palpable. It's cold wind and hot tea. It's friendly store clerks and scary homeless guys. It's high and low and up and down and "awesome!" and "so fucked up" and it's life. So when people express their hope that I'm having the time of my life, I feel oddly pressured. Like there's some sort of expectation that every single moment here should be spent in complete euphoria. Am I having the time of my life? I don't know, I'm just having...life. The way everyone around me does. The way I would if I'd be in Europe. I'm observing and learning and appreciating and enjoying - but I'm also just going through my days.

Life back home obviously hasn't come to a stop over the past couple of months and thankfully, people are still keeping me posted about what's going on in their lives. Puzzlingly, a lot of emails come with a disclaimer: "Sorry to dump this on you, I didn't mean to give you such bad news, don't worry about me, don't think about what I just wrote, ignore this email, go and have the time of your life, go have fun". I know those kinds of statements come with the best intentions but it makes we wonder why people think traveling 6 time zones in the Western direction brought me to a place where "bad" news is a foreign element. Even if I was spending my days sitting on a giant red velvet pillow being fed chocolate by the spoon and getting foot rubs from [insert name of whoever you think is stunningly sexy], why would that make me stop caring about what's going on in the lives of the people I love?

I'm starting to feel guilty about proclaiming the joys of living la vida loca in Scandinavia so much - I know that I gushed about how nice it was to take a break from real life for a while. To have a new room, a new bike, a new school, a new view. To be gone, to get out, to take off. And I stand by that. I still feel like I shed skin, like I stepped outside of myself. Living on my own for the first time, meeting people I still count as some of my best friends to this day, finding intellectual challenges, letting go of self-esteem issues...all of those things made for a wonderful, yes, euphoric experience. And all of those things were so dear to me that I held on to them for dear life - I was terrified of losing what I felt I had gained as soon as I left. Terrified that it was going to be taken away from me, broken down, critized, rejected, forgotten.
And since so much had been kicked into high gear during my first week abroad, that "abroad" became the locus of happiness. It became my own little Eden, my hideaway, my bubble.

And I don't know, maybe this time around, I understand that that locus is not a geographical place. That what I learn and gain here, is coming back home with me and that it will find a place. That the "new" doesn't have to replace the "old", and that the "old" can't undo the "new" but that everything life throws your way fuses together. That you can bring new insights to the old and familiar, and renew it, rediscover it.

So even though my neighbourhood is already my 'hood, even though I have trouble imagining packing up my bags and leaving one day, I take this city for what it is: a city. A jungle. A place. And contrary to popular belief, not a paradise, not a toy store, not a sound-proof bubble.

Spectacle and Surveillance

2005-10-12T15:19:00.000-07:00

So I just got back from my first visit to the University gym...well, one of them. Not so great. For some reason, the main room is set up in a circle: the outside circle is a running track (so you're constantly dodging people), then there's a circle of typical cardio gear (steps, bikes, tread mills) and way at the core are mats (stretching, cooling down, sit-ups). So basically, everyone is looking at everyone and it made me pretty uncomfortable. It also seemed unusually hard-core (the outfits, the efforts, the pace), which I, in no definition of the word, am. My friend Clara recently got a job at an all women's gym and I'm definitely finding myself wishing for one here too.

Academically, things are well. I got that exam back today, 73 %. Though that would be a kick-ass grade in the Heimat, apparently that's very so-so around here. I think it's a D, in fact. But hey, I wasn't even expecting to pass, so it was a relief in that way. And then I had a really nice chat with my "Social Theory" TA (Teacher Assistant), Emma, over lunch.

I've also decided on a few paper topics: I think the "Social Theory" one is going to deal with hockey fans, and the "History of Images" one with a self-portrait by Rubens. For my "Language and Power Structure" class, I'm thinking something to do with gendered language, and more specifically, the way women are stereotyped as being overly verbal when what might really be going on is that they've gotten used to weakening their assertions. For example, rather then saying "I don't like you", you'll hear "I don't really think...", "It's just that...", "The thing is that I'm kinda feeling...", "I thought it was a little weird when you...". I'm not sure if I could find any data to back that up, but it's something to explore. I got to thinking about it after pondering for a good half hour about the best phrase to express lack of interest to a guy. Is it better to be blunt and rude? Are you morally obliged to let people down easy? Or is it a girl thing to feel guilty? Why do I feel the need to defend my dislike of someone, to give specific reasons why I'm not interested in his company, to blame myself, to make up lies ("I'm really busy", "I'm already
seeing someone") when I have every right to choose who plays a significant role in my life?

In the midst of all this topic choosing, I'm currently reading "Discipline and Punish" by good old Monsieur Foucault and "Bread of Dreams" by Piero Camporesi. Very interesting stuff dealing with a re-interpretation of history, focusing on the penal system and food distribution respectively. There's something deliciously wonderful about fresh perspectives on the past - veracity and accuracy don't even seem to be the main issues here. These authors just want to subvert existing, stuffy, rigid views and throw some ideas out there, I love it. Skies are grey, skies are cloudy (the top half of the CN Tower was entirely invisible today), but as long as I've got my tea and my bed and my books, I'm good.

Today is Wednesday, which means the Tartu tribe gathers around and watches America's Next Top Model together - better get going...

I keep on Fall-in'

2005-10-09T16:50:00.000-07:00

No worries, this post's title is no indication of my state of mind - just an innocent seasonal reference. I'm actually doing much better - I think I just lost track of the bigger...or smaller...picture. The bigger picture being "You're living in North America, in a vibrant city, in a good place" and the smaller picture being "You're a human being who needs sleep and chocolate". School work is still going to take up a lot of time and energy, and I'm not good at forgetting about deadlines, they always seem to linger in my thoughts, but at least I'm prepared. I've definitely picked myself up. I just need to remember that I'm doing something I've always wanted to do, that I need to get out there and enjoy what the city has to offer. I absolutely loved the first bunch of weeks and there is no doubt in my mind that I can get that feeling back.

Fall has arrived! Friday saw a ridiculously sudden 10 degree drop in temperatures. I went from walking to class on flip-flops and thinking "How cool is it that I get to do this in October??" to bundling up with a sweater and vest. This weekend is Thanksgiving in Canada (a bit earlier than the US version, there's some historical explanation for it, in fact, Canadians claim they were the first ones to celebrite this Holiday) and I happily latched on to Alli's family. Every year, her extended family (over 40 people) goes to a camping ground (about a 3 hour drive from the city), occupies a bunch of different sites (small areas in the forest, big enough to park a trailer, a couple of cars and have a nice fire going), makes a long line of tables and serves everyone turkey and pumpkin pie a volonte. It was cooo-hooold, but good times. It's definitely a Canadian thing to go out into the wild, get a bunch of people together and a fire going, and just hang out. Simple, but always memorable. We slept in tents which was even cooo-hoo-hooolder, but it was just the one night, so no biggie. The drive back was gorgeous - like driving through a postcard, with all the trees turning deep red, fiery red, orange, yellow. Nice.

I'm really happy I was able to spend the holiday with a family, even it wasn't my own. I don't know why I'm being such a snob about it this time around, but after spending pretty much all my free time at the International Student Center in Denmark, I'm just kinda...over it. Maybe it's because I speak the language here, maybe it's because I didn't have the time to really meet the other students and bond with them. I'm taking part in some of the activities, it's just not the axis of my social life the way it was up North.

On my way back from Ottawa last month, I took out some paper and wrote "Back to the drawing board" on the top of the page. I just started scribbling down what I had already done in my life, what I wanted to do, didn't want to do, what I was good at, what I should find out about...It felt nice. Mind you, I still have no clue where I'm going to end up professionally, but it helped to sort of channel the energy, you know? There's a lot I'd still like to learn but at the same time I really don't want to end up as one of those 35-year old eternal students who've never worked and just keep floating from one faculty to the next - I want things to take me somewhere. And though it's unpredictable, that doesn't mean you can't look at the signs and take a certain road, right?

What goes up...

2005-10-06T07:46:00.000-07:00

I have without a doubt been having my worst and most stressful week in Canada to date. Holy fuck, talk about Murphy's Law. Basically, my karma's been ridiculous since Thursday, when things with Richard came to a screeching halt. Then on Friday, my friend Adrian was supposed to come down from Ottawa because his girlfriend Eszter was flying into Pearson and he was supposed to come crash on my floor. Did he? No. The weekend was basically not having enough time to study for my exam on Wednesday and write a paper by Thursday. I have no idea what happened, I'm usually really good with deadlines and planning, but man did that go out the window. I've also been feeling really dizzy, definitely got a low blood pressure thing going on and pretty much passed out Sunday morning. Between 10 PM on Tuesday night and 8 AM on Wednesday morning, then, the fire alarm in my building went off 4 times. And not just for 2 minutes either, we're talking a good twenty minutes each time of deafening sirens. False alarm. Needless to say, I didn't exactly get a decent night's sleep and the exam did not go well...Coffee was of no avail, my head felt fuzzy, I ran out of time, my hand started shaking uncontrollably toward the end (the last page is basically hieroglyphics), ugh. It counts for 20% of the final mark and I'm not even sure I passed it. I went home straight after to finish my paper, which was going smoothly (if slowly, it was like the computer needed a good 5 seconds for every letter I typed) until around 9.30 PM when my computer crashed. It took a good hour to retrieve my document which I then proceeded to copy by hand... E-le-ven pages. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I just wanted to make sure I had some sort of back-up and clearly the laptop wasn't going to be helping me with that. That being done, I rebooted the computer, which took a decent half hour. Piecing my text together again and finishing it off and then emailing it to myself took until around 4 AM. I crashed for a good three hours, went down to the library this morning to print off the paper and obviously, the attachment failed to open. Luckily, I had also copied the text in the email, so I opened a Wordpad document and proceeded to somehow present it as a more or less paperesque text (even though double spacing and alignment are artisinal achievements in this program). Not until I was at the printer wondering how much the prof would mind the faulty presentation did I notice another computer section in the library, especially for word processing. GAD. I know this is all part of getting settled in, but oh my god could someone have pointed that out to meeeeee...Anyway, moved over there, printed off the paper no problem and handed it in. Fuck me. I hate this, I'm not good with the last minute and the stress and the craziness. And it doesn't seem like it's going to end any time soon, I've got so much reading to do and tests coming up. Bring back the Danish "6 hours of class a week + use your notes + no midterms" system! And all the while, I'm looking like shit. Seriously, I think I'm scaring little children: bad hair days, bad skin days, bad arm flab days have become the norm. Where did my bubbly summer persona go?!

