Eating together – Lasagne night, b-day and Thanksgiving dinner

These last days have been all about eating together. For a long time everyone in my unit has been cooking on their own (even though we most of the time cook at the same time). But last week Lars, Pil, Kirstine and I decided to get together and make lasagne

 

Then Friday it was Kirstines birthday. To make her forget a little bit about that she is getting older and to give her a good start, Pil and I got up and made a totally delicious brunch for her.

We also had cake later And in the evening we went out to an absolutely fantastic Vietnamese restaurant called Hanoi 3 Seasons. Wonderful service and everybody had a good time. I think we were around 20 people there, us and a lot of the other international students.

Last but definately not least, it was Thanksgiving this weekend so Sunday night we had invited Katharina from Austria, Stefan and Hendrik from Germany (now, they didn’t come all the way from Europe to eat with us, they’re also staying at Neill Wycik) and Arndis and Gretar to come and join me, Kirstine, Emilie and Pil for stuffed turkey, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. It was soooo great! And tonight we enjoyed the leftovers

Arndis and Gretar cutting the turkey breast

 

Stefan and Hendrik getting ready to eat

We felt really stuffed after the great feast!

I really enjoyed all the eating together and I think we’ll definately do that more often from now on…

Funnyness – likes and dislikes of TO / NA

Hans asked me one of the first days I stayed with him and Clare: “What do you find weird, different or funny about this place, just as a first impression?”.

Since then I’ve been thinkin about the funny ways of the people in this city – i.e. the funnyness

This is they 5 likes and dislikes about things that are different in Toronto or North America in general:

Likes:

1. Coffee is CHEAP! $1.79 (just around kr. 9) – this is the price for a tall regular coffee at Starbucks by the way
2. Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (my favourite ice cream because of the chunks!) are also cheaper! Just got one for $4 (kr. 20)
3. Public transportation is fair priced and works really well, considering that they use oooold trains and streetcars!
4. Everybody say’s “How are you” – whether in a store, in class, meeting someone on the street, great and very kind way to start a conversation
5. Sushi is really cheap! (Oh enough about the cheap food and drinks!)

Dislikes or what just sucks:

1. You have to go to special stores to buy alcohol! What’s up with that
2. Liquorice is really hard to find
3. Bars and clubs close at 2-3 a.m.
4. Canadians pay for incoming phone calls! That’s really funny… or actually just a pain in the b**
5. Feta and mozzarella cheese is really expensive

It’s really nice that a lot of things I like, for example eating out, getting manicures, taking a cab + what I mentioned above are much cheaper than in Denmark. But its too bad that its hard to find a place to go out that doesn’t close when you’re having the most fun and that you can’t fix a tomato salad with mozzarella for kr. 10 / $2. But I tend to not mind the dislikes

I really like being here, the city is great and I’m meeting new people everyday. It’s very exciting even though it drains my energy resources – but as long as it’s in a good way…

Short summary of last week:

• Studying, trying to read what I didn’t read while I was in Montréal
• Quick shopping at Dundas Square
• Being sick It sucks, I’ve been coughing myself though the week
• Party at the Steamer Room at Neill-Wycik Friday. Still coughing, went to bed with “Vicky, Christina, Barcelona”
• Partying with the Danes, dancing all night Saturday
• Kirstine and Pil baked a WONDERFUL carrot cake! And Lars’ family was visiting and they brought Nelly Dellies

Pil cutting the cake (and you can see the Nelly Dellies on the table behind her)

 

This week has had a killer start! My girlfriend in Boston, Katrine aka Holme, and I have just planned a weekend in New York!  And I finally got to skype with Lisbeth The first time we tried it was me talking and Lisbeth typing/writing back to me because of a disagreement with a headset, I believe!  Also a trip to the Niagara Falls have been planned for this Saturday. Even better, my dad sent me the copy of a letter from Knud Højgaards fond (The foundation of Knud Højgaard) saying that they have awarded me a scholarship!! YAY!

Now all I need is to stop beeing sick.

Great weekend with RISExC and The Killers concert

After getting settled at Neill-Wycik this week and finding our way around the nabourhood, we had more orientation on Friday. We started off with a lot of (a bit boring) information about security, cautions in regard to the swine flu, culture shock and so on – very important things of course, but it took a looot of time.

