Canadian Snow

Meanwhile, in Canada...

I'M BAAAAACK! sup?

I figured they would super have their shit together when it comes to snow removal. I mean...IT'S CANADA!  When we had our first snowfall a few months ago, December, I think...I was all "oh, sweet it will be all plowed, shoveled and I can continue on with my life." Thought it would look something like this:

                                                         Motherfucking snow removal.

Needless to say, you can imagine my dismay when walking around it felt like I was day-drunk going to spin class because the sidewalks aren't shoveled at all. I was all "No way, total fluke! I believe in you Toronto!!"

NOW:

I am from the land of "instantaneous snow removal lest ye be sued when some moron falls on black ice that's totally not your fault but damnit you should have removed that anyway." I feel like NYC has almost always (maybe with the exception of Thundersnow) has been on the ball. Rarely do I remember the LIE being closed when I was a kid and we almost NEVER had a snow day *grumbles* So anyway, yes, NYC: it will be mid-blizzard and some poor Department of Sanitation worker is out there, orange hazard lights a-blazin' plowing even the most minor of streets in Queens. I get it if the city were to put priority on the major thoroughfares (wow I spelled that right on the first try!!), that would be cool. I even get it if some of my former, excessively elderly, neighbors didn't get to shoveling right away because the anaerobic activity would...you know...kill them.

So, I figured, that Toronto would operate similarly.

                                                       Here's how it actually looks:

It's like one, sad little man doing it by hand for the WHOLE COUNTRY.
Three days post Nemo and the only reason the sidewalks have a sober walking feel is because it rained today. I went running on Saturday and had to (literally) jump over a highway divider because a sidewalk was completely un-shoveled and I couldn't even walk through the area without falling over...much less run.
I'm assured that they do, in fact, put emphasis on the major streets first. Now I live near Lake Shore Blvd, which IS a major roadway. I fell on it. Friday, walking along crossing the street...*BOOM* ass-plant. I suppose the second most used way to get into the downtown core isn't worth plowing, eh?

                                                                         Expectation:

                                                                             Reality:

Come on, Spring!!

Now That's the Olympic Spirit

Meanwhile, in Canada...they've got crazy team spirit...even if they aren't winning!

As an American, and especially as a New Yorker, we're programmed to win. We expect it. We deserve it (for nor real reason other than we've spent more money on it than you!) and we like to assert our dominance in all things over all things as obnoxiously as possible.

As a direct result of said dominance in everything we're super bored and hard to impress. I guess unless you're a Met's fan. Case in point: a few weeks ago I went to a Yankees/Blue Jays game at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees proceed to beat the crap out of the Jays (obviously) and the entire stadium looked like this while it was happening:

However: Friday night we went to the Jays/Tigers game here in Toronto and these Canadians are out of their damn minds!!! Not only did everyone but me do the 7th inning stretch dance, but they were enthusiastic while doing it. The Jays won...and holy shit was everyone excited about it, there were many versions of the wave started that actually made it all the way around the stadium multiple times. And when asked to "get loud" boy did they ever! God forbid someone scored, or Brett Lawrie come up to bat it sounded like the stadium was trying to revive the dead. They stay until it's pretty much over, too. Gosh they're polite. They're usually fairly drunk, too, which I firmly believe helps out in the cheering department. It's always fun to yell at shit when you're drunk.

The Olympics have been a particular sore spot in our house the past few days. I'm rooting Team America (fuck yeah) all the way while Dave kindly reminds me that Canada is the best place ever. With their one medal. It has lead to many a heated discussion, and much teasing at my expense when Michael Phelps under-performs. What I have learned is that no matter how they're doing; they are proud as hell to be Canadians and maintain the hope that their team will win even when it's unlikely that they will.

On jaywalking

Meanwhile, in Canada...

I think I saw a hooker today!!!! It's all rainy and gross out in the GTA (greater Toronto area? Grande Toronto area?), and I walked to Shoppers, which is like Canadian Duane Reade...or Rite Aid, only I swear it's $10 for a bottle of nail polish that costs $8 in NYC. Enough bitching. So I'm walking from my apt, and I see these two incredibly scantily clad girls getting into cabs. Scratch that I saw two girls' asses hanging out of their "dresses." And I mean the only people who dress like hookers at 11:30am are hookers. Sadly I couldn't get a photo of them...fast little minxes. I should add that they got into cabs with two totes gross dudes.

                                                       I saw hookers on this street!!!
Ok, to the point.