Whew. Okay, now that that's out of my system (and i have justified the lack of updates), let's move on to happy news. OH! First of all, Katie Holmes is pregnant! What?? I thought she was super conservative? And that Tom Cruise was impotent? Is he perhaps *gasp* not the father? And what does ex-fiance Chris Klein think of all this? Man oh man. Just when you think nothing exciting is happening in Celeb World, they throw this out there, I love it. Seriously though, happy news. My older brother Tom and his best bud are coming to Canada for the Holidays! They'll be here from Christmas Eve to the 6th of January which means I'll have family around for my birthday too - so awesome, I'm very excited. My first official visitors! I've already made a list (ha! That's so me) of things I want them to see and do and check out...It'll be good to have the boys around, I miss them. So yeay for that, and hopefully my academic adventures will take a turn for the better. I like to think that I'm not an idiot and I just needed to go through this to adjust to the North American system. Dio mio.

Indecent Proposals

2005-09-25T11:28:00.000-07:00

For the past few days I've been stood up several times, ignored by people who were supposed to get back to me, accused of being a jerk...and all because of my inbox. As it turns out, people have been texting me as usual, but for the past 10 days or so not a single sms actually made it to my phone. So all sorts of sweet messages, changes of plan and invitations just went up into thin air... I tried calling the Fido service but got stuck in your typical "For loss or theft, press 1. To change the colour of your phone, press 2. To learn about our latest services, press 3. To vote for the next Colombian president, press 4. To listen to this menu again, press 5" labyrinths. Thankfully, I'm on excellent terms with the man who originally sold me my phone, Richard. So I gave him a call and he's going to sort things out for me. So to all the people who mistakingly assumed I was giving them the cold shoulder, I wasn't.

And there is more techno-drama: my precious internet connection is no more. Lord knows what happened, but it's gone. No more internet in my room. Which is very unfortunate, because seeing as Alli's laptop has no disk drive...or USB gate...or battery...it is pretty much impossible to transfer any files or documents from the laptop to anywhere except via email. And my first paper is due next week! Anyone who knows me at all knows I wilt like a week-old bouquet without internet. The colour is drained from my cheeks, my hair is limp and lifeless...Okay, so I'm overdoing it a little, but there is a core of truth: I've been in a crummy mood and the lack of www has a lot to do with it.

There is good news too though: on Thursday night I went down to the Art Gallery of Ontario (www.ago.net) to see a performance by Peggy Baker, the modern dancer I went to see a few weeks ago. Getting there was like a scene straight out of Sex and The City: I emerged out of the Dundas subway station in the pouring rain, desperately trying to hold on to my umbrella whilst clutching my black purse under my right arm and had no idea of where to go. Finally, I turned to a hotdog vender who pointed me in the right direction. I wouldn't touch the food merchandise with a 10 foot pole, but I have to admit, I was glad he was there for me. Once I got to the AGO, my mood soared: the box office guy, who I presume was in his fifties or sixties, sold me ticket with a student discount. Studying the picture on my student card, he told me I needed a better photographer (when I went to pick up my card in August, I had no idea they took your picture right there and then so I look quite dishevelled), because clearly this one "had not captured my beauty". I know it's silly, but it honestly cheered me right up. On to the dance show, which was held in one of the museum rooms filled with Henry Moore sculptures (http://www.henry-moore-fdn.co.uk). Peggy danced around the sculptures, sometimes in complete silence, sometimes with eery music softly playing in the background. Though I loved what I saw (my favourite aspect is seeing how Peggy is completely unafraid of her body: her moves are swooping, wild, gentle, awkward, small, abrupt, smooth with not a trace of inhibition or shame), the atmosphere wasn't nearly as special as it was last time. Maybe it was to do with the company, maybe with the size of the room, I don't know.

On Friday night then, I went out with a Chinese friend named Jon. He brought me to a restaurant called Asian Legends and I'm pretty sure I was the only Caucasian in the house. I had an awesome time, though, I am, after all, a Cultural Studies student. Having the entire eating process explained to me, drinking authentic green tea, having to use chopsticks and a small bowl rather than a fork and a plate, not understanding a word on the menu, walking around at night in the heart of Chinatown...the entire experience was deliciously exotic. The night was rounded off with a marriage proposal, and I received another one just this morning. Walking down Bloor, I asked a police officer why the road had been closed off (It turned out that "Word on the Street", a giant outdoor book fair just like the Boekenbeurs, was going on in Queen's Park) and he informed me that it was for our wedding ceremony. I'm not sure what about me screams "Desperate to be Engaged", but I'm keeping my options open.

Saturday afternoon, Katie and I checked out the sales at Salvation Army. That's right, 50% off at a place that already throws stuff at you, the best! I was hoping to score some furniture or decorative elements for my room, but ended up getting only a few small things for my desk and a pair of jeans. After our economic spree, we went for coffee at Javaville and walked home (I would say I walk, on average, at least 3 miles a day here, it's pretty exhausting) where I got a lot of my reading done. I'm half-way through a book by Freedberg (I have a test on the book on the fourth of October...) and want to get to page 300 by tonight. He'd better reach a conclusion by the end of it, cause so far he's being obnoxiously vague.

My mood has been, to say the last, volatile for the past few days. Even though I'm enjoying the big city life and have found some beautiful souls here like Katie, Theresa, my roommates, I find myself feeling pretty miserable at times. Maybe it's just the typical culture shock phenomenon, maybe I need a break from the sirens and the rush hours, maybe I've been under a lot of stress with school and the internet and my phone, I don't know. It's been almost two months since I left home and I'm starting to feel it. I miss my peoples, I miss home-cooked meals, I miss cobblestones, I miss Dutch. At the same time, I know that as soon as I get home, it'll be a matter of days before I'm looking out for greener grass again and I'll be crying like a little baby over missing people here and Second Cup and Smart Set - c'est la vie. Thankfully, I've received some stellar emails over the past few days that have made me smile, laugh out loud and feel a helluva lot better. Thank you to the emailers, you are awesome.

Connected

2005-09-22T11:18:00.000-07:00

It's a joyous day today as my internet connection has finally decided to work with me! The laptop I'm using - Alli's old one - is hopelessly outdated (we're talking Windows 98 here, people, yes, yes I know, I had no idea they made computers back then either) so it'll be a while before I can upload pictures to this blog. Writing, though, shouldn't be a problem!

School's been pretty busy, I have quite a few classes and a lot of exploring to do so there's no partying to report in any way. Last Friday I went over to Alli's condo to admire the paint job and ended up hanging out there for almost 24 hours...You know how it is, you chat, you make some dinner, you chat some more, you realize it's dark out, you borrow a t-shirt and some shirts and crash, and then the next morning you get some coffee, you chat and eventually work your way out the door. I ended up taking the subway home and had to keep a pushy guy at bay - who would have thought in the middle of the day? Nothing happened, I didn't accept his card (sounds fancy, but it was actually a real business card with the phone number crossed out and another number written on it in pen...yeah, very impressive dude, so close) and he moved on, but it made me wonder why I was as nice to him as I was. He approached me and started talking, even though I didn't express any kind of interest. So why do I feel like I need to be friendly and polite? Why wouldn't I just tell him to piss off? Why did I stick to "Oh yeah?", "Get to know me? Oh, I don't know" and "That's okay, thanks"? Part of it is that I didn't know him and you never know how people will react if you yell at them or use profanity, but I'm sure part of it is just my general approach to conflict: try to ease your way out of it, gently. Is that really the way to go in all situations, though?

That very same Saturday I met up with Alli again, but in a different setting: the Second Cup coffee place down the street (right next to the Jewish gym I mentioned before). Between Starbucks and Tim Horton's and Timothy's and - god forbid - Coffee Time, I'm really leaning toward Second Cup. I like their service a lot, I love what they do with their shops (the one on Bloor even has a fireplace!), it just seems to fit my personality (I realize that sounds a tad odd...maybe it's all the "you are what you eat"-articles I have to read for my Anthropology of Food class). They even have newspapers lying around with Sudoku crosswords - what's not to love?
Alli's friend Tash joined us - she's from Miami, Florida and is in the same U of T program Alli's in. Very fun girl, we shared travel stories, celebrity outrage (I need to know what happened in Renee's wedding SOON, the suspense is killing me!) and, obviously, ponderings about men - what they do, fail to do, should do, could do, would do and never do. The "being harrassed by random men" topic came up again (Alli definitely won in the Most Outrageous Story category): it's funny how women don't seem capable of harrassing men. A random woman comes up to you in the subway? Nice going. She gives you her number and touches your shoulder? Score! She requests sexual favours? Sweeeeeeet. Part of me hopes some men (like those who think with their big heads) would still shy away from some women (like those who look sketchy and/or riddled with disease), but the situation still remains very different for both genders. Weird. But yeah, awesome time. The best remedy against homesickness is without a doubt surrounding yourself with good people, get some coffee, talk the night away, laugh, gasp, realize that even in this place on the other side of the planet women think and worry and wonder about the exact same things as you - get connected. I had the same surge of happiness last night when all the girls I live with (Anna, Jen, Tina, Oxanna (She's new and Russian...I'm actually not entirely sure what her name is, I can't lie) and Julianna) gathered in front of the TV (we have cable since last week) for the 2-hour season premiere of America's Next Top Model. Six girls, all in their PJs, some snacks on the table and laughing and giggling about the people parading on the screen: "Oh my God, she is such a weirdo", "That guy is just too much", "Haha, that looks hilarious", "What on Earth is she doing??", "Wow, I love that top", "Did he just say what I think he did?" - good times.

Alli, Tash and I made plans to go out to dinner, but it's turning out to be quite the challenge to find a night that works for everyone. We'll figure something out though, and then sushi awaits!

Of mice and women

2005-09-16T18:42:00.000-07:00

So my roommate Tina found a dead mouse in our corridor this morning. Yeah. Not sure what happened to it - cardiac arrest? Old age? Who knows. Point is: there are mice in our building. Not a pleasant thought. More uplifting Tina news: our roommate Anna had free tickets to a preview screening of Just Like Heaven - the latest Reese Witherspoon - on Wednesday, so Tina and I went down to check it out. It's not great, but good for a few laughs. And hey, it's cool that my roommates are more than people who I happen to be living with.

More classes: "History of images" about why people worship, fear and destroy images, how context influences the meaning we give to a particular image. The prof's Paul Rutherford, author of "Weapons of Mass Persuasion" about the war in Iraq. He's pretty hardcore, but the material's fascinating. The "Anthropology of Food" class is taught by the most elegant woman - who's husband is Belgian! - and looks really interesting. We're going to be looking at famines, eating disorders, family life, food taboos... Lots of papers to write, though, but if I find good topics it should be fine. I'm excited!