What was more exciting, we got to meet the RISExC (Ryerson International Student Exchange Commitee). This team of students from Ryerson organize activities for me and the other Danes + the 30-40-ish other international students coming from all around the world. We went to a pub with all the others after the orientation and later that evening we met up at a bar/restaurant called Asian Monsoon. It was okay, but Saturday was more fun!

Saturday evening the other guys and I at Neill-Wycik had Casper, Arndis and Gretar (Arndis’ boyfriend) over for 116 pieces of sushi – very good and very cheap sushi! Gotta love it We had some beers and some wine and then took off at about 11pm for The Drake Hotel in the western part of Toronto. Very fancy place. I spend the most of the night at the lowest floor where everybody was dancing.

At 2.30 in the morning the lights turned on. I had heard about clubs and bars closing at 3-ish over here, but still, that’s kind of weird compared to Denmark. Oh well, its nice to get home a bit earlier than 5

I like that the others at Neill-Wycik can follow each other home. Its cool that we can talk a bit about what happened during the night when we get home just before we go to bed. And of course its nice that the cab ride is a bit cheaper although it already is very cheap! We paid $15 (like 75 DKK) to get home from The Drake Hotel. That ride would most definately have cost twice as much back home.

Sunday we slept in and were a bit hungover. Took things nice and easy so we could be ready for the concert with The Killers later that evening. It was at this cool venue called The Molson Amphitheatre out on Ontario Place, a superficial island off the shore of Toronto.

To get there we went through the exhibition place which for some time now have been the place for the Canadian National Exibition, an annual event also called ‘The Ex’.

View over The Ex from the bridge over to Ontario Place

The concert was so cool! Even though I didn’t know the songs that well I had a great time.

Kirstine, Me, Justin, Casper, Gretar, Arndis and Lars at The Killers concert

And the setting was absolutely wonderful. From our spot at a big lawn we could see all the way down to the stage, a great view! You can see the exhibition place and the Toronto skyline all the way around the back of the venue!

Our view from the lawn

Today we again were a bit tired but we had decided to clean the kitchen and the bathrooms. They were not as clean as we could wish for when we moved in. After cleaning the girls and I went down to The Eaton Center to do some shopping. This mall was of course open until 6pm even though its a national holiday today (Labor Day).

Tomorrow the girls start school and Lars, Casper and I are attending an MBA workshop about writing and presentation in the evening. There’s also a RISExC pub-crawl which we will try to catch up with when we are finished with school at around 9 p.m.

Last, but not least: Wednesday we getter a faster internet connection! This means more pictures and probably a better skype-connection. This slow connection is driving me nuts!

Over and out for now

Moved in at Neill-Wycik, my new home

Tuesday this week was move-in day for me, Lars, Pil, Kirstine and Emilie. Emilie joined us on Monday when she arrived from Copenhagen. Besides from her, Arndis who is the last of the four girls taking undergraduate courses on exchange also joined us. She’s not staying at Neill-Wycik since her boyfriend is also in Toronto taking an internship. They’re staying at the Kensington Market. Last but not least our friend from Aalborg, Casper, was also moving in at the Primrose Hotel not far from Neill-Wycik.

Except for Arndis we all met up at NW in the morning to get signed in, get our keys and move our luggage up to the unit and our rooms. It was nice to see how well organized everything was. There were about 750 people moving in but it all went very smoothly.

This was our first look at our new home. We live in a 5-person unit on the 11th floor and we share the kitchen, bathroom and toilet. And I got the big room (also paid for it, but still). 

We each have a great view from the window in our room, this is mine:

 

We were actually suprised in very good way of the condition of the rooms since we have heard that it would be dirty and in bad condition. Everything has so far worked perfectly! Well, besides from the stove and the fact that we have a little mouse in the kitchen, of course

This is my room:

 All good

I actaully only packed out all my cloths today, we have been so busy doing shopping for all sorts of things!

Sheets, bedlines and pans, pots and other stuff for the kitchen was bought in Ikea. Hans and Clare were soooo kind to drive us there Tuesday!!

Today I’ve also truly experienced the drugstores they have over here. They have a chain of drugstores called Shoppers Drugmart or something like that and these shops are huge! I think I was in there for an hour just walking down the different aisles trying to choose some hair products. Great! Absolutely fabolous!

Tomorrow the Ryerson Orientation for all inbound students starts at 10 a.m. so I will go to bed now.

