toronto post: 1
been a bit swept up so far so i haven't updated this yet.....ah well.
SO.
i've arrived in Toronto. staying in Etobicoke, and dear lord. everything is so amazingly different.
where to start?
oh, i know.....SNOW.
AK:KJKHFHGDFJGFSJGFDLJG
being an antopodean wonder who trawls the hot, dusty and waterless climes, snow is honestly like some mystic mana from the sky. Housekeepers and unistudents - everything looks much cleaner when covered in snow. Perhaps next time my room requires tidying i'll just invite in a blizzard.
when i first stumbled off the plane and negotiated a taxi, toronto was a brisk -8 degrees, and not a bit of snow to be seen. conifers everywhere, and every building appeared to be an insulated square - but still more or less the same grey-brown shade that everything wilts to in summer at home.
then that night, it snowed.
oh the snow. words fail me as to how utterly breathtaking it looks. it doesn't so much fall as meander lazily down, taking its own sweet time, piling up on the thick plumes of conifers and hoarding itself greedily under ledges. the crystals squeak together when you tread on them, so light and fluffy after a fall, until they compact down into a thin sheet of malevolent ice just waiting for an unweary australian bootie to tread.....walking outside, i feel like i'm wandering through a diorama, or a christmas cake.
and then there's the cold.
granted, this landscape looks stunning, but dear me it's freezing. i've never felt cold so strong that it literally strips the moisture from your skin. my complexion's been completely freezedried - one of today's tasks is running downtown to get some moisturiser or something of that ilk. everyone's bundled up securely in hats and wooly scarves and great fluffy parkas - i've never been so grateful to my lovely old leather trenchie. it's been a godsend. that thing's impervious to everything, including wet and wind, and as not freezing has lately been a priority of mine, it's wonderful.
wow. meeting Cait and Kat face to face was amazing, although i keep forgetting and calling them by their internet tags, a bit embarrassing in their own households. they're such sweet girls, and so much fun. i can see i'm going to enjoy these weeks more than i even hoped.
yesterday cait and i ventured Out, taking the subway down to chinatown and kensington market. we met Kat at silver snail, possibly the most amazing comic book shop i've seen to date - but sadly in the middle of restocking their preacher. soddit. ah well, i'll check back in a week.
how to describe it....busy is one, alien is another word, fascinating is a third. i'm totally amazed. there's entire worlds under the streets, and i haven't even been in the massive PATH system yet - said to be so big you can spend your working and entertainment life there without venturing aboveground once. the shops - oh my. i'm not much of a shopper myself, but let's just say the secondhand stores alone could keep me in a happy daze for months. and the vaudeville and costume stores. and the high fashion - dear god. it's like an entire town full of cinderellas.
there's warm clothing and boots everywhere, no surprise, and enough leather to keep my inner bulldyke satisfied. i found the leather 'goods' section in a store in kensington, and QD residents, so help me, if i have ANY cash left over i am donating a pair of leather chaps to the greater good.
kat, cait and me spent a happy hour browsing the aquarium store, where i marvelled at the turtles and gushed over the lizards, and muttered darkly with cait over the cramped conditions of the bettas. i tried jellyfish salad - never to be tried again, it tastes faintly like snot and mostly like aspic and cabbage - and we ate delicious dumplings in a small store in chinatown, only faintly marred by the discovery of a cockroach. dear god, chinatown goes on forever. so much bigger than the....what?........5 stores? that Perth has the audacity to call chinatown. nonetheless. so much city yet to conquer.
i'm going to rug up and head out now, as i prepare to make my first solo trip down to the local drugstore to buy a camera, raid excalibur comics, and generally try to avoid spending any more money on fascinating oddities.
lots of love,
pixie
SO.
i've arrived in Toronto. staying in Etobicoke, and dear lord. everything is so amazingly different.
where to start?
oh, i know.....SNOW.
AK:KJKHFHGDFJGFSJGFDLJG
being an antopodean wonder who trawls the hot, dusty and waterless climes, snow is honestly like some mystic mana from the sky. Housekeepers and unistudents - everything looks much cleaner when covered in snow. Perhaps next time my room requires tidying i'll just invite in a blizzard.
when i first stumbled off the plane and negotiated a taxi, toronto was a brisk -8 degrees, and not a bit of snow to be seen. conifers everywhere, and every building appeared to be an insulated square - but still more or less the same grey-brown shade that everything wilts to in summer at home.
then that night, it snowed.
oh the snow. words fail me as to how utterly breathtaking it looks. it doesn't so much fall as meander lazily down, taking its own sweet time, piling up on the thick plumes of conifers and hoarding itself greedily under ledges. the crystals squeak together when you tread on them, so light and fluffy after a fall, until they compact down into a thin sheet of malevolent ice just waiting for an unweary australian bootie to tread.....walking outside, i feel like i'm wandering through a diorama, or a christmas cake.
and then there's the cold.
granted, this landscape looks stunning, but dear me it's freezing. i've never felt cold so strong that it literally strips the moisture from your skin. my complexion's been completely freezedried - one of today's tasks is running downtown to get some moisturiser or something of that ilk. everyone's bundled up securely in hats and wooly scarves and great fluffy parkas - i've never been so grateful to my lovely old leather trenchie. it's been a godsend. that thing's impervious to everything, including wet and wind, and as not freezing has lately been a priority of mine, it's wonderful.
wow. meeting Cait and Kat face to face was amazing, although i keep forgetting and calling them by their internet tags, a bit embarrassing in their own households. they're such sweet girls, and so much fun. i can see i'm going to enjoy these weeks more than i even hoped.
yesterday cait and i ventured Out, taking the subway down to chinatown and kensington market. we met Kat at silver snail, possibly the most amazing comic book shop i've seen to date - but sadly in the middle of restocking their preacher. soddit. ah well, i'll check back in a week.
how to describe it....busy is one, alien is another word, fascinating is a third. i'm totally amazed. there's entire worlds under the streets, and i haven't even been in the massive PATH system yet - said to be so big you can spend your working and entertainment life there without venturing aboveground once. the shops - oh my. i'm not much of a shopper myself, but let's just say the secondhand stores alone could keep me in a happy daze for months. and the vaudeville and costume stores. and the high fashion - dear god. it's like an entire town full of cinderellas.
there's warm clothing and boots everywhere, no surprise, and enough leather to keep my inner bulldyke satisfied. i found the leather 'goods' section in a store in kensington, and QD residents, so help me, if i have ANY cash left over i am donating a pair of leather chaps to the greater good.
kat, cait and me spent a happy hour browsing the aquarium store, where i marvelled at the turtles and gushed over the lizards, and muttered darkly with cait over the cramped conditions of the bettas. i tried jellyfish salad - never to be tried again, it tastes faintly like snot and mostly like aspic and cabbage - and we ate delicious dumplings in a small store in chinatown, only faintly marred by the discovery of a cockroach. dear god, chinatown goes on forever. so much bigger than the....what?........5 stores? that Perth has the audacity to call chinatown. nonetheless. so much city yet to conquer.
i'm going to rug up and head out now, as i prepare to make my first solo trip down to the local drugstore to buy a camera, raid excalibur comics, and generally try to avoid spending any more money on fascinating oddities.
lots of love,
pixie