Quote!

2005-09-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

I swear sometimes this city is just too much to handle. My friend Lorraine invited me over for dinner last night, and I decided to walk there (West on Spadina Avenue for a good half hour). Bloor Street West is a pretty cool area - lots of little stores and restaurants - and takes you into the heart of Koreatown. All the signs are in Korean, everyone you see (and hear) is Korean, there are Korean bookstores, health stores, supermarkets, clothing stores... I keep taking mental photographs of the most intriguing sights: it could just be a Korean man leaning against a wall but the colours and the exoticism of the image just strike me. This city truly is a world on its own. This morning I went to do some grocery shopping in Kensington Market - and passed a hilarious billboard on the Jewish gym on my block that said "Less Kvetching, More Stretching" - otherwise known as Chinatown and it was a very similar experience: the humid heat, the crowds, the odours, the exotic food, the complete lack of English and of Arabic numerals. I did find an excellent blend of green tea, as well as cheap fruit and noodles, so mission accomplished. And I honestly feel like I ventured into China for an hour or so - actually getting on a plane and going there is not something that appeals to me. Unless I had a good reason to be there - and a companion or two - I don't think I'd hang in there very long. So this is perfect: I'm wandering the planet all in a day's work. One of my brand new acquaintances Dave said the other day "If only I were addicted to crack instead of traveling, that'd be a lot cheaper", I thought that was pretty funny.

Other than that, classes have started. Like home, every prof has their own style, though it all seems to be a bit less formal that what I'm used to. So far I've had mostly introductions, as opposed to proper lectures. My "Language and Power Structure" prof just got out of maternity leave - so awesome. My "Social Theory through Popular Culture" prof Ivan is a bit more dry and hardcore, but the class sounds really interesting. Then there's "Literature and Film", about the adaptation of novels. I love the reading list - I thoroughly enjoyed "Death in Venice" on the bus to Ottawa - and my friend Katie is in this class too! She's wicked, I've only met her a few days ago, but I'm pretty sure we'll be hanging out a lot. The prof seems very nice, she's an elderly woman with grey hair and very sweet sparkly eyes behind red-rimmed glasses. My only peeve with her so far is that she seems a bit too soft - she described the course as "sniffing at the material like a dog". What? Sure, regurgitating knowledge is boring. And class participation is good. But sniffing? Some facts and figures, some decent reading and some memorising isn't going to kill us. My fourth class is "History of Images" - Berger, Foucault, Bakhtin, all of that stuff. The reading sounds demanding, but it's fascinating material: why do we fear images? Why do we destroy them? Is there a universal power in images or is it all about context?

Bit of an observation. I was talking to Katie - from my film class - the other day about the political correctness in this country, and more specifically the way people try to make sure no one feels left out. To the extreme. Now I agree that the Belgian system might be a tad elitist and harsh on students who have trouble keeping up in class, but the Canadian system appears to be at the other end of the spectrum entirely. Do you have ADD? Do you have a problem with multiple choice tests? Do you have a problem with taking tests in a room with other people? Is English not your first language? Do you have religious issues with watching images of nude people? Are you a woman? Are you a native Canadian? Are you married? Have you been treated unfairly by anyone? Does your prof tend to stand within two feet from you? Do you know how to use a computer? Do you use public transportation to get to class? Are you left-handed? Near-sighted? Bald? Anything, ANYTHING you can think of has some sort of support group, or a board. It's really very sweet, but come on now.

The beauty of it all

2005-09-11T16:50:00.000-07:00

I still haven't set up a computer in my room yet, so the pictures I'm taking these days won't be posted for another little while. Too bad, cause the weather continues to be gorgeous and I think I got some nice shots...

I'm absolutely beat - it's been an intense week. I've been exploring the campus (tripping over black squirrels along the way, there must be over a thousand) and found a gym I can use for free, a cheap coffee place and a whole bunch of libraries. Friday was general orientation day for all the exchange students and it felt like Denmark all over again: the culture shock talk ("You're in your honeymoon phase now but things will change"), the nervous giggles when you get 200 strangers in a room together, the cliches (Philippa from Uppsala, Sweden with red pigtails) and then of course the random friends you make without even really noticing. I ended up hanging out with Charles (UK), Kacie (USA), Rachael and Gillian (Scotland), Michiko (Japan) and Dave (USA) for most of the night. Over coffee I suggested going to a movie premiere the next day (Toronto's International Film Festival is going on right now - http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2005/home.asp) and thankfully they were all about it. So on Saturday night we found ourselves between teenagers on the brink of a complete meltdown and caught glimpses of Liza Minelli, Susan Sarandon, Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom at the opening of the movie "Elizabethtown". It was hilarious just to stand there and think about what was going on: people standing in line for hours and going nuts for other people who happened to have their actions recorded on film. I overheard one weary mother complain to an other that her daughter dragged her down "last year too" and that "after she'd seen him, she cried for two hours". Now, I know I know, I'm very much addicted to celebrity stuff myself - not throwing any rocks here - it's just funny.
Before meeting up with everyone, I went down to a buddhist temple on College Street for a rummage sale and found a bunch of great stuff: two massive picture frames that will look beautiful on my bare walls, a mirror and a hair dryer. How that last item ended up in a place of worship filled with bald men, I don't know.

Then today, Katie and I went down to the Harbourfront (where we saw the ballet performance a little while ago) for a Vegeterian food fair. Lots of free food samples (can't say I'm big on tempeh but most of it was good), stands with vegetarian shoes, vegetarian body products and lots of chakra mambo jambo. Not my scene so much, a little too much intensity ("Dairy is Murder!!"), but I just wanted to explore it. In the afternoon, we went down to Toronto Centre Island - one of the many islands just off the Toronto shore (http://www.city.toronto.on.ca/parks/island/index.htm). It's the perfect place to get away from the city's hustle and bustle for a few hours - a 10 minute ferry ride will bring you into a completely different atmosphere. The place reminded us both of the drawing Mary Poppins and the Banks children jump into in the movie: huge lawns, colourful bridges that connect all the islands, playgrounds... Stunning. The exotic vegetation, the peace and quiet, the quaint houses (yes, some people are actually lucky enough to LIVE there), amazing. When I came home, I met my third roommate (after Tina and Anna) Jen. It's her 3d year living in Tartu, very chatty girl, seems great.

Tomorrow is the big day: I'll have my very first class. I have no idea what to expect when it comes to the people that will be there, the prof, the location... I hope I'll have the chance to ease into my first week instead of being bombarded with info and work. But we'll see. I have a feeling I'm settling in quite well. The first night I got back here from Ottawa I pretty much RAN to Theresa's appartment to be around someone familiar. But I'm okay now. Alli dropped off a cd player and some pillows so my room is looking loads more hospitable already. Messy, obviously, hey, it's still me, but cosy too. Knocking on wood here, I do feel a lot stronger than I did two years ago when I first moved to another country. Spending time with 19-year olds (so young!) makes it so clear that I was them in Denmark: nervous, self-conscious, eager, and intent on making something out of the experience - rather than just letting things happen. And that's a comforting thought, you know, to realise that I've grown somewhat.

How is it September already??

2005-09-07T06:54:00.000-07:00

It's been over a week since I've updated and mucho mucho has been going on. On the 29th, Katie, Clara, Alli, Julia and I went down to the National Exhibition aka The Ex here in Toronto. It is not easy explaining what exactly The Ex is... It's part your typical fair: there are rides to go in, lots of greasy doughy fried food to eat, basketballs to throw and little plastic ducks to catch so as to you get your hands on an oversized stuffed animal, all that good stuff. There were a bunch of circus acts going on as well: we saw a man being shot out of a canon, some "extreme" aerial stuff by people on skis and snowboards, an ice skating show with some Cirque du Soleil appeal...
Another part of the Ex seemed more like a tribute to Canada: some areas were just plain educational! Then there's the food building: a huge space with at least a hundred different food stands (burgers, perogies, pita, frozen yoghurt, fish & chips, all sorts of Asian food, Greek salads, subs...). Most of our time, though, was spent inside these large halls with stands from all over the world. Egyptian rugs, Chinese kimonos, Belgian diamonds, Swiss chocolate, Mexican handwoven bags, Kenyan sculptures, you name it. The weather was gorgeous all day and the spirits high - though I have to admit people watching was half the fun. Other than the most blatant fashion disasters, there were little kids to entertain us. One feisty tantrum-throwing little girl was told by her mom "You're four! Start acting like it!" (she is, you looney) and this 8-year old boy stormed away from his parents with an all too sincere and teary "Thanks for ruining my life!". Aaah, childhood.

The next day Clara and I enjoyed our last moments together in true Sex and the City style with brunch at Fran's - delicious pancakes and tea, just the fare I needed to get me through the 5-hour long busride to Ottawa. On Wednesday then, my friend John, his grandad Jerry and wife Bev and me took off to the US border. As had been predicted by the embassy, I was fingerprinted (and assured by the officer I had "very beautiful prints"...ummm, thanks?), photographed and had to pay a small visa fee. Nothing too bad really, though it still felt funny. That being done with, we drove on to Burlington, Vermont. The weather was grey and rainy, as the last remains of the hurricane spread out over the country. I took some pictures from when we were on an hour-long ferry ride across a lake - I'll try and post some later. After checking into the hotel (http://www.vtanchorageinn.com) John and I went downtown to find ourselves some dinner and ended up in a place called "Ruben James". We struck up conversation with Chris and Paul, two young gentlemen who worked for a tabacco chewing company. The answer to my question whether chewing is better for you than smoking was "I'm not a doctor". Right. Fun guys, though. Burlington is usually a bustling college town, but with school not really kicking off until next week, it was pretty dead. So back to the hotel we went, where a laptop and a stack of DVDs awaited.

The next morning, the four of us walked down to Church Street to check out some stores (student towns have the best clothing & second hand book stores) and enjoy a delicious bagel breakfast. We set off for Haverhill, Massachusetts - where John's aunt lives - and this day, unlike the previous one, was gorgeous: lots of sun, blue skies. Upon arrival in Haverhill, John's dad told us that John's sister Heather and her boyfriend Clayton had been in an accident and wouldn't arrive for another few hours. Only in North-America: those poor souls had hit a DEAR with their car! They were driving along around 8 PM, in the dark, and all of a sudden the animal jumped out in front of them. Thankfully, their airbags deployed and they're both as good as unharmed, but the emotional shock (not to mention the material damage to the car) was obviously huge. Scary stuff.

