Welcome to the hard life of a student

A short update to all of you (especially to the ones, whose emails I have not answered)…

 I am doing great, living in the smallest apartment I will hopefully ever live in, 1 hour from Toronto downtown but on campus. The apartment is decorated with a nice light brown carpet (thus no hardwood floor and only God knows when it was last vacuum cleaned) and matched with equally stylish brown cupboards in the spacious 2 sq. m big kitchen. There is not possibility to move around the furniture as the carpet is so discolored beneath…There is also no need to go to India to live on an Ashram since the bed’s softness here matches the floor and the size is decent for approximately half a person ( I am currently sharing it with M – an accomplishment which should be in the Guinness Record Book). The apartment is probably from 1960:s and on and of the ventilation does not work and my bathroom turns into a passive smokers paradise. The area surrounding the building it characterized as one of the most dangerous areas in the whole Toronto area and females are encouraged not to walk alone during night time...

In all, the location and the apartment is great :-)

The good news is, the school is better!

Toronto International Film Festival

Picking up our own tickets to the premier of “the Awakening” at the Toronto International Film festival today we took the opportunity to do some star sightseeing as well. I managed to catch two hot guys with my camera (although there is a substantial age difference between them). They are both starring in the new movie “Peace, Love and Misunderstanding”.

Do you know who they are?

The Niagara Falls

A Taste of Toronto

What we have been up to so far....

Arrived in Toronto on Saturday afternoon only to discover that my mom and dads’ telephones did not work (how we found ourselves at one of the busiest airports in North America is a miracle). After a happy family reunion we caught a cab downtown stuck in traffic jam for an hour and a half… As you can imagine it was a quite turbulent Saturday…

However now we are well settle downtown in an amazing apartment close to all the main attractions. Yesterday we strolled through the old area (where most of the pictures below are taken) to the old distillery which is the best preserved distillery in the whole North America.

Today we were at Casa Loma, an incredible “building” (read castle) built by a rich entrepreneur in the beginning of this century (only to be taken away by the government when he couldn’t pay his tax).  Really a special building which served as a hideout for planning during the 2^nd world war, therefore there was also hidden staircases and a tunnel below ground connecting the building to the nearby stable. What would the world be without crazy people?  Pictures are coming soon…

Now we are chilling at home preparing for a family cinema evening watching the debt. Tomorrow we are heading for the Niagara Falls. Toronto does have potential!

At Calgary Airport

So the end of an era is close… in one hours my plane leaves to Toronto.

Yesterday was amazing. Never thought I would find so many wonderful life-long friends here.

Special thanks to you for everything. I know I will see you again.

In transition

Sitting in the lobby to my old apartment, waiting for Mia to come and pick up some of my stuff that due to practical circumstances will not make it to Toronto. After that I am heading with a cab over to Elin’s place for my two last nights here in Calgary.

Yesterday we had an amazing farewell lunch with work at Metropolitan Grill followed by an equal amazing evening dinner at OX and Angela and today I must admit I did not do too much work as I had to clean out the room (no mother her to help me ;-)). However I managed to spend some precious hours at work which were mostly allocated to say good bye to incredible people (read Cui Zukowski).

Saying Good bye is never easy, but I guess it is useful to learn how to let go.

The upgrade

Top ten cities (scores):
1. Melbourne 97.5
2. Vienna 97.4
3. Vancouver 97.3
4. Toronto 97.2
5. Calgary 96.6
6. Sydney 96.1
7. Helsinki 96
8. Perth 95.9
9. Adelaide 95.9
10. Auckland 95.7

Source: the Economist Intelligence Unit’s liveability ranking