Thursday after breakfast, I went for my first run in High Park. (In New York, I jog about 1.25 miles two or three times a week, around the Reservoir in Central Park.) I didn't have my little water bottle, and I wasn't really dressed warmly enough on top, it turned out, so I made it a short one. It was very nice, though. The park is hardly used at all, it seems, just a couple of runners, and a couple of moms with toddlers. As in Central Park, I enjoy the close contact with Nature, even if it's cold and the ground and ponds are frozen.
We had lunch and then set off on the subway to the center (Yonge and Bloor) for Fumiko's language assessment test appointment. She was really nervous, and it took about an hour -- all four skills, reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Her tester was kind and encouraging, and after it was over said Fumiko had done well, placing into Level 5 of seven levels. Fumiko decided to start the ESL class on Monday, Jan. 28th, since she is registered for a 16-hour jobs workshop next week. The ESL class is five days a week, 9 to 2:30! And all this is free, from the government, which is eager to turn immigrants into tax-paying workers as quickly as possible.
While Fumiko was testing, I visited a couple of banks to discuss my money-changing problems. In conclusion, it seems the best way to transfer money is just to think ahead (about a month ahead) and deposit a $US check into my Canadian account. It will be credited as Canadian dollars on the day of deposit, but the funds will be frozen for about a month while the money is transferred; there is no fee for this, just time. The only reason to open an $US account in Canada is if I wish to control the timing of currency conversion more closely. I don't think I do. By the way, in the course of these discussions, I learned a few useful translations: GIC (guaranteed investment certificate) here is what we call a CD (certificate of deposit) in the U.S., and an IRA in the U.S. seems to be similar to the Canadian RRSP (registered retirement savings plan).
We then went to Union Station to buy my train ticket to New York for Sunday. There is a separate Amtrak window there for this purpose, but I paid in Canadian dollars ($79.00 one way). Suddenly anxious about the return procedure, I called Amtrak and they say that I can buy a one-way ticket back in New York, for $82.80.
In the evening, I had a nice Skype chat with friend Mike in Ottawa, and as a result was finally able to set up the TV with a list of channels that we are actually interested in. Took me about 45 minutes to do this, armed with PDF lists of channels from the provider (on my Mac screen, since I have no printer yet), one in numerical order and one in alphabetical order. Mike suggested buying TV Guide to learn more about each channel, and I will do that.
On Friday morning, both Fumiko and I had a run in High Park, taking a somewhat different path than I did the previous day. It was very cold and the wind is fierce -- the TV said the temperature was at freezing, plus another minus-13 degrees in wind chill! We had to keep moving, and did pretty well, alternating jogging and walking for about 40 minutes. On the way home we walked through the residential area (we like to look at all the various house styles), and we found an abandoned piece of furniture on the sidewalk that we liked and managed to lug home, about two blocks. It is a walnut-veneer small low cabinet, the shape of an end table. We are currently using it as a small bench/table in the entry hall. Considering that it had frozen ice droplets on it when we found it, it cleaned up very well. Our landlord came by and coveted it!
It was a beautiful sunny day, so although it was a shame to stay indoors, we did just that for most of the rest of the day. (We are still having wireless outages for parts of most days, but I have discovered another open network connection in the neighborhood that doesn't seem to mind me using it -- no password, anyway -- and is generally available when our landlord's network isn't.) About 5:30 (after dark), we ventured out to pick up some grocery items. Looking for peanut butter, we happened upon a small convenience store (from the outside it looks like a movie theatre!) that has a side business of renting DVDs. At $3 for new movies (1 night) or $2 for older ones (2 nights), it's a bargain, and also not far from our house. The cashier is a Korean woman who took an instant liking to us and wanted to know where we were from, etc. We rented "Hairspray" for $3. At home, we found (no surprise by this time!) that playing a DVD here is not a trivial matter. First we had to climb up on a chair to examine the DVD player, which is perched on the top shelf of the entertainment unit. Using all of our limited skills, we could not get it to work. We called the landlord, and he came down, took off his shoes (did I mention his wife is Korean?), and all but took the entire entertainment unit apart, tightening and/or moving plugs, lying on his belly to get at cables underneath it, etc. Finally he got it working. No sooner had he left, though, than we realized the picture was so dark and the colors so lurid that you could hardly tell what was going on; it showed a decent picture only intermittently, and fiddling with the TV controls didn't seem to help. We eventually discovered that by climbing up and wiggling cables on the DVD player ever so slightly, the correct picture would snap back into place. We had to do this about every 30-45 minutes for the duration of the movie, so it got to seem like a routine adjustment. We both enjoyed the movie, though Fumiko thought it rather "old-fashioned."
Saturday: On awaking, we see about an inch of snow on the ground, but by 9 a.m. it has all melted, leaving another sunny day but cold, and with a large wind-chill factor again. People are now dressing the way we imagined Canadians would be: heavy boots, big hoods and mittens, etc. The homeless woman who gently offers copies of Street News, and from whom we bought one the day before yesterday, is at her post even on this very cold day. We take our daily walk on Roncesvalles Avenue, walking north to what we thought was a major intersection at Dundas Street West, but there isn't really much there: a branch of our bank, and The Beer Store, and a nice revival movie house that charges only $5-6 and shows both new (well, almost new) and classic movies. A good walk, though. On our way home, we stop at the library and Fumiko exchanges a couple of books for possibly better ones.
Sidebar: Pronunciation of local names is always tricky. No logic applies. Here, the French-looking "Roncesvalles" is spoken like "Rahn-sess-vales" and I have to keep practicing it to myself. "Dundas" is not "Dun-dus" with the second vowel almost silent, as I would think, but "Dun-dass" to rhyme with "one glass." "Spadina" rhymes with "vagina" (sorry, but it's a good match!).
I glance at the newspaper that I bought (the Globe and Mail, which seems to be a national paper, as opposed to the local Toronto Star) and see that Bobby Fischer has died, age 64, three years younger than me. I am riveted, read the whole obituary (a full page, from the New York Times) and then seek out more information on the Internet. The recent picture they show of him looks bizarre, and his life is largely a mystery, so my curiosity is largely unsatisfied.
Fumiko cut my hair (we have exchanged haircuts for many years), and then she set out to do a load of laundry -- towels and bathroom rugs, mostly. However, the students who live in the basement seemed to have the same idea, so it took her hours and many trips before she was able to complete the job. Meanwhile, I worked at assembling the tiny amount of luggage that I will take tomorrow, mostly empty containers to bring things back from New York (just think of it as "the mother ship"). We'll plan to leave for the train at 7 a.m. I have to get in line early to get a "good seat" -- for me, that will be in the quiet car with an electrical outlet nearby, though they say that there are "very few" outlets in the coach section. I'll have 13 hours to kill, so I'd like to be able to use my computer; there is a lot of stuff I can do even without Internet access. I'm also taking two books, today's newspaper (unlike the U.S., the Saturday edition seems to be as big as the Sunday), puzzles of various sorts, Christmas cards to answer, and three meals worth of food. And my neck pillow for naps.
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