On Friday John, Heather, Clayton and I took the train into Boston - what a city! So much character, I love it. I really does mean something to be "from Boston" and I don't just mean talking like a gangster (Matt Damon does a pretty mean accent in "Good Will Hunting"). We packed as much action as we could into one day, taking a trolley tour through the city, a boat cruise along the river, visiting the Museum of Fine Arts (with a stunning Ansel Adams photography exhibit, www.anseladams.com, as well as beautiful Flemish paintings), walking down Boston Commons (the shopping area) and last but not least catching a Red Sox game!(http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/index.jsp?c_id=bos). The game was supposedly seld out (The Bo Sox and the NY Yankees are the only baseball teams whose last 200 games have been completely sold out), but we scored some tickets from a guy off the street. Sketchy stuff, but hey, it got us in! Outfield, obviously, but Fenway Park is such a small arena there are really no bad seats. Very random: John offered me a beer and when I declined, he said "And you call yourself Belgian..." to which the guy sitting next to us turns around and goes "Did you say Belgian?". Turns out him and his wife met there, and that she grew up in Leefdaal and speaks Flemish fluently!
After the game (which the Sox lost...), John and I met up with Heather and Clayton at a sports bar with a great atmosphere. So great in fact, that we lost track of time and only barely caught the last train out of town. Running down the street in flip flops...not the greatest.

In order to prep my pasty Belgian skin for the wedding, I joined the entire wedding party for a day at Hampton Beach (http://www.hamptonbeach.org/) in New Hampshire (my list of states visited is getting so much longer, I love it) on Saturday. The water is FREEZING (it honestly physically hurts to touch it), so I spent most of my time walking up and down the beach, checking out some stores and reading magazines - so relaxing. We all went out for seafood (John's dad's treat) and then headed back to the hotel to get ready for the 6 o'clock ceremony. Weddings are the best: great outfits, funny speeches, all things awkward and embarrassing. Again, I hope to post some pictures at a later time. I got to talking with the bride's boss of 18 years, Joe, who introduced me to Evert, his Dutch sidekick, and Evert's wife Joyce. Seriously, no escaping the Dutch speakers this weekend. There was lots of chatting, quite a bit of eating, some dancing, good times.

On Sunday, John and I drove back in one go (about 7 and a half hours) all the way to Ottawa. Everything at the border went smoothly, and the drive was stunning: New York State especially is classic travel guide. Deep red wooden barns, rusty cars, trees as far as the eye can see with hints of yellow (it is definitely the end of summer) - it was all very "Stand By Me".

I took the second bus back to Toronto on Monday and arrived here in the afternoon. Theresa was so kind as to help me move my things into my very own room in res. That's right, I now have a place to call my own. I'm on the eighth floor, with a window facing West, lots of storage space, a desk and a bed. The room's pretty bare for now, but I'm sure that as the weeks progress, more and more knicknacks will find their way onto the shelves. I'll be living with five other girls, and so far I've met two: Anna, who's parents are Polish, and Tina. They both seem really nice (if disconcertingly pretty) so that's cool. It's going to be a stressful week with signing up for a gazillion things, but things should settle down before too long. I guess the summer's really over now, which is too bad, but at least I can look back at it with utter satisfaction. I met up with old friends (several times in fact!), explored Toronto, visited Ottawa and New England... It's been beautiful.

Time out

2005-09-06T08:06:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a wonderful trip to the US of A and I have a gazillion things to talk about, heaps of emails to reply to, lots of pictures to show...I also have zero time to do so. My creditcard has given up on me at the worst possible time, and it's my first day with an actual address so I have several offices to visit. Boo on that, but it's gotta get done. So, in short, I'm going to have to spend today and tomorrow running around and getting the job done - I will update and email as soon as I have the time (and umm...the money). Lovin'!

TOkyo + lONdon = TOrONto

2005-08-28T18:22:00.000-07:00

Today, I fell in love with Toronto all over again. The past few days it had seemed like an overcrowded, insensitive jungle...and then an area like Kensington Market comes along. Located right by Chinatown, Clara and I walked past dozens of Asian food stalls with fresh fruit (Coconuts with a straw, anyone?) and vegetables (most of which look entirely unfamiliar). I felt like I was in the streets of Tokyo: the heat and humidity, Asian faces wherever you look, and DVD's being thrown at you (four for 20 CAD) of movies that are currently in theatres: Mr and Mrs Smith, The Skeleton Key, Madagascar...so funny.

Kensington Market itself reminded me of Camden Town in London: a hippie atmosphere, lots of vegetarian restaurants, second hand clothing stores and a very eclectic crowd. Clara and I each bought a piece of jewelry from a very sweet Indian woman who recommended The Big Fat Burrito for lunch. This place makes only burritos (about 5 different kinds) but they were - as the lady had promised us - divine. Just spicy enough, ultra fresh vegetables, so good. The second picture shows our view: no glass in the windows, so all the funky noises (there are bands everywhere, jazz, jembe, you name it) just flowed right in.

Tired from walking around, we popped into Fran's (a Happy Days style diner on College Street) for some frozen yoghurt and walked up Yonge. About half way, a man with a blind person's cane was standing on a street corner yelling out "Can someone help me please". Like everyone else, we initially passed him by - he looked pretty scruffy and beggars line the streets here. But when I looked over my shoulder and noticed his increasing frustration as well as the fact that he wasn't holding a cup, I decided to walk back and ask him what he needed. Turned out all he wanted was to cross Yonge. Grateful though he was for my help, he begged me not to touch him ("I'll take your arm, I'll take yours, please don't touch me, whatever you do") and asked me if there was an adult with me (Ha! I gotta work on lowering my voice...). I don't know, I feel bad that nobody else stopped. I've never given money to anyone on the street and I've already become indifferent to their pleas, but it seems that Torontonians make such a habit out of blocking people out that a blind man is left on his own. I'm not trying to be holier-than-thou here, I guess my underlying and selfish thought is "Will there be someone for me at a time when I'm the one in need of help?"

Spring Rolls 4 ever

2005-08-28T18:05:00.000-07:00

My apologies for the lack of updates, I've come down with a pretty bad cold (I blame the ridiculous airconditioning) and I've been feeling pretty woozy. In addition, I think we may have overdosed on Toronto the past couple of weeks. We've been walking for miles and miles, going to bed too late...it was bound to catch up with us eventually. So taking it easy for a little while, doing the stuff regular life is made of like laundry, grocery shopping, watching a movie, lounging at home.

Nonetheless, I'm still eager to get to know this city as well as I can so on Thursday I convinced the girls we had to go check out St. Lawrence Market. The market is famous on its own, but this weekend there was a festival going on there called Buskerfest, which made the experience all the more fun. In between stands with scarves, clothes, jewelry and food, buskers did their thing: magicians, dancers, jugglers... The weather was gorgeous and we all found something cute, so all in all a very succesful day. For dinner, we went to a restaurant that is part of the Spring Rolls chain (I'm still getting used to the fact that few restaurants here are actually unique and independently owned). Delicous Asian food (I had a curry pad thai and ginger tea) for ridiculously cheap prices. And the best part is that the restaurant looks very swanky! The design is minimalistic (but not cool) and tight, and I felt seriously underdressed, but the staff was ultra friendly. Okay, I understand this sounds like a review, but we were all very enthousiastic about our meal and I want to spread the wealth!

At the end of the day

2005-08-24T19:43:00.000-07:00

I met up with Genee "latest addition" from Friday night, walked down Yonge Street (picture 1) to Queen Street (picture 2) - Black Market visit no. 3 - and had dinner at the Shanghai Cowgirl (picture 3) with her and Kristian. I walked back home, which is quite the walk, especially on flipflops but I just felt like taking in the city. I definitely understand why some people despise Toronto, but so far it's still on my good side. Yeah, it's busy and crazy but that's exactly what I expected. Not just expected, it's what I sought out. I chose to come here to experience metropolitan life with all its perks and side effects, its fast pace and rude people, everything everything everything.

The Beach Girls

2005-08-24T19:34:00.000-07:00

Then in the afternoon we went all the way South East to the beach! Sand, clear water, gorgeous water side houses...this city has it all. Notice the CN Tower way on the left.

Fresh Wednesday

2005-08-24T19:29:00.000-07:00

This morning, Katie, Clara and I went (sorry, I'm too tired to think of original or witty intros) to Nathan Philips Square (with the famous city hall) for "Fresh Wednesday" - a market with flowers, fruit, vegetables and...a live jazz band!

Water ballet

2005-08-24T19:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday night, Katie, Clara and I went to the Harbourfront Center for a free show of the National Ballet of Canada. Notice the harbour to the right and the CN tower to the left of the stage... Gorgeous setting, shame about the huge crowd and the less-than-stellar view.

Strike a pose

2005-08-23T13:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a calm day. Our highlight was a visit to House Of Lords for haircuts. This is Clara and me in Theresa's living room...in front of the fan. Clara's friend Katie came over and the four of us had a delicious (and vegetarian) curry (with a side salad) and then indulged in eight Sex and the City episodes in a row. Today was a tad more serious with me writing a resume and sending it out to the U of T bookstore hoping for a part-time job as a cashier/clerk. On verra!

Puppy love

2005-08-21T21:38:00.000-07:00

This is Mike's husky/labrador Mason, adopted by the De Rose family only a few months ago from a pound. It's gorgeous and playful and affectionate and sweet - worthy of his very own post. Miss you, buddy...

Rocking out

2005-08-21T18:21:00.000-07:00

Clara and I just got back from a fabulous weekend in Rockwood - where Mike De Rose's parents have the most gorgeous house. I felt like I was on MTV Cribs: the house is GINORMOUS, decorated and colour coordinated like a five star hotel and surrounded by a huge property. Mike's girlfriend Theresa, his buddies Cam and Nick and newly engaged couple Becky and James all came down for a bbq, fun and games - the fridge was full, the spirits high and by God there will be a day when I can call myself a Rockwood resident.

