Fall is here - 09/10/04

Just another quick update...

Nothing too exciting has happened in the last week or so, although our plans to head up north today were thwarted, due to it being a holiday weekend, and therefore car rental prices and accommodation are at a premium.

Never mind , we're planning to head up next weekend instead with Sol and Jen, hopefully the Autumn colors will hold on one more week for us ;)

Last weekend Caren and I hired a couple of bikes and went for a bit of an explore up the Don Valley parkway, which is a park/reserve than runs north/south through Toronto GTA parallel to a major highway of the same name.

There's a Bike / Walking trail running all the way up (about 30KM's?) , so we thought we'd check it out.

We got the bikes down on Lakeshore Blvd (the equivalent of Quay st in Auckland), and rode across the eastern part of the city to get to the Don Valley Parkway (DVP)...quite a lot of people ride around Toronto, as it is fairly flat, so cars are pretty forgiving of bicyclists (unlike Auckland)...which is just as well, because caren and I are hardly competing in the tour de france next year...

It was a nice ride, up about 15Km's and back again...a round trip of about 3.5 hours, starting off in industrial backlots and train yards, but soon developing into a beautiful riverside path with trees and parkland

(That’s caren in the foreground holding my bike)

Here’s a picture of the Toronto cityscape from near the lakes edge, but to the east aswell..this was on the way back from our ride.

I nearly came unstuck hard trying to ride across a tram track in the city, but managed to leap off my bike and recover...even got some small applause from nearby onlookers...was a close call though...

We'll try and get more shots of Toronto and where we live in the next week or two, because now we feel we can be tourists again, rather than full time job applicants and poor folk ;)

Anyways, we had a nice touristy day on the bikes, and spent the afternoon downtown eating hotdogs and icecreams ;)

It was Caren's birthday yesterday, and we went out for a nice dinner, punctuated by no less than three 20 minute phone calls from NZ....even the waiter was laughing by the end ;)

It's Canadian thanksgiving this weekend (long weekend, Monday = holiday) , so we're going to try and have a thanksgiving dinner with Sol and Jen with a turkey and everything.

We'll see how it goes, but we're looking forward to it ...

Went down to the St Lawrence markets today (Saturday), which are basically an inner city farmers market with fresh produce / seafood , to gather ingredients for thanksgiving...had a good feed, and Caren got another 20 minute call from NZ ... sheesh, I'd hate to see everyone's phone bill this month..we only have a cell phone you see!

Speaking of moving, we are moving to a new apartment at the end of the month, as Caren isn't too keen on the smell of this building.

We've found a nicer-but-smaller place which should prove a bit more pleasant than our current place (which is ok, but far from perfect).

Both Caren and I work downtown in the banking district now (well, I start on tuesday anyway), so we should be able to meet up for lunch now and then, which'll be cool......

Oh yeah, I went to a Metallica concert on Wed's night with Sol which was a bit of a laugh..good to see those old men still going at it and pretending to be young ;) .... the stage and show was pretty cool, but I guess Metallica just don't have the same effect on me as when I was a bit younger.

Still, looking forward to some of my favourite bands coming to play Toronto next year hopefully, which is , I guess, one of the bigger advantages of being a LARGE north American city..most bands make sure to play at LEAST once a year.

Ok, Will try to get some photo's of Toronto before winter comes completely.