I hope that I can soon upload some more pictures but the internet they offer at NW is veeery slow (like 512 Kps for G** sake!). We’re probably going to change to another subscription for October. And this makes it very time consuming to upload pictures (also gives me some problems on Skype).

Hope everybody at home has had a nice week too and that you have a nice weekend

Orientation at Ryerson and clubbin in the weekend

So Friday me and Lars went to the first of two days of the Ryerson Orientation (intro). Here we got to meet Casper, who is studying some kind og engineering at the University of Aalborg in Denmark. Nice guy, same age as the rest of us, so after getting a lot of information about the programme we introduced him to Pil and Kirstine. We met them at a coffee shop and later we walked down to a place called St. Laurents market.

 

Right now there’s something called the BuskerFest (http://www.torontobuskerfest.com/) at St. Laurents market. 

Me, Pil and Casper at St. Laurents Market, check out the little girl with the butterfly balloon wrapped around her!

 

That means a lot of people watching all sorts of entertainers and buying food and stuff from different small shops on the street. Quite fun.

 

Also here there is a big market (everyday, not just during the buskerfest) where you can get fresh vegetables, meat, fish, cheese, nuts and candy, kitchen supplies, everything! Very exciting since this place isn’t that far from where we are going to live.

 

Yesterday we had another day of orientation but a more casual and fun one. We we’re divided into teams and then first there was a trivia (qiz), then a case competition (where I presented a marketing plan and our team won, yaya ) and last a spirits competition. For this last part all teams had to do something funny to show team spirit. We did a song and others did little sketches and so on. Kind of akward but funny

 

We ended the day at a pub nearby where we had beer and some food with the others from the programme. Some of us stayed and later on me and the other Danes went with a guy from the programme, Justin, to this club called Rockwood and Grass where he works as a promoter. He got us in for free and we just had a really nice time drinking some more beers, rum and coke and dancing.

These are some pictures from the club’s website (http://www.rockwoodclub.com/venue.php):

 

So today I’m a little bit hungover. Got up at noon, got some breakfest and talked to my parents on Skype. Hans and Clare is at their cottage but will be home soon. I’ll just stay out here today, my feet are very sore from walking around all week long – and yesterday walking all the time in high heels. Tomorrow I’ll meet up with the others and I think me and Lars have to work out which courses we’re going to follow.

Arrived in my new city

Well, suddenly I landed. Felt weird. Very overwhelming.

I got up at 4 in the morning yesterday, had breakfest with David and then took the metro to the airport. My parents came and said goodbye and I met Kirstine, Pil and Lars who were also going to Toronto yesterday. To more girls, Arndis and Emilie, is coming also to study at Ryerson.

Then we flew to Frankfurt, got something to eat AND COFFEE! And right after that we went over to the gate where the plane to Canada waited, got onboard and flew for about 8 hours. When we landed we had to go through immigration but that didn’t take long. We then picked up our luggage and went out where we met Hans and Clare who I’m staying with for the first week.

The Great Dane (Hans) felt sorry for my friends, so after driving me and Clare back to their house he was so kind to go back to the airport, pick up the others and drove them to their hotel, hostel and friend. Thank you for that, Hans.

In the evening I had a good time with Hans and Clare, just having supper and talking over a glass (or more) of wine. At about 8 o’clock I was sent to bed  – I was so tired. There’s a 6 hour time difference from Denmark, so at 8 it was actually around 2 o’clock Danish time and I had not slept that much on the plane. So I went to bed in my cosy room in a good bed and fell asleep imediately.

Today I woke up early at around 6.30 Canadian time, so actually I slept in considering when I went to bed! Got up and had breakfest with Hans and Clare who usually eats breakfast at this early hour(!!!) – but that was perfect today.

Later today I’m meeting up with Lars, Pil and Kirstine and we’re going to have a look at the city and Ryerson University. That’s gonna be sooo exciting because right now I’ve only seen the city from Hans’ car on the way to their house. So I don’t really feel like being a long way from home since I’m right now sitting in their lovely living room in a nice chair feeling very comfortable with a big cup of coffee standing on the small table next to me. You know, I just got on a plane yesterday, walked around in some airport terminals and really didn’t spend that much time outside until I got to the house that’s a little outside Toronto.

So later on today I guess it will maybe occur to me that I am indeed far, far away from home!

Lets’ see…