Steppin' out

2005-08-20T06:58:00.000-07:00

Man, what a night. After having introduced Clara to the beauty that is Queen Street West and being caught in a sudden downpour, we walked East on Maitland to the National Ballet School. Clara's friend Katie attends a Toronto dance school and tipped us off about "this amazing dancer" we absolutely had to see. The dancer in question is Peggy Baker, nee Smith, who is in her fifties (but has the face and body of a 24-year old) and her solo performance was mindblowing. She had worked together with a woman called Sarah Chase in creating the choreography "The Disappearance of Right and Left". Sarah asked Peggy to give her a memory and a movement from every year of her life and a dance-story was born from these memories. The performance was held in a bare studio with hard wooden floors and a high ceiling. Peggy was by herself, dressed in simple navy blue, her hair pulled back. Sometimes there was music, sometimes you could only hear the shuffle of her feet and her breathing. Sometimes she paused and told her audience a story, a memory.

There was the story about her Scottish great-great grandfather, William McDonald. His mother passed away three days after giving birth to him and his father, overwhelmed by the presence of this helpless infant, asked the woman who lived nextdoor to care for it. Not until William was 10 years old did he come back for him. His surrogate mother had dressed him up in his nicest clothes and collected his few possessions, tied in brown paper with string. Before the horse carriage left the property, William told his father he did not want to leave his family...and he never did. The family adopted the little boy and renamed him William Murray.

There was the story about Peggy as a nine-year old, drawing the year 1961 on the sidewalk with chalk over and over again, because if she did it right, the number was identical whichever way you looked at it.

There was the story of her grandmother's brothers Norman and Angus. After the Murray family moved from Scotland to Edmonton, Canada, WWI broke out and the two oldest boys enlisted. Angus was killed in action, Norman was MIA. Until a telegram arrived to announce that N. Murray had been found dead. The boys' mother refused to believe it was her son: surely Murray was a very common name. Surely N. was a very common initial. Desperate to find her son, she placed an ad in the newspaper asking for any information on her son Norman, and someone reacted. A young man, who was a stretch barer in the war, had seen her son badly hurt in a trench, sitting across from a German soldier. When the allied troops wanted to take him to a medical aid post, Norman, who was convinced he wouldn't make it, urged them to save the German soldier instead. By the time the medical team came back, he had succumbed. When Norman's mother heard this story, surrounded by her remaining children, she urged all of them: give your children three first names, so it is easy to find them if they should ever be lost.

There was the story of Peggy's New York years, when she danced in Martha Graham's school, a legendary dancer who lived to be almost a hundred. Even in the seventies, she was an old lady. She had jet black hair in a bun, dressed in all black, with long gloves to cover her arthritis ridden hands. And she was the most intimidating person Peggy's ever met. And the one who gave her a name.

There was the story of the birth of Peggy's sister's baby. A miracle in a world of laptops, coffee and cell phones.

There was the story of Peggy teaching a dance class and mimicking her students, so that when they moved their right arm, Peggy moved her left arm but called it right. After a while, she was caught in absolute confusion to find that the distinction between these two things which she had always thought were radically different had disappeared. The Disappearance of Right and Left.

Before the show started, I can't lie, I was a tad skeptical. There I was, surrounded by "daaaahncers" who move their bodies in that trademark way and by artsy folk with ubertrendy haircuts. After the show, everyone, including myself, was in tears. I gave Clara a hug and started sobbing. Even today I don't know what sparked it, but Peggy touched such fundamental aspects of the condition humaine that all of us in that room felt connected in what we were watching and listening to. I saw my family, on the other side of the planet. I saw my parents when they were newlyweds. I saw my sister's baby. I saw my grandparents and their wars. I saw myself in an airport with coffee, surrounded by people who don't understand that it is all a miracle. Amazing.

Katie, Clara and I went for drinks at a pub called O'Grady's afterward and finally found words to discuss what we had witnessed. It turned into the funnest night! O'Grady is right in the gaybourhood, so we weren't harrassed by any men, the best! Let me tell you, what you see on TV is not a lie. There are men in Village People get ups, there are drag queens, there's the high-pitched voices, the rainbow flags...unbelievable. We had Monkey's Lunch (banana, Kahlua and milk), discussed our favourite Sex and the City episodes, talked about adoption, motherhood, relationships, money, all the Big Topics. A couple of hours later, we took the subway out West and met up with my newest friend Genee and her friends Jan and Christian (all Canadian). Here's the situation: the past year, a Canadian boy called Adrian was on exchange in Leuven. The two of us met through our mutual friend John and hung out all year. Adrian then introduced me to his friend Genee - over MSN. We talked and talked and hit it off, but had never seen each other (or heard each other's voice for that matter) until last night! Luckily for us, Genee turned out to be the nicest, funnest girl. We had drinks at an awesome bar right off of Bloor first called Green Room (I love the non-smoking rule, my hair doesn't even smell right now!) and then moved on to a place called The Dance Cave. Just the right amount of people, a mixture of 80s music with some crowd pleasers (Think "Hey ya" by Outkast), some old stuff (Twist and Shout?!) and some motown (the Jackson 5!) thrown in for laughs - it was awesome. One cab ride later, we have a very memorable night under our belt.

Anywhere you look

2005-08-19T07:14:00.000-07:00

Clara and I went to explore my neighbourhood yesterday and it's lookin' good. The residence is walking distance from the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), the Shoe Museum, the campus, an internet cafe, a 24 hour grocery store, a Tim Horton's...beauty. We ventured into Honest Ed's too, a giant discount store that looks more like a fun house than anything else. Creepy.

I went by the school's career centre where I was advised to type up a resume and start handing it out to whomever I'd be interested in working with. Methings the U of T bookstore and all the libraries can expect a visit.

After another home-cooked dinner, Clara and I went down to Yonge and Dundas (www.ydsquare.ca) for a very fun rendition of Guys and Dolls. The middle section of the square, which is right by the giant Eaton Centre, surrounded by skyscrapers, billboards and flashing lights, was fenced off and filled with chairs and tables. We felt like we were sitting in a dinner theatre in the middle of Manhattan, it was the coolest thing! The performers all seemed to be in their late teens, but they had a surprisingly mature stage presence: no butched lines, no embarrassed giggles, lots of song and dance. The performance, which apparently came together in an astounding five weeks, was technically free though all donations were much appreciated. How awesome is it that you can walk down the street and run into something like this? I love this city.

La bella vita

2005-08-17T20:49:00.000-07:00

Another wonderful day in Toronto! My good friend Clara arrived at Pearson yesterday - I went to meet her and Mike was kind enough to come pick us up when the GO bus failed to. We drove straight through the buzzing financial district up to Theresa's and went out to dinner at a very decent Mexican restaurant on Yonge and Wellesley. Clara and I shared our dessert: deep fried ice cream. Tastier than you would think!

Today I dragged Clara to the Eaton Center mall where we shopped till we dropped. We cooked ourselves a nice vegetarian pasta at Theresa's and afterward met up with our friend Lorraine - who we met in Denmark - and Clara's friend Katie (who's in Toronto as a modern dancer) at the Ossington subway stop. Lorraine walked us through Little Italy...I am so impressed I want to go back there tomorrow night with my camera. There's tons of cute stores, lovely patios and trendy bars. The trees along College Street are decorated with blue, green and red Christmas lights - a brilliant atmosphere. After drinks and laughs, we took the streetcar up to Jarvis (where Katie lives) and walked home past Church Street (the core of Toronto's gaybourhood). I have this strange urge to document everything that catches my eye - high time to get myself a camera...

From O town to the T dot

2005-08-16T09:04:00.000-07:00

Call me crazy, but I actually already miss Toronto when I'm not there... Looks like it's going to be one of those love/hate relationships: when I'm there I yearn to be in Smallville ON, when I'm anywhere else I can't wait to go back.

Don't get me wrong, the weekend in Ottawa was good times. On Sunday, I went downtown again (I love how you can do that here) and indulged in some shopping and a maple syrup popsicle. Mike met up with John and I at a Scottish bar with a beautiful patio and we just sat and watched people walk, bike and rollerblade by, chalk artists at work, guys playing a game of chess. The Byward Market is such a fun neighborhood, I felt very New Yorkish walking around on my flipflops and enjoying the multicultural hustle and bustle around me. John had the stellar idea of buying some strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries at the market to enjoy with our drinks - pure bliss. The deliciousness continued later that day at the Greek Fest (http://www.ottawagreekfest.com), kind of like Taste of the Danforth last week, but smaller and more authentic. Looking around the tables, there were entire matriarchies (grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren, aunts and uncles, anywhere from 3 weeks to 98 years old) digging into the moussaka, the souvlaki and the gyros, dancing and laughing, so awesome. The cultural awareness is definitely alive and kicking in this country.

After dinner, a bunch of us went over to Mike's appartment - I finally got to meet and greet his two husky-labradors, such gorgeous animals - and hung out. After we'd downed the port and devoured the papaya Mike and Ciara had set up for us, we headed down to a bar in the Glebe neighbourhood and finished off with some drinks. I saw Krista and Cam again (ex-exchangers), and Sandro and Tom (who were up at the cottage the first weekend) and am left to conclude it is a very small world...

Rien ne va plus

2005-08-14T08:42:00.000-07:00

Time to see the nation's capital! Alli's friend Julia is kind enough to drive us up there - and to stop at a Timmie's on the way. Obviously, the main topic is men and relationships, the best. In Ottawa, we took a seat in a coffee shop/wireless internet cafe called Bridgehead, one of Alli's favorite hang out spots in the city. As we were enjoying our caffeine fix (they may or may not have been carrot cake involved), Alli's long time friend Ryan showed up. We went to the grocery store together and prepared a delicious meal in his kitchen. A few of his roommates ended up around the table and dug into our dried tomato pasta and almond salad. So tasty!

After dinner, Alli and I took a bus downtown to an area called The Market - very similar really to our Oude Markt in Leuven. All bars and cafes, lots of music, great ambiance. At Pub.101 we met up with John, Adrian (who got back to Canada from Belgium about two days ago), Mike and a couple of pitchers. Our second location was "The Rainbow", a gay bar with a stellar live band. I think they were 9 or 10 people: a phenomenal lead singer, back up singers, a drummer, a bass player, saxophonists and guitarists. The setlist was a tad cheesy but somehow perfect for that night. People were up dancing and singing along, having a few drinks, very cool. When the bar closed around 2, we didn't feel ready to go to bed yet, so we drove...to Quebec. Cause you can do that here. More specifically, we drove to a quebecois Casino!(http://www.ottawakiosk.com/casino_de_hull.html)
I'd never been to a casino before, so as soon as the plan arose, I was all about it. I played the slot machines - and didn't do too badly - and had such a good time. Just looking around you, all the people, all the lights, the fact that so many people come in KNOWING they're going to lose their money, it's such an absurd and weird place...

