Up North

Toron(t)o

For those of you with whom I haven't spoken on the phone yet, and for my own travel records, I post this entry to keep track of what I'm doing here.

Here is Toronto, or Toron(t)o, as I was informed it is called by locals. Of course, you have to adjust the vowels, too, and transform the first into a schwa and the second into a long-drawn /a/. I arrived here Thursday last week, i.e. August 21. So far I have interviewed one native signer and transcribed his data. The rest of my time I spend recruiting more signers and talking to strangers in this alien city. I'm staying at the Toronto Downtowner Inn, a few side streets from Jarvis and Dundas, a really dodgy area. Like my fellow hostel dwellers I made the mistake of going down the wrong alleyway once held my breath walking past homeless, drunk, generally shabby-looking people. I tried to avert my gaze not so much out of delicacy of spirit - oh my gosh I can't bear poverty - as out of prudence. 'Don't look and they won't rob you'. It worked for me, but I heard of a guy who got mugged there the other day. Who knows maybe that's just hostel-lore, but I'm not taking chances and will just avoid that street in the future.

You know how I know that I'm no longer 21 but a worldly wise 25? I bought a bike the first day of my stay here. My feet were complaining from the long walks I had taken to get around in Montreal and Toronto from Tuesday to Thursday, so I checked craigslist Toronto and bought a bike for 30 bucks that very same afternoon. And I already found a buyer for it when I leave here :)

I haven't done much sightseeing, since I've been to Toronto before and also since there isn't thaaat much to do. I went to swim in Lake Ontario last Friday. Nice, cooling, but the trip there led me through downtown and consequently a bath of smog and exhaust fumes. Saturday I met my borrowed friends Elena and Kristina in Kensington and we strolled through the streets stopping by at second hand stores every now and then. I call Elena and Kristina my borrowed friends because I got Elena's phone number from a friend of mine in Montreal who shared a room with her in college. Kristina is her German flatmate and we got along really well. So I asked them to go out with me for my birthday this past Wednesday, which we did. Actually, I took that whole day off from work. I got up at nine and first checked my emails for greeting cards :) and talked to my family on the phone. Then I spent an hour and a half at the hairdresser's to get blond high lights. After that I meandered around Kensington again in search of the perfect dress/shirt to wear for the night. I abandoned that search after a few hours of fruitless trying-on of only half-perfect dresses. It then dawned on me that I could have spent that time better sitting down somewhere at the beach looking at the waves and contemplating my life so far. Instead I wasted time on vanity... I was going to say not much like me, but I guess there's a vain spot in me, too.
At night I went out for dinner and some live music with Elena, Kristina, Achim and Mathias. Achim is Elena's German boyfriend an Mathias is a German acquaintance I made at the hostel, so basically Elena was the only Canadian in our group and we switched freely between English and German for most of the night. Here's another indicator for my newly found grown-uppishness: I don't mind speaking German in Canada anymore. When I first traveled Canada I eschewed Germans 'wie die Pest', I didn't want to hear German or speak my mother tongue during my stay. Now that I speak both English and German on a daily basis and probably also think in English 50% of the time, I don't feel threatened by my native tongue anymore. Plus, I try to practice Spanish whenever I can, and there are lots of Mexicans at the hostel to practice with. And for a few precious hours during the week, I get to sign ASL. So there's enough foreign languages to keep me busy and German and English count as 'Verschnaufpause'.
What made me feel most at home on my birthday was when Kristina, Elena and Mathias intoned a 'Happy Birthday' and I got to blow out the candles on a couple of delicious cupcakes baked exclusively in my honour :) So all in all, I had a memorable quarter-century birthday.

On Thursday I was invited to a German dinner at Kristina's: Schwäbischer Kartoffelsalat, Currywurst, Krautsalat und Kartoffelpuffer mit selbstgemachtem Apfelmus. hmmm, lecker. The only drawback was the ride home: 20 minutes on my bike through the pouring rain. Biking while holding a borrowed umbrella from a borrowed friend :) I got soaked, and so did my pants and shoes...

The gaps in this report will be filled some other time, when I'll write about my work. Let's hope that I'll actually have something to report on the next time I write.

Saludos,
Conni

posted by Conni @ 7:11 PM