Ballsy bikers

Today it snowed 5cm in Toronto. By the time I left the gym it had gone from a few gentle snowflakes to a full on blizzard outside. A car skidded to a stop at the pedestrian crossing and I slowly sauntered out, making sure that I wasn't hit by another skidding car. As I crossed, a woman on a bicycle passed me. I noticed there were about 8 bikes lined up outside the grocery store. The woman I saw wasn't wearing a helmet. Strike two on the general bike safety test in my opinion. It's quite amazing that cycling is now such a big part of life in the city that even when for some people it's too dangerous to drive their cars, there are others riding bikes.

A pic of my favourite Toronto bike.

Unfortunately, the snow will melt away tomorrow in the +7 heat. This crazy up and down winter weather is more extreme than I remembered. Bring on more winter I say, January's over in two days.  I want more tobogganing!

Cost of living

What you get for how much you earn from city to city changes dramatically. It's hard to figure this out because your job in one place versus the job you get next might be dramatically different because of the industry you're working in, the size of the organization, what other people are getting paid, your sheer desperation for work, the list goes on. But food is something that is generally consistent, especially with big global brands, Heinz, Coke, Kettle chips.

I went to the grocery store a few hours ago and found myself continuing to be shocked by how expensive food is in Toronto. Name brand foods that have direct comparisons to what's sold in London seem surprisingly overpriced here (of course, taking the exchange rate into account). So I decided to get onto Sainsbury's online grocery website and see for sure. I factored in whether the product was organic, name brand, etc to make sure I was being fair, so the butter was the cheapest butter than could be bought, and the chips/crisps were Kettle.

What I found surprised me. Of the 14 items I bought, 7 were more expensive in London, 7 in Toronto. Toronto food just seems so much more expensive cause you're buying so much more of it at one time. 4 litres of milk versus 2 litres in London, 450g butter versus 250, 220g Kettle chips versus 150 Kettle crisps, etc. It makes sense. Fridges are bigger here. So are the people - Actually, it always seems like people in the UK are shorter, but I just looked it up and they edge out Canadians on average by 0.05 of an inch. It's a surprising day all around.

Right, so here's the direct comparison, like for like between London and Toronto food prices. Of course eggs and bread are missing, but I didn't buy those today, so tough. The higher the number, the more expensive that item is in Toronto. So onions are over 3 times more expensive in Toronto (this one floors me, what could possibly make one onion three times better than another onion?), and juice is almost half the price here than in London.

ITEM
milk	1.18
butter	1.34
juice	0.54
bananas	1.42
onions	3.11
tomatoes on vine	1.10
tomato soup	1.06
canned skipjack tuna	0.88
hummus	0.96
mcvities choc digestives	1.54
Carr's crackers/wheatthins	0.93
Kettle chips	0.70
walnuts	0.87
chocolate chips	0.66

The chocolate chips comparison might be a little weak because Sainsbury's - for some reason unfathomable to me - doesn't seem to sell mint chocolate chips. I know what you're thinking: 'What? That is maybe the most surprising thing of the day!' Yes. You, Reader, are correct. Think about that for a minute while I eat my mint chocolate chip and walnut cookies, that would be way cheaper to make here if it wasn't for all the butter in them.

EDIT: As my dear friend has just pointed out to me, I haven't included taxes on this. I was thinking it was 13%, but actually there's only HST added, which was an additional $0.53 on the prices calculated above. Negligible 

A visual ode to the celebration of a new camera

My top Toronto pics taken in the last week, since my beautiful olympus vr-320 arrived.

dusk sky

Mount Pleasant Cemetery

crackkkkkkk

not a real shadow

not sure what this is about, but I love it

mural outside Fiesta Farms

bball and swimming pool at Christie Pitts

looking south on Yonge near Rosehill

view through the clouds from my apartment

thanking the driver

(image Kippage.com)

Toronto gets a lot of flack for its commuter infrastructure. The "Ride the Rocket' mantra sounds much better than it is in reality. For those who don't know TO, there are two subway lines, one running East-West along Bloor, and one North-South along Yonge that loops back up at Union station and runs along University. For those who do know Toronto, there are a load of places that people need and want to go that are not on those three streets.