We all ended up crashing at John's house and went out to breakfast the next morning. Omelets, pancakes, bacon, coffee refills...I can see how North American visitors miss breakfast possibilities in Europe. Alli headed down to Bridgehead to do some work, Adrian went home and John and I walked around downtown Ottawa. We saw the changing of the guards on Parliament Hill, but for the most part just wandered around, went into some stores, had some coffee. Ottawa definitely has an entirely different vibe than Toronto. I know it's the weekend and it's sunny out which makes a big difference, but it still comes across as smaller, calmer, and more relaxed. People take their time to go for a run or a bike ride, there's a gazillion lovely little bars and cafes and restaurants, stunning century old houses with white porches, it's a place for people with a flair for la bella vita. I get a feeling that it has an older soul than Toronto does.

After a delicious meal at John's house, we drove down to the LCBO. This government owned store, which closes at nine, is the only place where you can buy alcohol in Ontario (Quebec has slightly different laws). It's not like a night shop at all, it's actually very clean, and nice, more like a Vini France type store. The reason for this debauchery? A beautiful summer evening out on the patio with a few glasses of red wine, crickets chirping and a group of friends (Alli, John, Mike, Ciara, Heather and Ashley) talking the night away.

It's a jungle out there

2005-08-11T18:56:00.000-07:00

I left Theresa's appartment this morning to walk over to Second Cup (a coffee chain that is not Starbucks) for a Chai Latte - very delicious stuff. When I came back into the building, I had to wait for someone to come out as I have a key to the appartment proper, but not to the building as a whole. While I was waiting, a black man in his twenties joined me. As a woman who did have a buzzer walked into the building, we both moved in behind her, but she refused to let us in. "If you were residents, you'd have a buzzer". She shut the door behind her and we were left waiting for the next person. Weird coincidence, the exact same situation was used in a Seinfeld episode I caught just last week. Anyway, we did both get in in the end, but the guy especially was pretty upset about the whole thing. He was convinced it was a racist thing. I get where the woman is coming from: there is a lock on that door for a reason, namely to protect the residents. Anyone who doesn't have a key is technically suspect. And yet...it was 11 in the morning. And she was the first person to not let me in. Was that to do with the guy's skin colour? Is it a coincidence that the only black people I saw at the Skydome yesterday were the ones behind the counter at Mr Sub?

Anywho, I went to Toronto Zoo this afternoon! We saw polar bears, grizzly bears, pythons, leopards, cougars, bison and a whole lot of other animals. I share Alli's ambiguous sentiment about zoos: is this what nature has been reduced to, sad beings in small cages and "Please do not tap the glass" terraria? The real reason we were there though, was for the Ron Sexsmith show (www.ronsexsmith.com). Yeah, I'd never heard of him either, until John mentioned his name a few months ago. Apparently his genius has been recognized by none other than Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello, but commercial success....not so much. He's good though, I'm impressed. It was a small concert, couldn't have been more than 250 people, and that sits really well with me. His tone reminded me a lot of my Travis cd, The Invisible Band. There's a lot of lost love and broken hearts going on, but he brings a sincerity and a hopefulness to his music which prevents it from becoming a pityfest. He mentioned a gig at Massey Hall in Toronto in April, and I'm definitely going to try and score tickets for that.

I received an email today from my friend Marieke who left for Ethiopia a couple of days ago, and another one from Andrea who recently returned to the USA after teaching in Japan for a year. It is striking that once people decide to pack up and leave (Marieke was in Denmark with me, Andrea was an exchange student in Leuven a few years ago) it becomes so much easier for them to keep wandering the world. Maybe it's not even a matter of easy, maybe it's an addiction. Once you've had a taste, checking out the grass behind one hill is not enough anymore. You have experienced first hand how much more rewarding life is when you perceive it as a challenge rather than a routine. And so you jump into the deep end, and you get on that plane even though you don't speak Japanese, and even though you're not sure if anyone will be waiting for you at the Ethiopian airport. Love it.

Take me to the ball park

2005-08-10T19:45:00.000-07:00

The ridiculously hot summer continues and so do ridiculously fun summer activities! I'm back in Toronna after having spend a couple of days at Alli's house in Bowmanville. Sounds silly, but I was so glad to be back there. The quiet neighbourhood, the pool, the homeliness of it all - hard to come by in the city. I spent most of my Monday relaxing, re-packing and trying to keep my body temperature lower than 40 degrees (yes, Canada does Celcius). Around 7, Alli, Jeff and I went out to dinner with Steph. She lives in Bowmanville, but we originally met back in Leuven in May or June 2003. For those of you who watch the show Sex and The City, she scores high in the Samantha range: she's gorgeous, hilarious and hooked on Cosmopolitans (she can even do the trick with the tongue and the cherry). We went to a place called Bobby C's at the Bowmanville marina. Bobby C's website...ummm...seems to be...down temporarily, but to give you an image: Dawson's Creek. So wonderful setting, wonderful food and drinks.

On Tuesday, Alli showed me some more hidden gems of the area and took me a coffee place called The Velvet Elvis. Does't look like much from the outside, just a narrow house with an "Yes, we're open!" sign. Once you walk in, though, you're in a different world alltogether. The walls are painted in a myriad of colours, the furniture is extremely retro, the reading very anti-consumerist (think www.Adbusters.org) as is the coffee (you pay for a mug that you can refill as often as you like). Should you get hungry, there's delicious salads and sandwiches (all organic) at your disposal, but basically...you're left alone. Just find yourself a comfortable couch, grab a book or your laptop and you can hang out there for as long as you please. Very cool.
Of course, anti-consumerism will only take you so far, so after we dropped Jarrod off at work, we headed down to Oshawa Mall and spent a good couple of hours consuming (if mostly with our eyes) like the best of 'm.

Why do I find myself back in smoggy Toronto? My friend Mike offered me a great ticket to a Blue Jays game, that's why! His girlfriend Theresa and I went down to the Skydome yesterday night to see the Toronto Blue Jays kick some Detroit Tiger butt (that's baseball for the poorly uninformed *cough*). I don't know what it is about big sporting events like this, but even though I know next to nothing about pretty much any ball sport, I always get caught up. Maybe it's the music, maybe it's the masses (there were 24623 other people present) but hearing the national anthem gave me goosebumps and when Orlando Hudson made that ninth inning his own, I was sincerely proud and excited. One thing I do love about baseball is that it's a pretty laid-back sport. People arrive late, people leave their seats (Pizza Pizza is never far away) and come back and it's all good. There's snack men (I'm not being derogatory, it says "Snack Man" on their shirts) running up and down the steps, yelling and no one tells them to be quiet, so nice. The Bud Light guys especially were a riot: "Beeeeeeer, get your overpriced beer here!", "Who wants a cold beer, see the game through the eyes of the umpire!", "Just when you thought you'd sobered up again, heeeeeere's more beer, who wants some?". Good times on the 18th row.

Tasty Toronto

2005-08-07T17:58:00.000-07:00

The movie we decided on is called "Waking Life" (www.wakinglifemovie.com) - I can recommend it to anyone who's tired of predictable Hollywood crap. You won't hear me saying it's the best movie ever, but it's worth checking out if only for the animation style. The pizza we decided on had pineapple and green peppers on it.

This morning, Mike drove me over to Theresa's (not his girlfriend, other Theresa who was in Denmark in 2003). He drove me...even though Theresa lives on my street. That's North America for ya! Killing two birds with one stone there, as Jenny (a British girl who was also in DK in 2003) happens to be in town this week and is staying at Theresa's. The three of us went out for breakfast at the most typical diner with coffee refills, maple syrup pancakes, a grouchy waitress, a line of men wearing trucker hats sitting at the counter, so good. Theresa told me all about the semester she spent in Kiev, Ukraine. Not too long after she arrived there the election madness broke out (it's sad how fast that was out of the news. Come on, go ahead and admit you'd forgotten all about that), so it was a very exciting time for her and a good opportunity, if not the best possible, to get to know the heart and soul of this country.

We subwayed down to Chester where we met up with Alli, Jarrod, Julia Danos (a college friend of Alli's, I met her when she travelled across Southern Europe last summer) and three of Julia's friends. Julia's dad is Greek so she was the perfect guide for the Taste of the Danforth (www.tasteofthedanforth.com) on Danforth Avenue. Toronto not only has a Chinatown and a Korean neighbourhood, there's a Greek area as well! In a "celebration of multiculturalism", all the restaurants on this avenue offer cheap food and not so cheap booze in food stalls on the street. It was boiling hot today though, so we followed Julia into a Greek restaurant she frequently goes to (we had very little trouble getting a table even though it was super busy...) and enjoyed a delicious souvlaki. We spent the afternoon walking up and down the avenue, enjoying the hustle and bustle and finished off with a cool Stella (yeay!) in a ridiculously expensive lounge (read: regular bar with a white and black colour pattern. Very posh, except that sitting on leather seats with over 30 temperatures is not so good for the sweating of the buttocks). I'm back in Bowmanville now for a few days and I can honestly say I'm relieved to be. Toronto is a lot to handle, and after three days there I was ready for some suburban relaxation. I just took a long hot bubble bath, scrubbed the city smog and Greek bbq filth off me and can go to bed feeling very satisified with this summer life I'm living...

Sunset at the lake

2005-08-07T16:40:00.000-07:00

Check groups.msn.com/SofieRycken for other pictures.

Picture perfect

2005-08-07T16:29:00.000-07:00

Mike just sent me a bunch of pictures from the cottage weekend so I thought I'd post some of my favorites. This one has me on the right, with Alli and Jarrod enjoying the sunset.

Queen for a day

2005-08-06T16:32:00.000-07:00

My second visit to Toronto! I'm here for the weekend, staying at Theresa's (Mike De Rose's girlfriend) right downtown. Alli dropped me off at the GO station, I cruised over, took the subway down to Bloor and Yonge and there I was, pig in the city. It was pretty obvious I was new to the T dot: big backpack, a map in my hands and my looking around me like a modern day Dorothy on the yellow brick road. I asked a police officer for directions and before too long, I was chatting away on Theresa's couch and enjoying a beautiful view of the city. I spent my afternoon walking down to Queen Street (and back), the main shopping street here. So many people smiled (back) at me, because I was grinning like an idiot the whole time - what a city! Queen Street is awesome. There's gothic vintage stores right by super girly prom dress stores, second hand book stores, faux-Euro coffee shops with uber-American hot dog stands in front where stern business men in power suits are waiting in line right behind a teenage girl, a construction guy with a yellow hard hat and an elderly Asian man, mixture mixture mixture. I picked up a Jack Johnson album (the newest one) for only 10 bucks, bought a purse for only 5 and found a very cool internet cafe. A lot of buildings here house two or more stores, so in order to get to the first floor, you have to go up a narrow flight of stairs, which is a tad sketchy and never fails to make me think bad things about what awaits me, but so far I've always ended up in a large, airy, light room.
After all that walking (in the smoggy heat) I hung out at Theresa's until Mike came home - we had tea and talked for hours about all sorts of things. There's nothing better than seeing people again and having them be exactly who you remembered them to be and more.

