After a day filled with the agony of lifting large objects repeatedly while shuffling up and down stairs, we’re finally in our new apartment. Oh, yeah.
Once a debacle with the landlord and getting keys for the new apartment was worked out, the move went pretty well. For those folks in Toronto who might be in the market for a local moving company, I highly recommend Emerald Moving and Storage - very friendly, reliable, and hard-working. After all of the crap we went through getting our stuff from Winnipeg to here in the first place, it was a relief to deal with someone who didn’t have ASSHAT stamped on their forehead.
Of course, I knew that that nothing bad could come of the move when I saw that one of the movers looked, as his partner described him “exactly like Doc from Back to the Future”. And he did, thus giving me the joy of having my stuff moved by a Christopher Lloyd lookalike.
We absolutely love our new apartment and neighbourhood. Our place faces High Park, which is about half the size (400 acres) of Central Park in New York or Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg. There’s giant, old trees everywhere, which makes the neighbourhood feel cozy while seemingly making the air smell… normal. That’s no mean feat in the Big Smoke.
The houses in this area are venerable, palatial and majestic. They, like the columns of trees that are everywhere, act as a calming influence. We feel like we’ve moved to a different city here; the vibe is noticeably different than where we were living before. Even the people seem more gregarious and open here; Renée was shocked a couple of days ago when she was walking in the park and complete strangers said “hello” to her.
This sounds sad, but in the downtown core this kind of brief amity is a rare thing.
If one walks about two minutes into the park, the seemingly constant sounds of traffic and the city fade away and are replaced by the sounds of birds chirping, bugs buzzing, and the movement of air through leaves and branches. For a moment, you are reminded.
