Toronto was a huge surprise for me. I don’t know what I expected by I loved it so much.
After breakfast on that first morning I discovered that the Art Gallery had an Impressionist Art Exhibition, with all my favourite French artists, and it was free. I spent hours wandering their great halls and breathing in the long ago painted canvases that had inspired me throughout my teenage years. For the first time ever I was on my own timeline. It was hard to get used to at first, I kept checking my watch and then realising I wasn’t needing to be accountable to anyone other than myself. I could eat when I was hungry, sleep when I was tired, it was very liberating.
I discovered bagels in Toronto and I couldn’t get enough.They had bagel shops with a huge array of flavoured cream cheeses. Bagel shops in Canada to me were like the gelato shops in Italy. I was determined to try every flavour and combination. I also loved their pickles. The most giant and crunchy delicious pickles I had ever eaten. I would buy them and snack on then during the day, just because I could.
I found the whole city to be buzzing. I went and saw a professional production of The Phantom of the Opera with some Canadians that I met at the Youth Hostel and we visited some of the main tourist sites together. On my last day I stumbled upon an open air celebration of the Arts and I watched a youth Contemporary Dance company perform where they used their breath instead of music to dance to. I was riveted, I had never seen anything so profound and inspiring in dance at that point in my life. It is a memory still engraved in my mind to this day.
I spent a day visiting Niagra Falls before moving onto Ottawa, Quebec City and Montreal. All of these cities were in a glorious splendour of autumn colours, like nothing I had seen before back home. Leaves of yellow, orange, red and purple adorned the trees that lined pretty cobbled streets in Quebec City. The October air was definitely much fresher than I was used to but I embraced the cold and enjoyed my ramblings around the old town. I got really good at saying “je ne parle pas français” (I do not speak French) to anyone who asked me a question. So good that they didn’t believe me and would keep speaking to me in French as I stared at them blankly.
I don’t recall talking to many people over the two week period that I travelled alone, but I’m sure I did. I generally struck up conversations with people quite easily and I recall staying with some friends of a friend in Montreal but even then I would head out each day on my own. Montreal had a labyrinth of tunnels and shopping malls below ground that I found fascinating that were due to the extreme temperatures they would get in Winter. I would explore them most days as it was getting colder and colder. All in all it was a very solitary time but I never felt lonely. I enjoyed people watching and seeing new places. I left to return to Vancouver feeling tremendously proud of myself for traveling solo and actually enjoying it. It was definitely not something that I had thought would be the case before I left.
When I had booked my ticket to Canada I thought I was going to meet someone and potentially travel with them. I hadn’t anticipated having to entertain myself and travel solo. I just didn’t think I was that kind of person or that brave. Turns out I was.
Upon my return I was faced with the decision of whether to stay in Canada and try to make a temporary life there or return home as I was starting to go through my hard earned savings. I made contact with the Aussie ex-pat that I had met at the start of my trip and soon she was helping me find a place to rent. I looked at tiny rooms with a pull out sofa and microwave oven with a shared bathroom and I looked at rooms a long way out of town that would require a long commute. I was starting to despair that I would never find anywhere, when a chance meeting meant that within a day I had secured the tiniest room, more like a walk in robe, in the most divine two story house for a crazy cheap price with an eclectic group of housemates. I had everything I needed in my tiny space and the glorious kitchen with a large bay window overlooking the backyard that was full of trees. Best of all I could walk into the town centre in 15 minutes.
So now I had a place, but I needed a job badly! The next few weeks saw me doing many jobs varying from handing out flyers on street corners to promote businesses, to temping in offices when I could get the work. I remember answering the phones at an insurance agency one day and filing claim forms. On that one day two people called the office to report they had hit an elk and one person called to say they had been run off the road by a moose! I found this so entertaining.
Things started to fall into place pretty quickly after that. I had applied for a job as costume co-ordinator at a theatre company and I didn’t receive the job but I was offered the role of Choreographer for their next show instead. I went to do a tap class at a local dance school and was offered teaching work with them at the end of the class. I applied for a job at a car dealership and I didn’t receive that job but was offered another position as a sales co-ordinator for the sales team. It felt like the universe was throwing opportunities my way and I was just taking whatever it sent.
My life fell into a new rhythm of work and things I don’t really consider work. I would catch the bus every morning to the car dealership, mostly in the dark, and then catch the bus to my dance classes to teach or to the theatre society for rehearsal. I had long days and I loved every minute. I rarely saw much sunlight because the days were short and I drank far too much coffee. Interestingly they always seemed to have creamer instead of fresh milk so I wasn’t a fan of that. The guys I worked with during the day would rib me for my Aussie accent and I would mock their varied Canadian accents right back. I got an email address and was able to converse with my family back home on a regular basis. Email was the Facebook of the 90’s.
I wore thermals everywhere because I was freezing all the time! I remember feeling like I would never feel warm again some days. I was definitely out of my comfort zone with the weather.
Then one morning, in December, I woke up to snow! It was weird because it was so strangely quiet when I woke up and I didn’t know why. I slept on a floor mattress and as I gazed up at the small little window, above my head in my room, it was like magic. I could see snowflakes drifting down like little puffs and my window was covered in ice. I had never been in a place that was actually snowing before! I couldn’t wait to go outside to check it out but someone probably should have warned me first about the black ice… as soon as I stepped onto the first tread of the front porch my legs went out from under me and I felt every bit of each step as I promptly slid down, bomp, slip, donk, slide, to the garden below. To this day I can feel the ramifications of that fall in my right hip. Kind of dulled the excitement of my first snowfall. I lay kind of dazed and winded for a bit before dragging myself up and hobbling in pain to catch my bus, slipping and sliding along the way. That lunch break I caught a bus to Walmart and bought myself a pair of snow boots!
Stay tuned for part 4