I slept in the living room, enjoying the gorgeous sunset and sunrise, and went out to a place called 7 West for breakfast (http://www.dine.to/7west), right across the street. Theresa, Mike and I made our way down Yonge street - heaps of fun stores, restaurants, grocery stores as well as gay bars, adult video stores, internet cafes, coffee shops, and the Eaton Shopping Center where a super nice guy called Richard helped me choose a cell phone, so I'm finally reachable! It feels nice. We're setting up a nice, homey pizza-and-a-movie night...

Timmie's

2005-08-04T18:17:00.000-07:00

Seeing as several people have asked me about Tim Horton's, here's a little lowdown. Timmie's is a very popular chain, you find one on every street corner. They serve delicious coffee (I'm hooked on their iced cappucino, or "ice cap"), as well as team pop, sandwiches (BLT, vegetarian...), muffins, cookies, yogurt, donuts, soup, you name it. I have a feeling I'll be spending a lot of time in the one on my block.

Of small towns and big cities

2005-08-04T10:25:00.000-07:00

As all the Larshes left for a productive day at work on Tuesday, I hung out at the house (with backyard pool!) and biked down to the centre of Bowmanville. The weather is insane, I'm pretty sure we crossed the 35 degree mark, so I didn't cruise around for too long, but it was cool to see the town. It's very Smalltown Americana: barber shops, grocery stores, a bank, lots of benches and flowers. Alli took me to the mall later, which is an entirely different story: Esprit, GAP, American Eagle, Old Navy, you name it, it's there. The clothes and shoes all looked a lot more European than I expected: kitten heels, boho chic, it's all there. But in Alli's words "People here have the possibilities to dress well, they just...don't". Saw lots of nice clothes and one gorgeous bag that I may go back for and had frozen yoghurt for the first time in my life. Vanilla with crushed oreo cookies - tasty stuff. The plan was to get a cell phone too, but that is proving to be quite the task. For one, it is crazy expensive here and for two I'm not eligible for a contract because I'm not a Canadian citizen. Lame.

Yesterday then, I saw my first bit of Toronto! Alli's neighbour Laura - a very cool 30something who's lived in France, England, Thailand and Australia - gave us a ride into town around eleven. She dropped us off at a subway station, so we cruised down to the St George stop. Had lunch at Timmie's, of course, and then found our way to the U of T campus. Gorgeous buildings, lots of Alpha Kappa Whatever frat houses, lots of bikes. I got myself a U of T student card and health insurance, and then we headed down to St Patrick's, where Alli and her brother Jeff will be sharing a condo the coming year. Basically...she lives in a hotel. There's a lobby, security guards, a pool, a sauna and exercise room, a solarium, it's a sweet sweet deal. After checking out the condo, Alli's parents took us out to dinner at a Thai restaurant in the midst of Chinatown. It's the funniest neighbourhood, even the street signs are in some sort of Asian alphabet! There's one restaurant after the other, hundreds of them, and food stalls with pineapples, mangos, cashews, coconuts aligned along all the streets. Can't wait to go shopping there! The dinner was delicious, and I like to think quite healthy too...

Tartu college, where I should move in come September, is located in an awesome neighbourhood: very central, lots of shops and coffee houses, lots of restaurants too. It's right by the campus and only about a 15 minute walk from Alli's place, super close to the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario. One thing I do already love about Toronto is that it's not an intimidating city. It's huge alright, and there's heaps of skyscrapers but there's also plenty of normal sized 19th century style houses that give the place an older, more laidback kind of vibe. I didn't feel overwhelmed or anonymous, it seems like a place where you could feel very much at home. The one thing that is different in a bad sense is the amount of sketchy people: stringed out homeless people asking for change or to wash your car - very much not present in Leuven.

After going back to Bowmanville and going for a swim - so...hot - Alli and I went to a bar called Banshee's. Predictably I had a hard time convincing the bouncer to let me in. I didn't feel comfortable carrying my passport around, so I took my identity card instead which he didn't think was 'real'. Sigh. After a long Q & A round, I got in, grabbed a drink and entertained myself watching people. This was a college bar, so I got a good look at the average Canadian 19-year old. If you're a guy, you'll have moussed hair, a chunky necklace, a white t-shirt with either a polo shirt or a button down shirt with stripes over it, baggy jeans and flip flops. Your name is Mike or Steve. If you're a girl, you will have pretty much no clothes on, far too much make-up and peroxide blonde hair. Smoking is not allowed in bars here, it took me a while to figure out what was so different about this bar: you can see people! Tonight, we're going to a place called Hank's - better get that miniskirt out.

Oh Canada!

2005-08-01T18:07:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I'm here. But I am! I just got back from a weekend at Alli's cottage by Lake Weslemkoon and it was a wonderful wonderful bubble to be in. There were twelve of us up there and we filled our days with the most relaxed non-planned super fun activities: we barbequed, sat around the fire, played poker, went on boat rides, went wakeboarding and cliff jumping, smoked, sat in the hammock, napped and swam all weekend long. What a way to push the awful journey to the back of my mind: finally familiar faces, kind questions, gorgeous scenery... I felt so looked after all the time I was up there. I know this is not what my entire year is going to be like: there will be shitty situations, unfriendly people, bad weather, all of that. But at least now I know for sure that I have a bunch of friends I can rely on for good times, for comfort and reassurance. And that I love Tim Horton's iced cappucino.

It's Friday...and I'm still in Europe

2005-08-01T17:40:00.000-07:00

What is going on?? Every flight I've ever been on went super smoothly and this time, I'm having the WORST luck. My dad was smart (or, as he called it, control freaky) enough to check my flights on Wednesday morning and found out that my Brussels - London flight had been cancelled. Not delayed, the flight was just GONE. We grabbed my things and sped down to Zaventem, where I was put on an earlier flight. Sounded perfect - that way I would have plenty of time at Heathrow airport! The plane was not ready to leave though for the longest time and THEN this British woman got into a fight with one of the flight attendants. When she was putting her carry on in the overhead compartment, she mentioned having to be careful "cause of the surgery". Turns out you're not allowed to fly for 10 days after having surgery "especially when you have stitches"... I didn't even want to know, but I could have punched her for stalling us EVEN MORE with her flab and her British accent and her ridiculous cell phone (she called her doctor to convince the British Airways person that she deserved not to be kicked off the plane - I beg to differ), ugh. I sat next to a really nice couple, though, a Belgian woman and her British boyfriend. Like me, they missed their connecting flight and like me, they were in line for almost three hours trying to sort out the mess. Heathrow was absolutely chaotic, with half the runways being closed down for some reason, the worst. I got rerouted over Glasgow and overheard the guy next to me being rerouted over Amsterdam - but also heading for Toronto. I went up to him and we ended up venting our frustrations on the shuttle from the airport to the hotel - his parents actually lived in Belgium for eight years, random, and he was from Montreal. It felt so nice to finally have a decent, fun conversation but I never got around to asking his name or email adress. All of a sudden we noticed that we had vouchers for different hotels, so he got off the bus and before I knew it, we had been separated.
Finding my hotel was a big pain in the ass. British bus drivers are generally immigrants who hardly speak English - which is an unfortunate situation when you have no idea which bus to take and which stop to get off at. I ended up walking through the rain but did eventually find the hotel, the room and the free dinner. I called Alli and then my parents to tell them what happened, took a shower and went to bed, but I hardly slept a wink. I was too worried about oversleeping and the day's events were a bit much. Little did I know the next day would bring more bad news...

I got to Heathrow okay, and was waiting at the gate for the flight to Glasgow. I called my parents again, assured them everything would be fine...and then was told the flight had been delayed a little bit. As soon as I heard the anouncement, though, I just knew the delay would get worse and I was going to miss my flight again. Close to tears, I went over to the BA desk but all they could tell me was to get to Glasgow and take it from there. Predictably, by the time I got to Scotland, my plane had left. Glasgow is a much friendlier airport than Heathrow, though, and the BA representative had such a cute Scottish accent that I didn't even get upset. I checked into the Holiday Inn across the street (tartan everywhere!), emailed home again and then started a quest for my luggage...

Countdown

2005-07-27T00:40:00.000-07:00

Only a few more hours before I take off. Man, it's been a wonderful last week. I got (almost) everything crossed off my list and spent quite a bit of time with my loved ones & Uberfriends. Home-made smoothies, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, pancakes, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Ghent (I still have gorgeous images in my head of everyone dancing under the red & yellow lampoons), spending a day at the spa, making beautiful music and finally having a small goodbye moment. My friend Adrian commented how surprisingly calm I was yesterday (compared to my usual self) and I suppose he's right. I don't know, it's hard to stress so close to the moment of truth: I have my ticket, I'm going to be boarding that plane and I'm going to be arriving - probably. It has not dawned on me yet what I'm about to start. I know this because I don't feel as sad as someone who's about to leave for a year generally feels, it's as though this is all a bit of a joke and I'll see everyone again in a few weeks.

I got an email from Alli wishing me a good trip that made me so happy. It's really nice to go from goodbye hugs to welcome hugs (what is it that we like about hugs so much? The fact that there needs to be a basic sense of trust between two people to have a proper hug? The fact that it is an affirmation of your physical presence? The hint of sexuality? I don't know. They're nice, though). I'm quite a physical person and I know by experience that I crave hugs even more in times of emotional/psychological insecurity. So thank you to all the huggers! Cheers.

The next time someone's teaching why don't you get taught?

2005-07-22T05:42:00.000-07:00

In an attempt - idle, I'm sure - to show that I do occupy my time with serious and respectable activities as well, here's some of the classes I'll be taking next year:

- Social Theory through Popular Culture (Theories of culture and society, with examples from North America and global popular culture) - very much looking forward to this one.

- Metropolis: Global Cities (The role of culture, cultural diversity, space and performance in urban institutions and settings. The cultural context and consequence of urbanization) - also looks insanely interesting, especially with regards to the issue of social control & (sexual) ethics.

- Anthropology of Food (Social anthropological perspective on the nature and meaning of food production, culinary cultures, industrial food, food as metaphor, and famine and hunger) - hope the prof makes the connection to the link between feminism & anorexia.