In place of the subway, there are streetcars that run East-West along major roads - King, Queen, Dundas, College, St Clair, etc. The streetcars are quite reliable and give Toronto a certain old-fashioned uniqueness. The connections between subway and streetcar are quite good, and in all the transit runs fairly well.

Dundas Streetcar (image roadstories.ca)

The problem is when you get outside of downtown Toronto and you can simply get nowhere. The Go trains run infrequently and only along the lake (on the West side at least). If you're commuting from the burbs you pretty much need to leave your car in the Go parking lot. It is quite unlike London where most people living in suburbs get home from work by getting on a central train that drops them a ten or fifteen minute walk from home.

Complaints about public transport in Toronto are endless and justified (including the antiquated token system, and the fact that public transport downtown doesn't connect to the airport), but yesterday I saw something great. A guy realized he was going to miss his bus that was hurtling along Christie, and started sprinting to reach the bus stop in time. The bus driver saw the guy chasing him, stopped the bus (didn't even pull over and there was traffic behind him) before the designated stop and let the guy jump on. That might not seem like such a big deal, but that would NEVER happen in London. In London you might be rapping on the door of the bus while it's standing at the stop and the driver won't let you on.

And so, I learned that people thank the driver when they get off the bus not necessarily out of common courtesy, but because they are genuinely thankful.

But yes, nice drivers don't mean everything and Rob Ford continues to kill any plans of improving Toronto's transit system, read about it in Toronto Life's Street Car named Disaster. So, another reason to get Rob Ford out of office, though it's doubtful anyone needed another.

dear Sun, how I love thee

I know, I know. I was incredibly depressing the other day with the whole frozen eyeballs chat. But, I am here to redeem myself. Today, (only 2 days after the -15 shananigans) I stood outside waiting for the Go train and the sun warmed my face. Through the chilly weather - not downright cold, but certainly no summer day - the sun's rays shone directly on my and warmed me. How amazing is it?

Anyway, I've decided that the hideously cold days of -15 let you appreciate a mild +5 winter day and this change is the joy of the Canadian winter. The other day had me happily wandering through the streets today. I felt great. Another day will surely come where I'll be hiding under my duvet, resolving to not go outside even though I know I have to. But it will pass, and with the passing of that day will come glee at a fairly mediocre day.

Others have told me the wild ups and downs of winter make it impossible to get used to the bitter cold days when they do come. To these people I say 'Rubbish', I'd much rather take the joy and pain than be consistently numb. I also say 'Read Lois Lowry's The Giver people, then you'll know what I'm talking about'.

On the contrary, a delightful summer day in London (as seen here) doesn't have the same amount of heat from the sun. WHY? Is there an ozone hole going on over Toronto? Are there multiple ozone layers in London? Que esta pasando?

Frozen eyeballs. Iceballs. Brr.

It is -15 degrees celsius in Toronto today. While walking the 800 metres from the subway station to home this afternoon, I contemplated the temperature at which eyeballs freeze. Not for the whole 9 minute walk of course, my brain had shut down to the basic functionality of left, right, left after about 2 minutes in the frigid air.
The only part of my body exposed to the air were my poor eyes and I did wonder how my tear ducts weren't frozen solid, causing the ducts themselves to explode from the whole 'ice takes up more space than water' phenomenon, especially as my eyebrows were already frozen - I'm assuming from the liquid in my face cream.
Needless to say, this is not the kind of thing that is generally pondered in London. I think the coldest I ever experienced in my 4 years in London was -4. It snowed about once a year, and during that time, the entire city gloriously shut down completely. Tube lines that are entirely underground (Victoria line) miraculously don't work either. How? I still don't understand that. A measly 2 centimeters of snow falls and the bustle of London halts entirely, leaving people to frolick in the park, making snowmen, and not wondering about how their eyes still function.

Here is an image of wintertime Toronto from space. Brr. (image wbdawe.com)