Canadian Bacon

In addition to hot dogs and wine (below). Another note from the weekend...

Rich and I rented a movie called Canadian Bacon this weekend which is a hilarious movie filmed by Michael Moore, starring John Candy. The ludicrous premise is the US has just finished the Cold War and is looking for a new country to blame its problems on. Thus we instigate a conflict with Canada. The movie was great comic relief after experiencing some of the cultural differences of this country. One of which, the "French-English" issue, seems to always be on everyone's mind (and written all over my groceries, government forms, and on street signs). The scene below is almost too close to the truth here...

The truth via Canadian Bacon.

Enjoy!

Hot Dogs and Wine

A post-birthday post. Rich and Kristina's adventure in Toronto food and drink...

During Rich's visit for my birthday, we found two things in Canada to be quite different from in the US: hot dogs and wine. No, not together. Canadians might do some strange things but certainly I've not seen anyone make the paring of hot dogs with wine. These two very opposite victuals, not surprisingly, generated two very opposite culinary experiences for us, here in Toronto.

First we'll start with the less than good: wine. The sale of alcohol is controlled very strictly by the government here and taxed highly. This means that the only people that you can actually buy alcohol from is the government. (Seems kinda strange to me since I always think of the government of trying to prohibit drinking, but okay.) There are a few places near me "The Beer Store" (basically the only place you can get a variety of beer) and "The Wine Rack" (which only sells kitschy, gimmicky wine). Rich and I discovered another general seller this weekend where they have a very limited variety of wines from France, Australia, and Italy and where you can buy actual liquor. The beer choices were dismally small; I guess we'd have to go to "The Beer Store" to get a good variety. In the end, it seems that I won't be doing much cultivating of my wine palette while in Canada unless it is by means of wine brought over the border from the States.

The good half of this post is the bit about hot dogs. Hot dogs in Toronto are more than just your off the grill piece of "maybe meat" with some bland mustard and ketchup slathered on top. Hot dogs are an experience, a world of choice, a taste bud sensation. Before you even order a hot dog from a street vendor you know this isn't your normal experience. You are first faced with the decision beef, chicken, polish sausage, or even veggie dog. Then you wait while your meat (or faux meat, if you so desire) is cooked up right before you along with a toasted bun. Once you've been handed the dog, though, is when the real fun begins. A variety of condiments awaits you from sauerkraut to green olives, ketchup to bbq sauce. There are so many possible combinations of flavors to add, I'd be surprised if you ever ate the same hot dog twice in Toronto! My approach to the condiment options was an attempt to decide what flavors would best compliment each other while Rich tried to see how everything tasted all together. In the end, most of what we had put on top of our dogs was on the ground or on our faces. I guess turning 23 doesn't mean that I've stopped eating like a little kid.

A technical note... I am still waiting on internet and crossing my fingers that it will come in today. That is another saga similar to the cellphone one but I'm sure we've all dealt with unreliable cable guys so I'll leave that up to the imagination.

Cellphone saga

Communication between Canada and the US is harder than you'd think.

Yesterday I discovered this downfall of being an international student in Canada. I have known for a while that obtaining a reasonable phone plan for calling to the US would be difficult but I had no idea all that this entailed. Over the course of the afternoon the process was elucidated for me (kind of). In short, to obtain a cell plan here you must have Canadian credit. Having lived my entire life in the States, I don't have credit in Canada. Logically, one would just run an American credit check on me. Alas, it seemed impossible to run a US credit check on me, although I do have credit in the US. After two hours standing in the cellphone store with a sales representative on the phone to various customer service numbers they were able to manually sell me a phone (I'm not sure exactly what that means except that she had to write out my contract by hand in a form). In the end I opted for a plan that is for calling within Canada locally. To make calls to the US it seems simpler, cheaper, and safer (monetarily) to use a calling card. I did spring a bit of cash for a monthly text allowance to the US however. I am nervous a bit about this cellphone thing because I know that they slap you with fees at every turn. For example, my "free" phone had a $100 warranty attached to it. But I guess I will just have to be meticulous with my calling this month, see what the bill looks like, and make adjustments as necessary.

I was also attempting to get internet from this company yesterday but after the long process of just obtaining a cellphone the store was past closing time. So I have to wait until Tuesday to even order my internet. Until then I am getting well acquainted with the baristas at the cool little coffee shop around the corner called Java Jive and enjoying my nicer-than-necessary, semi-free phone.

Contact information

Just a quick message to give you all my new contact information.

My home address (if you want to write me or send me packages!)

138 Wellesley St. E Apt #14

Toronto, ON, Canada M4Y 1J1

The weird number-letter thing at the end is my postal code (zip code). It took me a while to remember the weird number and letter combination and I am not sure why the Canadian system is not numbers like the U.S. I guess I'll have to do a little more research on that one and report back.

My phone number in Toronto is (416) 801-6181. I have a very limited phone plan but I believe incoming calls from the U.S are free for me. Check your plan though before you call me because calls to Canada may be quite far from free for you!

I have a saga to recount about how I obtained this phone but that is for another time!

Fast food: Pizza Pizza

A few items of business before I begin. If you would like to have an e-mail sent to you when I update here please leave me a message with your e-mail. Also, I have set up this account so you can comment without having a blogger account yourself. Please remember if you comment to sign your name so I know who you are! Thank you!

Yesterday, after a long day of unpacking and after running around town trying to drop off the U-Haul (I think both Rich and I have sworn that company off for good) we decided to indulge in some local pizza. So we headed to a pizza place called "Pizza Pizza." We had a while to wait for the pizza, and since there was not much else to do during the wait, I surveyed the Canadian fast food terrain. A few things that struck me while sitting in the neon, polished up restaurant:

• On the wall there hung a poster with a cartoon of a half-naked woman water skiing with some sort of slogan in French scrawled across it.
• You could buy dipping sauce for your pizza! Flavors like ranch, honey mustard, and thai sauces were just a few of the options available.
• And the most shocking of all... they sold pizza value meals which all came with your choice of a slice of pizza, a drink, dipping sauce, and FRENCH FRIES!

The french fries- pizza combination is shocking perhaps because it is Canada where I expect everything to be relatively healthy and clean. If this same thing were to occur in the States I'd just shake my head and think, what a shame this country's eating habits are. I suppose this is the first of many new cultural "enlightenments."

Thats all for now! Back to unpacking..

Canada IS a foreign country

I am writing here mostly at the suggestion of my mom. I have up until now kept a blog for every one of my "international adventures" but I always thought to myself, who really considers Canada an foreign country? I laughed when I was first sent information about being an international student and thought it was quite funny when I was introduced as the new student "all the way from the United States" to the Comp Lit department. What I have found out over the course of this month, however, is that I was wrong. Dead wrong.

Canada is not an extension of the US by any means. Even in a logistical, cell-phone-ing, banking, moving-to-another-place aspect Canada is posing the exact same challenges you would expect when moving to England, Australia, South Africa... wherever. After coming to this realization (with the help of mom) I have decided to occasionally blog here about my adventure in this not-so-obviously foreign country.

I'll mostly be including little stories, lists, and perhaps a few pictures here and there. I won't be writing here on a daily basis but perhaps more on a weekly or biweekly schedule depending on how busy I get with school and life in general. I hope you enjoy!