I'm a jaywalker by nature. NYC, LA, DC, Southampton...you name it I've jaywalked there. Robby and I have even sprinted across a highway in Mexico for the Colectivo. If there aren't any cars coming it makes total sense to me to mosey across the street! I once heard it described as "you know you're a NYer if you don't base when to cross on the light but on the lack of cars." So in integrating into Toronto I'm doing my normal NY thing of standing in the street, not on the sidewalk, waiting for a break in the traffic to haul ass across Lake Shore Blvd while the Canadians stand, politely, on the sidewalk waiting; not for the light to change, but for the WALK SYMBOL!!! Who are these people?! Over the past few days I've been staring in horror while people loiter on the sidewalk for what seems to be an eternity. Then I started to pay attention to the traffic signals.
We have a streetcar on our street.

                                                                     *ding ding*
The streetcar has it's own traffic signal!! ALSO cars get advanced left turn arrows, AND right turning on red is not only legal but happens left and right. Noticed as well, that there's a really long delay between all lights being red and the little walk guy coming on.

                                                             wait for it...wait for it...

Needless to say, it's kind of impossible to tell when you should be walking and when you may get creamed by the streetcar.
What I've learned is that if you want people to obey traffic laws: confuse the shit out of them.

Go Canada!

Bienvenue au Canada

Meanwhile, in Canada...they're TOTALLY cool with your tits being to the wind.

I did an awful lot on my first day in Canada. I went for a run on the waterfront, unpacked...well the coolest thing I did was go for a 10 mile short little bike ride. I left my apartment and went for a lovely ride out to the Humber Bay Bridge along the Lake Ontario Waterfront.

Here's a picture of downtown TO (you can kinda make out the CN tower) from the Humber Bay Bridge.

On the way back, I'm riding, and smiling, and lost my water bottle somewhere along the way. And I pass Sunnyside Park, where I fully intend on loafing while reading a book sometime soon, and what do I see but 5 heavily tattooed women who are all sorts of bare-breasted. Turns out that anywhere men can go topless women can also go topless (wooooo!). Sadly that means that I'll have to put my shirt back on to go to a restaurant, but, as someone so eloquently put it on Yelp; I can walk around with my "sweet tits out" on Younge Street if I so choose. I'm gonna say probably not.

Getting here was a horse of a different color:

Dave and I woke up at 4:30am on
Monday determined to leave by 5:30, didn't get on the road until about
5:50 because Nibbles wouldn't eat (he knew I was trying to drug him!).
I drove the u-haul through the city and out to Jersey when all hell
breaks loose and Nibbles has busted out of the cat carrier and is
(claws ablaze) scaling Dave who is yelling in agony while chunks of
his leg are removed by cat claws. Dave and I switch, and he drives
while I wrestle Nibbles into my lap since he's made it clear there's
no way in hell he's going back in the carrier...so he flops on my lap
for an hour.

 We stop for gas in PA, which took about a half hour to
find no thanks to Google Maps, and afterwards Nibbles makes a break
for it and jumps into Dave's lap (Dave is driving at the time).

                                                                Should I or shouldn't I?


 He proceeds to spend from around Scranton, PA to Buffalo, NY sitting on
Dave while Dave drives.

                                                                  Clearly, I should.

We get to Buffalo and unload the uhaul and are at the US/Canada border
around 4:20pm waiting in line and I'm about to have a stroke because
I'm so nervous that they're going to spend hours searching the car and
questioning us. We pull up and it's a girl in her mid-late 20's who
asks us how long I'm visiting and we explain the situation she looks
at us, and says "you know you can't work right?" "oh and you know once
you're married we can add something to your passport so you can travel
to and from the us/canada without any problems just make sure you come
down together" Wow..nice...then she asks to open the car door so she
can see what we have inside, then changes her mind and asks us to just
tell her what I'm bringing over: and we tell her 4 bags, a bike, a cat
and my wedding dress.
She says welcome to canada and lets us through after like 4 minutes of
questions and didn't even ask to look at anything, or see the cat or
his health certificate (Which i offered to show her)!!!!

                                                         Blurry photo of the border.
Welcome to Canada!!!
 

4th of July vs Canada Day

Meanwhile, in Canada...they're some patriotic mofo's.

Having spent Canada Day AND 4th of July in each country this year, I now feel as though I'm an authority. Now I've always known that 4th of July is an excuse to drink, not go to work (or if you do you get time and a half), BBQ and almost blow your fingers off with fireworks you have to drive to Pennsylvania to buy. Living in NYC, the tradition looks a little like this: go to work, go to Central Park, drink beer, crowd all over strangers on the Hudson River to watch the fireworks. Or, you can crowd with the shirtless drunken hordes for this. Nothing quite like watching grown people shovel hot dogs into their mouths at Coney Island.
Now, a list off:

4th of July looks a little something like this to some people:

Which I'm calling a fail. Too much denim, tassels and Miley Cyrus.
-Hot dogs, hamburgers and beer are all considered All-American food...they're all tasty, too so let's call those a win. Not sure if they cancel each other out but I'm open to suggestions.
-236 years old, and Florida is still attached...win? I mean until the Floridians started huffing epsom salts and cannibalizing people...(there's a post about that coming up) they were pretty unassuming and produced great OJ.
-Fireworks; put on by Macy's in a barge in the Hudson River yet not a one can be bought by someone who isn't willing to break the law. Major upset.
-I noticed everyone was super friendly yesterday. Maybe it was their afternoon drunkenness, maybe it's their love o' America.
-Surprisingly not a whole lot of red, white and blue wearing. I wore all black all day...

