To Canada and beyond

The dust has settled a little by now and I have a little more time on my hands. So, I thought it's only fair to write a quick entry in my blog. Moving into the new apartment went quite well... Well, apart from the IKEA guys forgetting one of the components of my bed. That led to two rather unfortunate things. A night on the mattress, which honestly is not that bad, but it's not great either. And also a trip to IKEA in Vaughan, which takes approx. 2.5 h by public transport. Maybe I should give a little background on that. I went to my godfather over the weekend, for which I had to rent a car. That meant I had a car for my Ikea shopping. So quite logically, I chose the IKEA that was closest to me on my route from my godfather to my new apartment. All went perfectly well - or so it seemed. I didn't hit too much traffic and arrived in IKEA early. I went shopping for smaller items first and tossed them into the trunk of my rental car. Then I went in for a second rount and got t

It's a been a good while since my last entry. The search for a place to stay has evolved into a tedious one. After finding a nice apartment in a good neighborhood, the landlord decided that he would prefer to sell rather then rent... half an hour before giving out the keys. After many more viewings, another nice place ticked all the boxes. Centrally located in the heart of downtown, it had all the niceties for modern living. Like a pool, a gym, sauna... This time the landlord asked for a deposit of a years rent! That was not going to happen. Since he didn't move on his position even after much negotiation, it was time to move on once more. Then finally after a few more days of intensive search on craigslist and co, another apartment made it to the top of the list. This time the deal was sealed. Move-in will be next Wednesday and I'm already looking forward to sharing some photos with you. Okay, that's it for today. Stay tuned for more. (The photo above is a sunse

I cannot believe that a week has already passed since my last entry. I have been in Toronto since last week's Wednesday eve. Well, still being in possession of the rental car for Thursday, a trip down to wine valley and Niagara Falls was pretty much a must. Which was very enjoyable, BTW. Toronto itself is extremely big. I still haven't quite grasped the entire scale of the Toronto and Greater Toronto area. I went down to the end of one of the subway lines and there were still loads of skyscrapers. However, I have encountered a couple of stops in between that feel more like a small village or suburbia. Therefore, I'm still figuring out where I would like to live in the long run. But for the moment I might have a look at some apartments close to High Park tomorrow. Another thing that I can hardly (especially as a bureaucracy ridden German) get my head around. Last Friday, in just one day, I managed to get the Social Insurance Number (needed when you want to work here), a