MDC - Crossing a street

So a little later, but as promised here is the view of the underpass. This is westbound Lakeshore Boulevard underneath the Gardiner Expressway. As I mentioned it's neither impressive nor pretty. Fortunately, this is only a short part of my commute. I didn't notice it at the time, but I caught one of those big SUV that are so popular in North America on this shot as well. They are actually fun to drive; not for racing obviously, but similar to driving a truck. However, if you get stuck behind them on the road you can see pretty much nothing of what's lies in front of it. Again just like a truck ;)

Anyway, once this traffic light lies behind me I have the view of my second picture. On the let you can see the Air Canada Center or ACC that hosts ice hockey, basketball and other events. There is actually a fun little video on YouTube about the conversion between an ice hockey and a basketball field (click here to check it out). This building actually used to be the Canada Post's Toronto Delivery Building and at some stage was even used by the Department of National Security.

The golden building in the middle is a bank (RBC), who actually laced their window and outfacing structure with a thin gold layer. On the left another of the big 5 banks (TD in this case). If you look at what's going on on the street you will see a bus. This bus is part of the downtown public transport (TTC). Compared to pretty much any place I've been to (maybe except Ireland) North America has the worst public transport. Some cities are obviously better than others (NYC and San Francisco probably rank higher, Toronto however is pretty bad). So it's not surprising that many commuters opt for the very congested highways. Since a commute by train or subway might take just as long... however, take this with a grain of salt. A friend and colleague of mine used to commute by car for over 6 years and just recently discovered that a train is the better solution for himself.
Anyway, I'll be back to continue my commute on the other side of the ACC.

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...

The last leg, or is it?

Due to a volcano in Island I had a couple of very exciting days. At this stage I'm hopeful that I will be on a flight to Canada on Thursday. However, anything is still quite possible. Currently, no flights are allowed in the Irish airspace; much like the rest of Europe. But that might change on Tuesday or Wednesday. If that's the case, maybe I can be on my flight Thursday as planned. I would not want to complain though, since I know other travelers have way more serious issues due to being stranded without visa, medicine or money. For myself the clouds of ash are more or less "just" an inconvenience. If my flight on Thursday does not take off, I will have to cancel or rebook my hotels, my health insurance, my car rental and obviously my flight. I suppose I will also have to let everyone I'm planning to meet during my first week know as well. Anyway, there is little I can do now but wait once more. By the way, the photo shows locally produced ash. Long liv...

To Canada and beyond

Search This Blog