- History of Images (The apparatus, the character, and the significance of an increasing volume of images, in particular of the body, since 1800 in Europe and North America. Introduction to concerns of cultural history: power and knowledge; self and identity; gender and sexuality; class, age, and race; and the pursuit of pleasure) - 'nuff said.

- Literature and Film: Issues of Adaptation (Cinematic readings of epic and lyric poetry, folk tale, biblical narrative, novel, short story. The focus will be on cross-cultural translation in a wide variety of cinematic styles and forms, including classic Hollywood film, animation, film noir, neo-realism, surrealist film) - not sure what to expect here, but looks promising.

- Language and Power Structure (The role of language and symbolism in the representation and manipulation of ideology and power structure. Case materials drawn from the study of verbal arts, gender, law, ethnic relations, consumption patterns, advertising, and politics with a focus on North America) - That means you, George.

Celebrity smut

2005-07-22T03:52:00.000-07:00

On popular demand: my list of websites about celebrities to lose hours of time on.

The basics:
- Www.people.com: updated daily, lots of pictures. First website to check out.
- Www.eonline.com: as seen on the E! channel - i particularly like the Fashion Police & Tab Fab.

UK:
- Www.hellomagazine.co.uk: good source for British celeb life, but a very neutral & politically correct website. Info, but no opinions (and so relatively little smut)
- Www.femail.co.uk: All the British smut your heart desires! Main focus: the photo galleries.

USA:
- Www.usatoday.com: there's a blog in the Life section with lots of great links (lots of them to brand new songs or music videos) you won't find on any other website. Has both Britney as well as "high" pop culture.
- Www.cnn.com: Entertainment section isn't updated nearly often enough.
- Www.defamer.com: an pseudo-intellectual gossip website, consists of only links.

Gossip:
- Www.thesuperficial.com & www.idontlikeyouinthatway.com: twin sites, I have the impression the authors got into a fight and have gone their separate ways...yet they continue to post largely the same pictures & comments. Hilarious stuff though.
- Www.celebritysmack.blogspot.com: a blog, so not super professional, but has some great posts.
- Www.junkfeud.blogspot.com: updated very regularly. I like this one a lot, especially cause the girl who writes it shares my hatred toward Kirsten Dunst and my undying love for Jake Gyllenhaal.

Fashion:
- Www.gofugyourself.com: the best source for fashion fun.
- Www.instyle.com & www.style.com: don't feel like buying a magazine that is 65% ads? Just go to these websites & you'll get the core info.

TV:
- Www.zap2it.com: some fun photo galleries & lots of info on American tv shows.

Movies:
- Www.movies.com: the best source for trailers, interviews & buzz. A must for film fanatics.
- Www.mrcranky.com: movie reviews that are often on the dot.

Going Dutch

2005-07-16T14:07:00.000-07:00

Just got back from my weekend in Amsterdam - get ready for some superlatives! From what people had told me, I had an image of Amsterdam (yes, this was my first ever visit to the city, shame on me, I know) as gritty and anonymous. What I found, however, was a very lovable and overseeable place. Would I want to live there? I'd be okay with it, but I'm not eager to. Would I go there again? Definitely.

On our first day, my friend and I went to the Museum of Modern Art which we both felt lacked substance. Doing unconventional things? Go for it. Being selfrighteously "different"? Not art. We started exploring the city, just walking at random, and saw heaps of gorgeous little places. There's something about water - whether it be a sea, an ocean, a lake or canals - that jazzes things up. We had lunch on a bridge, shopped all afternoon, took in the sights and sounds of people walking, talking, cycling, buying, selling, yelling, whispering & breakdancing, and ended up in Vondelpark. Tired from walking, we found a nice place near a lake, dropped our stuff and chilled out for a couple of hours. Impossible to get bored in an environment with so many different people around. There's couples having picnics, American students playing hackey sack, teenage girls chatting and giggling, a half-naked hippie just...sitting there, hip hop looking guys hanging out, economy students arguing over the future of the Euro, women pushing strollers, elderly couples engaged in conversation and walking their dogs. Amsterdam is definitely mellow (I wonder why that is...) but I love the fact that the mellowness appears to be sincere. The city is - wish I could use a different word as this one has been overused - multicultural & diverse and everyone truly is okay with that. People strut around with confidence, and somehow everyone seems to fit the picture perfectly - regardless of what you look like and what you're doing.

Around eight o'clock we met up with Sara & Robbie, which was one of the best things about this entire weekend. When I turned the corner of Leidseplein and saw them standing a little further, their arms wrapped around each other, I felt butterflies all through my body. As soon as I hugged them and we started talking, it felt as familiar as ever. Sara's a blonde now, but other than that neither of them has changed a bit. Robbie's still got that metro style & the cute giggle and Sara's still...all Sara. We headed down to an Asian restaurant called Wagamama - as recommended by a friend - and talked about Denmark, the present and the future over a delicious meal. The continual hunt for booze brought us to an Irish Pub afterward, where we sat outside (aren't summer nights the greatest?) and saw a man in his fourties (Sara thinks sixties at least) climbing a rope, wearing nothing but tighty whities. Yyyyyeah...

This morning, we slept in and hurried down to catch the last half hour of the breakfast buffet. Took the tram downtown (and sat behind one of the most repulsive human beings I've encountered in my lifetime: body odour, dandruff, oily oily hair, a goatee (she was female, I think...) bigger than some of my male friends can grow, deep brown teeth, you get the picture) and then went on a sunny hour-long canal cruise. Amsterdam really is a gorgeous place, I love the colour schemes of the houses by the canals. The afternoon brought us more shopping on the Brouwersgracht (paradise for thrift store addicts, reminded me of the area behind Bruun's Galleri in Aarhus - they even sold "Kina sko"! - only heaps bigger) and, as the cherry on the cake: De Bijenkorf ( = The Beehive). Holy canneloni. This place is too much, I had one consumer orgasm after the other. A conga line of "60 % OFF!" signs took me from one corner of the mall to the other, I would see a Vero Moda sign, start walking over, spot a cd rack, start walking over there instead, notice a big book sale, start walking over again... Seriously, I was at the risk of OD-ing. Thankfully, I was in Amsterdam with the best shopping friend a girl could want and we agreed to do our thing for an hour and meet up downstairs. This agreement allowed me to pull myself together and go through the entire store (pretty much) at a reasonable pace. Amazing.

Time already for the train ride home! The oddest thing is that it felt as though we'd been in Amsterdam/away from home for ages. The creepiest thing was having a train security guard yelling into her walkie talkie "Yes, we have an extremely dangerous gang on board, they are armed with knives, I repeat, armed with knives, they are currently in the first class part of the train, I will keep you posted". The nicest thing was walking home on Bondgenotenlaan. Belgium's wonderful, in all its muddled glory. And Leuven? My home, my heart.

13 Days

2005-07-14T06:55:00.000-07:00

Well, things sure are looking up. For one, my face is human looking again. For two, I've graduated. And for three, I got my Canadian study permit in the mail. I've just got to figure out some medical insurance stuff, and then I'm ready to go...

Regardless of all the preparation, I still don't feel like I have any idea what's going on. I'm afraid not even Zaventem will wake me up. At the airport it'll probably still feel like I'm just going on a short trip. When will it hit home? Who knows. I distinctly remember my first night in Denmark and having that "Oh sweet Lord what have I done" moment. Then again, I didn't know a soul there and couldn't understand a word of what anyone was saying whereas this time around, I'll be in a proper home, with familiar faces and in a country that makes me feel like I must have lived there in a previous life. Will that make it easier? Worse? Weirder?

I'm spending my days getting things organized & saying goodbye to people. One thing I do love about leaving home is the fact that you and everyone around you is given an excellent occasion to express their feelings without it being a cheese fest. All the things we don't say nearly enough about how grateful we are for our friends or how much we love our family - despite everything - come out. Gifts are exchanged, letters are written, glasses are raised. It's hard to go through it all, and it physically hurts to know I won't be seeing so many people for quite some time, but at the same time it's an act of affirmation: this is my life, these are the people who are dear to me, this is what I'll get to come home to next year.

Don Corleone

2005-07-06T08:40:00.000-07:00

Dio mio, I look absolutely preposterous today. My face is a square. I look like a hamster or maybe Don Corleone. Even my mom, who's supposed to love me more than anyone in the world, bursts out laughing when I walk into the room. So harsh. I hope this swelling subsides by Friday, when I have to attend my graduation ceremony - this is NOT how I want to go down in the KUL history books.

On a Canada related note, life is working out mysteriously and wonderfully as always. A few days ago, Sara Lamont, the Scottish princess, announced she would not be able to come to Toronto this summer due to academic obligations. But lo and behold: we shall meet after all! A friend of mine has won a weekend city trip for two to Amsterdam (Da Dam) and is taking me! We decided on the 14th and 15th of July and I only just found out Robbie/Rutger and his gal Sara will be in town that very weekend too! Coincidence? I think not. Anywho, I'm very excited to see both of them again - I haven't seen him since Easter 2004 and her since June 2004 (when we decided to meet up in Amsterdam and do what you do there - summer 2004 didn't work out, but it looks as though summer 2005 will).

Do the hamster!

2005-07-04T09:05:00.000-07:00

So I went to the dentist's this morning, for the annual check-up. She takes a look, doesn't see anything alarming, but decides to do a 360 x-ray just for the heck of it. When she comes back in, she's waving my picture and chirps "Looks like someone's getting suuuuurgeryyyy!". WTF? Wisdom teeth. I don't feel them, they don't hurt, they're not even showing - but both the dentist and the professor/surgeon fella felt it would be a bad idea to let me leave the country in my current condition. So tomorrow around noon, I'm getting a full anaesthetic (wiiiiiiii) and I've been told by many a source that I'll be out of it for a few days. Perfect. Man, this is going to be one memorable graduation!

On another note, my Canada summer is slowly coming together. Here's a tentative plan:

- 27/7: I arrive in TO around 6.30 PM & go over to Alli's house. We hang out and watch Alias. We also shop.
- 2/8: We head over to Toronto proper & explore the city. Iiiiii!
- 6/8: I go down to Ottawa for a few days to see people and look at stuff.
- 13/8: I spend the weekend at Lorraine's (that's in Milford).
- 15/8: I go back into TO to catch up with Adrian & Geniqua.
- The rest of August: I spend quality time with Mike, Cam, Theresa & Clara.
- 1/9: I move into Tartu college!

Objections, anyone?