Canada on the other hand:
-145 years old
-Disappointingly, I can't find a hot dog eating contest in Canada...damn food in moderation bastards!
-I did find this:

 

Which, come on, is hilarious.

-Canadians are SO patriotic. There was a Blue Jays game on and the team all wore red jerseys instead of their regular blue/white. Not to even mention that they scream, not sing, their national anthem at games on a regular basis.

-Toronto was a sea of red, literally everyone was wearing red. Whoever didn't have red on, and still some who did had little Canadian flag temporary tattoos.

-Apparently Toronto hosts fireworks yearly at Ontario Place. Not the case this year. Lameness abounded when the fireworks we could see were few and far between. 

-You CAN, however, buy fireworks yourself at the Hasty Market (think 7-11). Serious win.

-Not sure that there's an official food one makes on Canada Day, but looks like BBQ and beer win out for this day, too.

Besides, nothing says patriotism than this guy:

Or this guy:

Thank God he's got that hunk of wood...

So I've surmised that neither one is the better holiday. Canadians get more drunk, wear more red and yell louder...but we've got it all over them in firework displays and food eating competitions. Plus we're older.

Rollerblading, eh?

Meanwhile, in Canada...they're still super into ROLLERBLADING!

                                                       Clearly this is what it looks like, too.

Dave and I were unpacking his stuff (so so so much stuff) into our apartment this weekend and I come across a pair of Rollerblades. I looked at them scornfully, and asked "Really? Rollerblades? When's the last time you used those 1994? Do you REALLY need these?" Now, I should preface this all by saying that our new apartment is on Lake Ontario. No, really...across the street from Lake Ontario. And there's this fantastic bike/run trail that goes forEVER (obviously step two of moving to Canada, after actually moving to Canada will be exploring this) and the amount of rollerbladers is akin to my high school days (mid 90s) when it was all the rage and my mom made me wear my wrist, knee, elbow, ankle, neck, shoulder, and back pads.

Here's my view, sadly devoid of rollerbladers.

One of my favorite games is to count the amount of rollerbladers, which are plentiful, especially because Canadians are super active (at least from what I can see) and let's face it probably because I'm going to be living where in that area. 

If Rollerblades are so popular in Canada now...what were they doing 10 years ago? Because I definitely haven't seen an American rollerblading in a decade.

In search of answers I, logically, Googled "Why is rollerblading so popular in Canada?" and got this as a response. So while it doesn't quite answer the question, ok doesn't answer it at all, it does let me know that Canadians are all into a) fundraising b) Rollerblading. Tell me something I don't know. 

Dave spent a few minutes attempting to coax me into putting on the aforementioned rollerblades, and insinuated that covering me in wrapping of some kind would probably be the best option to make sure I don't die. Methinks I shall leave the rollerblading to high school Emily and the Canucks.

The peanut butter rant or how I got here

Meanwhile, in Canada...
The have sub-par peanut butter. Assuming that Canadians are less obese than Americans...yep, their peanut butter has less sugar. I went into a No Frills grocery store and they have a million types of all natural, low sugar peanut and almond butter. And these fucking Kraft bears, who lure you in with promises of taste with their adorable bear faces...but, alas, it's gross.

 

Look how sweet they are. All French-speaking and waving.

All I want is some SKIPPY! (ok, seriously, their website is www.peanutbutter.com), or Jif (after all you know what they say about choosy moms and dads!) Perhaps my taste for more sophisticated, stir-able, peanut butter will grow as my taste for sugary eat from a spoon, fuckiti'musingmyfingerstoeatthissincetherearenocleandishes, wanes. Obviously I'll keep you posted as more taste buds die on this one.

I flew back from TO tonight, via Porter Airlines. Now we can talk about Porter later, but you should know for the purposes of this story that they give you wine. FREE WINE.

Needless to say drinking+air travel=insta-drunk, and I started thinking: "How the hell did I get to this point?" is what was sloshing through my mind. I've flown back to NYC for the last time as a resident, and the next time I go to Canada, it's for good (or for now, who knows what's ahead?!).

Tonight I leave you with poutine (which I haven't had):