(no subject)

We made it to toronto, after a massively late start in Halifax, and a panicked ditching of more stuff as van reached capacity.

Made it to Amherst, NS, on a 7 hour drive, and crashed at a fairly decent super8 there. Then hit the road early next day for as far as we'd get before falling asleep at the wheel, where we crossed New brunswick, and Quebec and into ontario in one swoop.

Note: while roadside pullouts are common in Quebec and to a lesser degree NB, NS has NONE, zip zilch nada. Odd.

The french signage in quebec was good for some laughs. "St. Louis de Ha! Ha!" is truly a place name. And the nude colony signs, of barebottomed little sign people!

Dog did not want to sit in her spacious crate, and didn't want to sleep so by 10 or 11 I was wrangling a dog in a most FOUL mood. 12 hours of driving. Montreal was full of roadwork being done, but we managed.

We found an odd cheap motel in Cornwall and zonked there, and once again hit the road. 4 hours to toronto, we could just taste it.

Toronto, 3pm, right on time, having made up for the late start, we dragged stuff up to the hotel room and then made our way to a storage facility where we unloaded the van save for what we'd really need in the next 3-4 weeks, just in case. They'll deliver that storage cube to our new home.

New home: we arrived mid month, which presented some moderate issues: where to stay ? apartment?

Ideally, we'd find a july 15 rental, and lo we did. The other plan was 2 weeks of week to week rental while we looked. But we found a slightly showing it's years, maybe moderately sketchy building with a sunny, spacious, and newly painted 33 floor penthouse overlooking some of the massive greenspace of Toronto. It's near both subway lines, and a short hop to U of T, and basically what we need.

The property rental girl had zero interest in my saying anything, chattering happily with R, daresay I think almost flirtingly, but as much as it bothered me, whatever, more it annoyed me that I was a zero-factor in the situation.

We're at a super8 in chinatown, and Toronto looks a bit..rough around the edges, mostly due to a now 3 weeks running garbage strike, but for all of that the city could look so much worse.

I'll miss Iris, Apoptygma and another couple bands as I'll be at Dcon! and Placebo's here in oct and I'm agog at the potential to really catch some awesome shows instead of wishing afar.

Dropped by a Kiehls for some spendy shampoo and a lip gloss, ( a splurge) from a really friendly clerk. So far people have been infinitely more friendly than Halifax by a large stretch, and even if they're paid to be so, it seems more genuine.

It's taking a few days to find my big city mojo again, the "eek it's a massive city!" but I was expecting that.

Today, after R drops off the rental deposit, we're going to go sample transit that actually seems to run very frequently as tomorow we're car-less again. ( driving here is A BITCH!)

So far, happy, will be happier when we're moved in and settled in and life's going on the way it should have.

off to have a shower and snag those high powered coffees. Ah.

( oh, and vietnamese food, awesome chinese bakeries! aaaaaah! and all of it at least 50 cents to many dollars cheaper than halifax for most every last thing! aaaaaa! what wonders!)

(no subject)

We made it to toronto, after a massively late start in Halifax, and a panicked ditching of more stuff as van reached capacity.

Made it to Amherst, NS, on a 7 hour drive, and crashed at a fairly decent super8 there. Then hit the road early next day for as far as we'd get before falling asleep at the wheel, where we crossed New brunswick, and Quebec and into ontario in one swoop.

Note: while roadside pullouts are common in Quebec and to a lesser degree NB, NS has NONE, zip zilch nada. Odd.

The french signage in quebec was good for some laughs. "St. Louis de Ha! Ha!" is truly a place name. And the nude colony signs, of barebottomed little sign people!

Dog did not want to sit in her spacious crate, and didn't want to sleep so by 10 or 11 I was wrangling a dog in a most FOUL mood. 12 hours of driving. Montreal was full of roadwork being done, but we managed.

We found an odd cheap motel in Cornwall and zonked there, and once again hit the road. 4 hours to toronto, we could just taste it.

Toronto, 3pm, right on time, having made up for the late start, we dragged stuff up to the hotel room and then made our way to a storage facility where we unloaded the van save for what we'd really need in the next 3-4 weeks, just in case. They'll deliver that storage cube to our new home.

New home: we arrived mid month, which presented some moderate issues: where to stay ? apartment?

Ideally, we'd find a july 15 rental, and lo we did. The other plan was 2 weeks of week to week rental while we looked. But we found a slightly showing it's years, maybe moderately sketchy building with a sunny, spacious, and newly painted 33 floor penthouse overlooking some of the massive greenspace of Toronto. It's near both subway lines, and a short hop to U of T, and basically what we need.

The property rental girl had zero interest in my saying anything, chattering happily with R, daresay I think almost flirtingly, but as much as it bothered me, whatever, more it annoyed me that I was a zero-factor in the situation.

We're at a super8 in chinatown, and Toronto looks a bit..rough around the edges, mostly due to a now 3 weeks running garbage strike, but for all of that the city could look so much worse.

I'll miss Iris, Apoptygma and another couple bands as I'll be at Dcon! and Placebo's here in oct and I'm agog at the potential to really catch some awesome shows instead of wishing afar.

