Sponsorship!!

First the most important news: The sponsorship letter arrived on Monday!!! WOOO!! This means they didn't throw our application away, and now it'll be approximately three months until I get to land here as a permanent resident. Cool.

I've been meaning to write about the weekend for days now, so I'd better get to it before the next weekend is here. As previously stated, we celebrated us meeting a year ago, with presents and sparkling wine and going out for dinner. Chris gave me a scarf and I gave him a hoodie and a shirt (I couldn't pick). We also went back to the pub where we first sat down together, played a round of pool and had a pint of beer. Then we had falafel and walked home. On Sunday we walked east and decided to take a walk to a remote, industrialized area on the lakeshore. There, we found a T&T (a Chinese grocery store with, apparently, only one location in Toronto). The experience inside that store was very memorable and slightly frightening. We saw how rice cakes are made (they heat up rice, press it down, and the cakes just pop out! Amazing!), tasted Chinese buns (yum), saw the most freaky-looking desserts on earth, and I was shocked when I saw the section with the live seafood. Aaah!

All in all a very great weekend. And here you see a very odd picture of us on Sunday, well, of Chris, and half of my head. I honestly didn't take very good pictures this weekend.

This week has been quiet and dull and normal, except for Tuesday (our actual anniversary day), when I volunteered at Toronto Green Community's yearly fundraiser party. I made them a poster and a slideshow, both of which I transported there on burned cd:s. I went to Kinko's to print the poster, but turns out they couldn't read the cd. I cursed myself for not sending the file to myself on e-mail as a backup, and was thinking of going back home (a 45 minute subway ride and 4,5 dollars), but luckily, the files opened on the computers at the TGC office, so the night was saved. I got the poster printed and attended the party, which was ok, as I spent most of the night chatting with a girl who also volunteered and also didn't know anyone there.

And also on Tuesday: crazy blizzard hits Toronto for about five minutes! Seriously, I've never seen anything like it. The sky turned orange, lightning struck ONCE, the air filled up with snow that seemed to move from down to up and side to side... And then, it was over, as quickly as it had begun.

Chris started working at a new Starbucks location yesterday, which is just now opening so he has to open boxes and clean stuff. Sucks. Luckily that will only last two more months now. And that's about it for this week! Today I bought a long coat for too much money, because it's getting colder and my legs get cold in my short coat. However, I think it might be a bit too big on me, so I might have to return it... We'll see. By the way, I was thinking of meeting Chris after his work, but there seems to be a snowstorm outside. Again.

Oh and this picture is from Saturday, I'm standing by a big Swarovsky-tree in the Eaton-centre, wearing my new scarf!

Now back to work with me. Nooooooooooo!

Long week!

It snowed today! Real snow, for most of the day. I am excited. It made it feel less cold too, even though strangely enough it is colder.

I've been very very busy this week with lots of translations, so I haven't really updated this thing in forever. Sorry about that. I'll try to remember what's happened!

Last Saturday we went for a long walk north to Casa Loma, a large castle built by a crazy rich guy back in the early 1900s. They charge you 16 dollars to enter, and a large portion of the money probably goes to heating, since the huge castle was really really warm.

Sunday was the Santa Claus parade, which was silly and commercial and we didn't bother to stick around to see Santa. We did however see tons of colourful clowns throwing candy, a large purple dog, mother goose, and a huge plastic girl online promoting yahoo. Silly. So we rented a movie (Videodrome. I don't recommend it.)

On Tuesday we went to see Anna and Tierro, Antti's sister and her husband, at his parents' house. It was great! Great to see them and great people. We had tons of fun.

Tomorrow I'll be insanely busy again, as I'll be getting my weekly translations with one less day to do them than usual, since the guy who writes them has been sick. And the weekend will be exciting! The Swedish Christmas Festival is coming up on Saturday and Sunday, so I'll be there buying mulled wine and singing Sankta Lucia. Jee! And Saturday we are also going to celebrate that we met a year ago (well a year and three days, but who wants to celebrate on a Tuesday), so we'll probably eat and drink well and reminiscence!

I'm exhausted now so I'll go to sleep. But I suppose I'm still not as exhausted as Chris, who had to get up at 430am and now has to repeat the same thing tomorrow.

Goodnight!

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Wednesdays are my Mondays

Today has been an utterly dull and unnecessary day. I have done nothing. I have gone for one short walk and then I have played super paper mario. I fell quite useless.

Yesterday and the day before that were two of the most beautiful days I've seen in Toronto, yet very different from each other. Monday was foggy, and most of the buildings were hidden behind a thick layer of clouds. Tuesday on the other hand was clearer than most days, sunny and crisp, and quite warm.

Today is grey and dull.

Chris is at work and I have not seen him very much today. Or this week for that matter. I'm going to go listen to a lecture titled "Art of the possible - discussion on policy, politics and what we can do about it" as well as pay my phone bill so that I have at least interacted with the world today. Oh sigh.

Sushi!

I'm eating a tofu sandwich and watching the Simpsons on cbc. Kind of. We have one scrambled channel since we canceled our cable, so I'm watching it snow-version. And speaking of snow, we got a slight snowfall today! I was excited. Unfortunately it only snowed for about five minutes, and it was the most pathetic snow I've ever seen. But at least it was frozen.

The unlock the city event we partook in on Sunday was fun - three and a half hours of walking fast around the city, trying to find certain points on a map. Since we were only 2 people and a team had to consist of 3, we were assigned a third, Michelle. She was a good teammate but slowed us down a little when we were climbing a fence and she couldn't get over it. We ended up finishing third out of four, so we missed out on the trips to Montreal. But that's good since we really don't want to go to Montreal anyway.

That picture is of our team!

We've been watching a lot of online movies lately. It's getting so cold you don't really want to be outside if you don't have to. And then there's making food. The other day we made popcorn in a saucepan and watched the Departed (blaah), and yesterday we made sushi. It turned out great. Chris even made jam tempura to put in it. Take a look.. Nice!

Dullness

I'm sitting at home on a Saturday night, just finished my translations for the week, after a day of volunteering at the Day of the Dead at Harbourfront Centre. I got to see a Mexican man make skulls out of sugar. Twice. Chris is out with his brother and cousin and I suppose I will go to bed soon.

Yesterday Chris and I made muffins. Twas fun. Tomorrow we will probably go check out this "Unlock the city" event, which is a race where you are supposed to find 12 "hidden locations". It's at 10 am - 9 am with daylight saving time - so we'll see if we can get up, and the thing is 25 dollars per person so we'll see.

Here's a photo from outside our building, of our building. It looks quite nice from this direction, taken from Little Norway Park. It is in the middle of an intersection seen from the other side though, and that is the side on which we live.

And now, I bid you goodnight guys.