MDC - Ever expanding?

On a personal note, I'm participating in Movember this year. Men grow out their moustaches to raise awareness for prostate cancer and funds for cancer research. My 'stache is fair so I decided to grow out my beard and shave everything but the moustache before the end of November. Have a look at my Movember page and if you feel so inclined donate a little; it's for a good cause after all.

Winter is coming :) and so the current weather doesn't make for good pictures; or at least not with my camera and no polarizing filter. So I'll use the pictures I took before I first started this MDC (my daily commute) series.

At this point I had walked around the AirCanada Centre (see last post) and captured the back side of Union Station (click here for the wiki link). As you can see this is currently under construction and as this station is the main station of Toronto the daily commute for the approximately 200,000 riders is not exactly a highlight of the day. On the other side, the overhaul is desperately needed and they are planning to be done with it before the 2015 Pan Am games. In my case, all the foot traffic is a good reason to stay clear of going through the station, despite it being a potential 'short cut'. For those who read my previous entry, you may have recognized the golden CIBC building and the TD tower in the background.

So leaving Union Station behind, the street opens up and reveals a number of construction sites (even more than are on this picture) and a fully rented out condominium building in the middle of it. That finished building was the one we lived in previously (pretty much on the middle or 26th floor to the left). I guess at this point I don't have to explain our motivation to move this summer. After a lot of thought and time was put in, we found one of the few condos that are not neighbouring a construction site. Toronto's downtown has over 130 high-rise construction sites at this time, so finding a spot without one is actually a challenge. But I also found it very interesting as with every flat visited a new point of view on the city is gained.

Comments

Black Friday

I've tried so far to keep tech out of my blog. Despite all of my previous effort, I decided to break with tradition for this entry. Recently, I bought a MacBook Air which is slick, stylish, lightweight, surprisingly fast and definitely on the pricey side. Actually since it matters for this entry, I have to be a little more precise. I bought the laptop mid November. My old one is almost utterly useless since it gets hot as hell when you 'sleep' deprive it for more than 10 min. As I tend to do, I payed up at once and forgot about the expense almost just as quick. Now, for the next part I have to explain something that not everyone may be aware of. Thanksgiving is a much bigger holiday here in North America than it was in Europe. There is turkey dinner and pumpkin carving and costumes and other traditions that Europeans just don't do, even though at least Germany has the holiday ("Erntedankfest") as well. The date when this happens is a different one for the

French Canada

After the first night sleep, the first day was mainly retracing steps of my previous visits in Montreal. As it so happened, there was actually a parade on for the winter Olympia teams this very day. BTW, for all those who didn't watch any of the last games, Canada is crazy about winter sports... and excels in it too. So there were a lot of heroes to be cheered for and the streets were packed. Having had a wonderful day in Montreal, my trip brought me to Trois-Rivieres on Saturday. In this the (very small) city I did my internship in 2005. So it had been a while since I was there last. And I was quite happy to see that so many things were pretty much as I remembered. The main reason to come to this 150,000 francophone citizen strong town was to meet with two of my colleagues/friends from my already mentioned internship. We enjoyed Moroccan food and caught up on ... well, just sooooo many things. Now I'm already looking forward to meeting you guys again. And I promise we can ma

Seasons

One of my points for choosing Canada as my new home, was the fact that they have all the seasons. A tough winter as well as a hot summer. Nevertheless, I didn't expect to have all seasons in less than a week. Yesterday in Montreal, I walked the streets in a T-shirt. Today however, (Quelle surprise!) I woke up to a snow storm. For most parts, the snow melted before hitting the ground. So it wasn't too much of a problem driving. Nonetheless, I haven't seen snow density like this for years. And it only turned into snow/rain when finally arriving in Ottawa. Anyway, apart from snowfall at the end of April, there was a lot of fun to be had. I've been meeting friends/colleagues from my internship in Trois-Rivieres in 2005 (see previous) entry. A whole bunch of them now work in Montreal. So I had the chance to visit their workplace, which was very interesting. Only one of them had time for a few pints after work, which was extremely enjoyable still. Today, due to the weathe

To Canada and beyond

Search This Blog