Dropped by a Kiehls for some spendy shampoo and a lip gloss, ( a splurge) from a really friendly clerk. So far people have been infinitely more friendly than Halifax by a large stretch, and even if they're paid to be so, it seems more genuine.

It's taking a few days to find my big city mojo again, the "eek it's a massive city!" but I was expecting that.

Today, after R drops off the rental deposit, we're going to go sample transit that actually seems to run very frequently as tomorow we're car-less again. ( driving here is A BITCH!)

So far, happy, will be happier when we're moved in and settled in and life's going on the way it should have.

off to have a shower and snag those high powered coffees. Ah.

( oh, and vietnamese food, awesome chinese bakeries! aaaaaah! and all of it at least 50 cents to many dollars cheaper than halifax for most every last thing! aaaaaa! what wonders!)

(no subject)

Tomorrow we give up the van, and today we investigated TTC (toronto transit).

Oh my the wonders. fast. reliable. Multimodal. Years of random hit and miss transit in Halifax, ( as in, good luck getting anywhere), we zipped down to eaton center, stared like small town yokels ( seriously not over the sheer possibilities!) and then back home.

I'm not a shopping fiend, honestly, but after years in halifax of simply NOT shopping at all save for groceries and random, rare excursions to the remotely located malls for no selection, I'm kind of bug eyed over it all. When you live for 2.5 years with NO choice at all, a stupid abundance of said choice makes one's head melt.

Jewelery supplies too. You mean I don't have to call a guy in lawrencetown and make an order that will be dropped off and no one will tell me what it costs or when it'll come in, and I need a secret password and handshake.

tempers were running short today too. I confess I need some space and I'll be glad when R starts work monday as he's been trailing me like close and maybe I him, and he's been short sleep ( he zonked shortly after I did and is dead out cold).

There's some discussion on this apartment issue in that they simply can't seem to answer whether we can rent for july 15, or not and R's somewhat habit of "make things more complicated". We're in a pet friendly moderately priced super 8 near downtown TO, and moving to a cheaper one could be less convienient and more expensive and may not be worth the bother, and not that significant a decrease in the rate. ( I mean, 120-130 a night is about as cheap as it'll get, 60 a night was the weird place in cornwall.)

we have been looking for some short term sublets of 1-2 weeks but they've been hard to find, if they reply and they don't seem to work with the days we need.

So my suggestion is "stay put", because I don't see how we can keep hopping from place to place with him working and our stupid amount of luggage and a dog.

Once we're in the new place, I get to action: make dcon stock, update resume and hit the job hunt, visit the universities, get my bearings, unpack the apt and likely do the "replace the stuff we tossed" routine, ( yay for a hardware store downtown. We have a massive balcony and it's a bit unnervingly high, so we're thinking throw some plants out there. ( it's almost a dealkiller, that balcony for me.Gack.)

But till then, I'm mostly in a hold pattern.

I'm ever pissed the Halifax apt office manager fucked off early on a friday, super stupid early, but I guess that's the way they roll.

(no subject)

Tomorrow we give up the van, and today we investigated TTC (toronto transit).

Oh my the wonders. fast. reliable. Multimodal. Years of random hit and miss transit in Halifax, ( as in, good luck getting anywhere), we zipped down to eaton center, stared like small town yokels ( seriously not over the sheer possibilities!) and then back home.

I'm not a shopping fiend, honestly, but after years in halifax of simply NOT shopping at all save for groceries and random, rare excursions to the remotely located malls for no selection, I'm kind of bug eyed over it all. When you live for 2.5 years with NO choice at all, a stupid abundance of said choice makes one's head melt.

Jewelery supplies too. You mean I don't have to call a guy in lawrencetown and make an order that will be dropped off and no one will tell me what it costs or when it'll come in, and I need a secret password and handshake.

tempers were running short today too. I confess I need some space and I'll be glad when R starts work monday as he's been trailing me like close and maybe I him, and he's been short sleep ( he zonked shortly after I did and is dead out cold).

There's some discussion on this apartment issue in that they simply can't seem to answer whether we can rent for july 15, or not and R's somewhat habit of "make things more complicated". We're in a pet friendly moderately priced super 8 near downtown TO, and moving to a cheaper one could be less convienient and more expensive and may not be worth the bother, and not that significant a decrease in the rate. ( I mean, 120-130 a night is about as cheap as it'll get, 60 a night was the weird place in cornwall.)

we have been looking for some short term sublets of 1-2 weeks but they've been hard to find, if they reply and they don't seem to work with the days we need.

So my suggestion is "stay put", because I don't see how we can keep hopping from place to place with him working and our stupid amount of luggage and a dog.

Once we're in the new place, I get to action: make dcon stock, update resume and hit the job hunt, visit the universities, get my bearings, unpack the apt and likely do the "replace the stuff we tossed" routine, ( yay for a hardware store downtown. We have a massive balcony and it's a bit unnervingly high, so we're thinking throw some plants out there. ( it's almost a dealkiller, that balcony for me.Gack.)

But till then, I'm mostly in a hold pattern.

I'm ever pissed the Halifax apt office manager fucked off early on a friday, super stupid early, but I guess that's the way they roll.