The next few weeks!

I can't believe that I have been living in Canada for over a month now! I still randomly refer to Toronto as London when asking for directions, which is made all the more confusing by the fact that there is a London about a 2 hour drive outside of Toronto! Aside from that, and learning the new terminology and spelling (do you know how awful it is to knowingly misspell words in your own report!!) it doesn't feel very different living over here. I am becoming very used to my 5 min walk to the office and I think it will be a shock to the system, when I actually have to commute a whole 20min...

I was introduced to the wind that everyone keeps referring to and for the first time, I am grateful for having grown up in PE the "windy city". I think the wind here can rival that of PE! I am told its not much fun when the temperature is 10 degrees below and the wind chill factor drops it a further 15 degrees, but I am also learning that the Canadians are proud of how tough they are to "survive" the winters here and any Canadian will take glee in telling you how cold the winters are! For now, I'm enjoying the balmy 20+ degree days with sunshine and blue sky :-)

I went down to Niagara falls today, with Faye - a lovely lady whom I met on a hike I went on 2 weeks ago. Since meeting her, we have met up with each other to go walking in the cemetery, which boarders onto the apartments I am staying in.



Niagara falls were amazing! We drove down in my nice new car - its about a 2 hour drive and spent the whole day there. I took lots of photos! but don't worry, I'll only post a few onto the blog site.







We stayed on the Canadian side (the falls are on the border of the USA and Canada) as the views from the canadian side are MUCH better. The falls are actually in 2 sections, but the best section is the big horseshoe shape. The water crashed down and billows back up, so as you will see in the photo below, its actually impossible to get a photo of the entire falls without this "cloud" of water in the middle of the photo. When the wind blows you also get absolutely soaked! We were very lucky as it was quite hot when we were there, so we dried off quite quickly.



The leaves are starting to change colour, and in about 2 weeks time, I am planning on driving North to see and photograph some of the Autumn colours. Next weekend I move into my new apartment, which is VERY exciting, I can't wait to be in my own place.

I'm loving my new church and have a new comers welcome lunch this Sunday. It will be nice to meet some of the other new people in the church and be able to talk about ways of getting more involved. They are starting up a "soup kitchen" type program (Canadian spelling!!) in the poorer districts of Toronto and I am very keen to get involved. I think it will be great to be able to start giving back to the community. I think it starts in October, so can let you know...

Well, I think that is about all for now. I'm looking forward to the next few weeks. Moving into my flat, buying a flat screen TV!! and seeing the leaves on the trees start to change colour :-)

The first weeks

I have decided to set up a blog and the current intention is to keep in updated fairly regularly, so that everyone can see my photos etc from my new Life in Toronto!

The first 2 weeks have flown past, but my overriding impression of Toronto, is that I absolutely love it here :-) I may think differently after a winter, but for now, its great.

I'm still staying in a rented apartment, about a 3 min walk from work and loving the lack of a commute. I can leave the apartment, get my coffee and be at my desk in less time than it used to take me to walk to Sutton train station in the morning!!

I have found a place to rent in mid-town Toronto on Eglinton and Baysview for those who know Toronto. I don't yet have any photos of the inside, but this is what the outside is like... (and now I need to work out how to load photos!!)



Yesterday, I bought myself a car, which was great fun. I had already worked out that I wanted a Ford Focus and which dealer had good offers, so I trundled out to Missassuga on the Super-Sized trains they have here in Toronto... I have never seen such an enormous train in my life before! They are double story and go on for about 12 or 14 carriages. Inside they are clean, spacious and VERY nice.



After looking at the sedan versus the hatchback cars, I decided on a sedan as the boot was much bigger and the back seat still folds down, which is very handy. I have bought a black 2009 model, so its the new shape and the car has nice low mileage.









I am also the proud holder of a Canadian drivers license. Ontario only swops drivers licenses with about 4 countries in the world, so despite having a UK "driving on the left" license, they recognise it here and I simply swopped it and now have a Canadian one.

I should get my car on Thursday and I can't wait to have some wheels again. There is very little public transport here, so although you can get around by bus, there is a limited service and unless you stay in the centre of Toronto, you need a car. Hopefully next weekend I can go visit Niagra falls :-)

This weekend is a long weekend, and they have a big exhibition at the exhibition centre. I went along yesterday and had a marvelous time there.

I really enjoyed looking at the sand sculpture. They looked amazing - as though the "statues" were carved from rock.






I also had a good laugh, looking at the fruit and vegetable competion tables. I think this must be a North American thing, but they literally had competions for all sorts of fruit and vegetables. I had to control myself not to laugh and to mearly show interest while taking the photos!!

A winning tray of carrots... AND not only did this tray win first prize, they also won some vegetable of the day prize too!





And a winning aubergine...



On Saturday evening, I watched an aerobatic and iceskating show. It was all done to rock music and quite entertaining. The photos didn't come out very well, but this one shows a guy holding his body out sideways - pretty incredible.




Church has also been great. I've been going to St Pauls, which is an anglican church in downtown Toronto. Its a family church with about 150-200 people. They are so friendly and so chatty, I am already starting to feel at home there. The year is much like the UK, so everything starts up again in September and I'll get involved with a small group and other ministry opportunities at the church.

Work is going very well as well. I am privileged to be working with a great bunch of people and I am actually enjoying work very much at the moment as well.