Valentine's Day Dinner at East Thirty-Six

Right in time for Valentine's Day, my boyfriend and I had a chance to spend a very romantic evening having dinner and sampling cocktails at East Thirty-Six, the Wellington and Church cocktail bar and bistro, which also happens to be our favourite splurge in the city.

E36 held a social media contest for its fans a few weeks ago. A dinner for two was the prize, which I handily won last weekend. Obviously, I was more than glad to use this opportunity to take Matt out to celebrate the V-Day. It was not our first time at the restaurant, so we came determined and prepared to be adventurous with the menu.

Things I Love About Toronto

Once in September, I went swimming in Lake Ontario. The heat and humidity had been killing me before I dove into the water and splashed my way around, honestly wanting to stay in the lake for hours. It got me thinking that I should really make a list of things I love about Toronto, since I wouldn't live anywhere else. I love Toronto. I hope you noticed.

It is now almost Christmas time. The heat and humidity aren't the issues right now; snowfall and freezing winds are. Things I love about Toronto are unchanged, though, and here are just some of them, in no particular order.

(Warming: a lot of  gushing and I love's ahead!)

Visiting Mackenzie House

Mackenzie House is one of ten Heritage Sites operated and maintained by the City of Toronto. It's a great little museum that I visited by chance last Friday - and loved every minute of it.

I was actually on my way to Montgomery's Inn, another Heritage Site, riding the subway westbound, when an announcement on the train told me that the service was temporarily suspended between St. George and Ossington stations. This being a new and unexpected development, I figured it would be a while before shuttle buses showed up, and abruptly decided to visit Montgomery's Inn another day.

Good thing that Mackenzie House is located in the heart of downtown, just two streets east of Eaton Centre, so I could go there instead. Located at 82 Bond Street, it blends in with the area quite well, but you wouldn't miss it.

Writing, Consigo and My Other Plans

Currently in YYZ and enjoying some spring warmth at last! (Yes, it's May. Get your weather act together, Toronto.)

Not much travelling has been happening in the last year or so, while I have been working on getting my professional life in order. I have been writing full time for the last 12 months, but only recently began zeroing in on what I actually enjoy doing as a (technical) writer.

Blogging - check.

Copy writing - check.

Help sections and articles - check.

Resume writing - not so much, although I'm still happy to create a kickass CV for anyone who wants one.

I am also neck deep in helping run a tiny accounting firm in Toronto called Consigo, whose goal is to get a foot in the door of the exciting world of online bookkeeping and taxes. We are proudly an online-only service provider with transparent pricing and super-friendly people. So if you need an accountant to take care of your books, you know where to look now ;)

Apart from writing and Consigo, I intend on updating YYZ-BCN way more often from now on. Stay tuned for more travel advice and more moments of conventional wisdom!

Three Days in Philadelphia

On Sunday morning I am boarding my first flight from Billy Bishop International airport in Toronto, also known as the City Island airport, found about five minutes on foot from my brother's place and separated from land by 120 meters of water. It is going to be the shortest ferry ride ever, and it's going to be freeeeee! The airport code for Billy Bishop is YTZ, in case this bit of info is somehow interesting. I will be flying Porter to New York City... well, to Newark, to be exact, but I'm not staying there even for a minute and heading to Manhattan the second I step off my plane.

From Manhattan, which undoubtedly is going to be all green and Irish (it's March 17, Saint Patrick's Day, after all), I will be taking a bus to Philadelphia, where, I heard, it is not always sunny, but many other wonderful things are found. Their art museum is supposedly exceptionally good. A quick Wikipedia read tells me that it houses Van Gogh's Sunflowers and Monet's Japanese Bridge and Water Lilies, which is good enough for me, even for $20. Another pleasant news is that the price of admission to Philadelphia Museum of Art covers two consecutive days, which means that I can visit Rodin Museum on Monday (while all the other buildings are closed) and continue with the main building and the Perelman building on Tuesday. Here is hoping that my hopefully light post-St. Paddies hangover will not interfere (or make an appearance at all).

Other random plans for Philly include cheesesteak, Liberty Bell, live music, and striking random conversations with people. After that, it's back to NYC for a few hours and then off I fly on Porter back to Billy Bishop!

From Argentina to Portugal

Okay, my socks have had the top position in my blog long enough, time to grace it with some new content. I am staying put in Toronto at the moment, so there are no immediate travel adventures to report about, sadly, though I really want to get away to the States for a weekend (somewhere... anywhere). Money is a bit tight right now, so I must be strong and remember that in March I am heading to the Azores for a week!

