It’s been an interesting week getting re-aquainted with Toronto. I’ve always found it a bit discombobulating to visit cities that I used to live in. I keep having to shake the urge to go back to my old home at the end of the day.
I took the College streetcar through my old neighbourhood yesterday, and when it passed my old street (Euclid avenue), I experienced a small twinge of nostalgia. When Renée and I used to live here, the rather shitty condition our apartment was in, coupled with the price of rent and our stubborn refusal to drop more money into the place quickly fueled our resentment. But, life in the College-Euclid area was pretty darn nice.
Some other things:
- Everyone seems so young.
- Very few people listen to portable music devices on the TTC. This is in stark contrast to the huge majority of people in Winnipeg who whittle away the time in transit listening to music. I guess this is because there’s just so many hilarious soundbites and cool big-city sounds to listen to.
- Oh, how joyous it is to experience working transit. Torontonians don’t know how lucky they have it.
- The fashion statement of the summer seems to be, “Check out my thong.”
- James McNally is a funny, friendly fellow, and more proof that there seems to be a strange force at work that binds and brings people together. ‘Twas a pleasure.
- Condo developments have appeared everywhere. It’s bewildering how quickly the cityscape has changed.
- Rent has not only gone down - the vacancy rate downtown is now unbelievably high compared to the demoralizing 0.7% that it was at when we lived here. The impossibility of finding good, reasonable apartment was one of the most annoying things about living here; now that the situation is changing, it’s almost appealing again…