The story of how this trip came to be should be called "How Buenos Aires turned into Ponta Delgada". I had wanted to visit Buenos Aires before heading to Barcelona in spring, and invited my parents to come with. My mom is an avid tango dancer, so it was only natural to expect that she would join me. Dad, on the other hand, doesn't dance and doesn't eat meat, so, blimey, Buenos Aires at a glance is not a great choice for him. He did want to go on a trip with me so we all decided to compromise and head to Chile, because Chile was also in South America and apparently gorgeous. After a quick plane tickets search Chile was off the list, because we wanted to treat this trip as a last-minute relaxing whim, and 14-hour flights for $1300 are not our idea of an ideal one-week getaway. So then the conversation shifted to Peru, because Dad has always wanted to climb Machu Picchu (and who doesn't, really?). Air Canada flies to Lima non-stop, so that was okay. We left the trip preparation at that: Peru in March.

A week later we had been drinking a nice bottle of Priorat red, when Dad brought up the March trip again. We talked about direct flights again, and somebody, I can't even say who, said: "Oh if only there were direct flights to the Azorean Islands from Toronto! If only!" The Azores are a perfect meeting place between Europe and North America, since they are found almost exactly half-way between the two continents. Mom said that maybe we could scratch Peru and go to the Azores instead. Well... I ran upstairs to check tickets, and lo and behold: non-stop YYZ to PDL with SATA Portugal, $650 round-trip! Could that be true? Only 4,5 hours in the air to reach the Portuguese domain in the Atlantic?

It was true alright. We booked tickets two hours later. Only after the decision was made did I realize how NOT crazy I was about going to Peru. It was not the destination per se, of course, I want to go there one day. I just wasn't feeling it at the moment: I was prepared to take the expense of flying and lodging in Buenos Aires, speaking a beautiful language, staying out till morning, enjoying the vibe, the food, the wine. Not so much in Peru, since I know nothing about it.

I know precious little about the Azores as well, but I will find out! The guidebook has already arrived and March is drawing closer and closer.

On Barcelona

Oh, the magic of the words "Your flight to Barcelona is now confirmed."

As my arrival date draws nearer, I keep thinking about how a friend once said that I choose to leave Barcelona every time I go, no doubt in response to my usual hysteric sadness. I was hurt by this and tried explaining that no, I don't choose, the circumstances choose for me, but even if this is partially true, I realized later on that yes, yes, I do choose to leave, even if I really don't want to. The choice is mine, but my hand is forced.

I choose to leave to keep my extended stays legal (and they always are), to follow through with commitments I have in Canada and with promises I made to visit other places. New Zealand will be a good example of the latter, and I have no doubt I will hate to board my flight from Barcelona in November, even if it means going on a great adventure.

Barcelona is home. Why? I feel in place there. I feel like I both blend in and stand out in the most optimal way. Over the course of six visits (about five months spent in town in total) I made the same number of close friends as in six years in Canada. It counts for something, when I know for a fact that if I get in trouble, any kind of trouble, in Barcelona, I have a long list of people to call who could help, and a short yet very assuring list of people to call who would do everything to help me immediately. I have that in Canada too, but I live here, my family is here, we have a home here, I speak the language perfectly and I spent the last six years here. Toronto is home. So is Barcelona.

The only conclusion I can draw from all this is that I need to work harder to turn this "if I could stay" into "I don't have to go".

Eyes down, soldier

Back in Canada I am indeed. (Also, Yoda.) This clearly isn't Europe anymore, for many obvious reasons, and one of them bugs me the most: men don't look at women here. Stealing glances and immediately averting one's eyes happens, but ogling and gazing, admiringly or lasciviously or otherwise, doesn't.
I'll be the first to admit that I like when men look at me. I don't find it offensive or obscene, and as long as they don't do anything intrusive or aggressive, I for the most part enjoy the attention I get. And in Spain I get a lot of it. I like it not only because it strokes my ego, but also because, to me, people who are not afraid to openly admire a beautiful woman (me in that case) clearly allow themselves to enjoy little things more and are having more day-to-day fun, and I'm happy for them.
On the other hand, I'm not happy for human contact-deprived Canadians, who are poisoned by steady pressure to be PC and are constantly scared of sexual harassment. I actually don't know if these are the main reasons why men here don't look at women, but it's in the culture for sure. (The sociologist in me has just died a little.)
Point is, I never thought that I would physically feel the absence of others looking. Right after I landed at YYZ, I could tell something was off, but only understood what it was when we stopped by a store to get some groceries. The feeling of being looked over and gazed at was gone so completely that I felt it, and I didn't like it. Again, not because of my vanity, but because, well... Why wouldn't men look? Why do they look in Barcelona, but not in Toronto?
That's sort of a rhetorical question, unfortunately.