Purgatory and Pierogies (or My Weekend)

As you can probably guess from the title of this post, I had quite an interesting weekend, both dramatic and multicultural.

Let's begin with the dramatic (that is purgatory, if you couldn't guess). Friday night I went to see a play called The Queens, which was being produced by the drama department alumni of University of Toronto. The play was based on Shakespeare's Richard III and followed the women of Shakespeare's original play, focusing on their relationships to each other as they individually struggled to gain power over one another. The director's note describes the play in the following way, "[The play] is an endless cycle for these queens, collectively reliving their greatest sins and ultimate defeats. They are all in different states of understanding, different distances from redemption. Those who do not learn their lessons are forced to repeat them until they do. This is their painful cleansing process. This is their personal purgatory."

In short, this play was not a comedy. However, the acting was beautiful as well as the creative use of props. The play was performed "in the round" (meaning the stage was in an oval shape and the audience sat around the stage). I sat in the front row, which made it even more intense, leading me to conclude that if purgatory is anything like the play, I hope I never go! (Though I wouldn't mind wearing the fancy costumes!)

After glimpsing into "purgatory" on Friday, I moved onto a more lighthearted diversion, the Polish Street Festival. A couple friends from my department invited me to join them last minute and we hit the street ready for polka and most importantly, pierogies. However, obtaining pierogies was no easy task. There were the usual crowds to sift through and since we arrived at dinner time, it seemed the hungrier we got the more people there were blocking our way to the pierogie goodness. Our second challenge of the pierogie hunt was to discern which vendors were actually selling pierogies. We came across all sorts of cultural foods from Mexican to Thai to carnival-type foods before we actually found pierogies! (I never knew the Polish were so multicultural!) Once we found the right place, we purchased our Polish dinner and enjoyed the doughy, cheesy meal while watching a myriad of people pass by and while listening to the happy polka tunes churned out by the accordion players on the street.

All in all, the weekend was very satisfying for my intellectual side and for my stomach!

A trip to Greg's Ice Cream

Well September is back and that means I'm back to school and back to Toronto after having survived the wrathful (or the slightly cross) Irene. The start of the semester has been busy as usual, but I did make time for a back-to-Toronto adventure. I have recently recruited my Torontonian friend, Christine, to be my guide for all things Toronto. To start off the year (and to take advantage of one of the last warm days before the cold) we went to a local ice cream parlor, Greg's.

On the outside, Greg's seems like a pretty normal type of shop. In fact, I would have likely passed it up on my own and moved towards one of the more flashy-looking and trendy yogurt shops, which were conspicuously lining the street. I quickly learned that would have been a mistake.

A simple front- deceivingly simple

Once we were inside, I was elated to see a great menu of creative ice cream flavors (or "flavours," if you're Canadian): stout, banana nut, smarties, maple cream, cinana (banana + cinnamon). I couldn't decide which flavor to try first. After much deliberation and a couple samples,  I chose a scoop of maple cream and a scoop of cinnamon. Christine informed me that all of the ice cream is made using a sweet cream base and real ingredients are added to flavor it (not artificial flavorings). The cinnamon was made with real cinnamon and the maple cream was made with real maple syrup and you could taste it!

Note the Canadian/French spelling of the word "flavors."

While enjoying our ice cream, we chatted with the girl behind the counter who is a friend of Christine's. She informed us that pumpkin ice cream would be arriving soon and I decided then and there that ice cream is no longer a warm-weather-only indulgence. I'll most definitely be breaking from my work this semester to venture back and taste their Greg's fall-flavored treats!

Note: Photos were borrowed from blogTO's review of Greg's Ice Ceam

Hurricane = no bananas?

Just a quick hello to everyone. I'm writing here, safe and sound in Larwenceville, New Jersey. Rich and I left NYC on Thursday night before calls for evacuation began. We have been watching the news and getting ready for the hurricane here as it should be hitting us late tonight and early tomorrow.

Like the rest of the state of New Jersey, Rich and I decided to go grocery shopping yesterday. It was, of course, filled to the brims with people and empty of many of the necessities. We were able to scrounge for bread and water, but strangely there were no bananas to be found.

In NYC everything in downtown (Battery Park, the Village, Chelsea) is being shut down and evacuated. In addition, all commuter rail trains going North and South and all subway service is being shut down at noon today. And they closed down Washington Square Park...ha! Not something you see every day in the city.

All in all we are safe and sound, away from the crowds, and just getting ready to relax and hang out as the storm passes over us.

A tour of Toronto's libraries

The purpose of this blog is to communicate to you all, dear readers, my life and my experiences in Toronto. For a long time I've been fretting over the fact that, well, I don't have that many experiences of "Toronto." At least not the typical, culturally fascinating ones that would warrant a blog post. But then I thought to myself, "self, your intention is to write about your life in Toronto, so why not just do that." Eureka! What a thought! Therefore, tonight I will delight you with one of the most central aspects of my life, the wonderful, the beautiful.... library (libraries to be more exact, UofT has several).

 The first library I'd like to bring your attention to is the Kelly Library. This building is indeed so reminiscent of Soviet architecture that it has been used as a backdrop for a film set in the USSR! (Imagine my surprise when I came here to get a book one snowy day and all the signs outside were suddenly in Cyrillic. I thought it was a sure sign of sleep deprivation.) The great thing about this library, once you get past the facade, is the amazing collection of Slavic literature it contains. This is the library closest to me and conveniently adjacent to the Slavic Department. So I spend a lot of my time browsing the shelves and hiding in carrels here.

For those of you with more modern tastes there is the Pratt library. The Pratt library is beautiful inside. All the walls are white and natural lighting somehow abounds here even on the darkest winter days. This library seems to have been built with all the luxuries a hard-working student could desire: comfortable chairs, plenty of outlets, big windows to stare out of... But for that reason this library also tends to get crowded. Rarely do I go here for books unless I can't find a copy at the Kelly library. But when I need to write a paper, this is a great place to go! It is also the closest to the Centre for Comparative Literature which is another plus.

 Let us move on to my personal favorite, the Hart House Library. This library is a small room located in one of the student centers called Hart House. Not only is this library beautiful inside, it is also in the same building as the gym, the swimming pool, and the theater where I work. Frequently this library is occupied with undergraduates who think it is a good idea to take a nap on the extra long couches. As long as you can get over the snoring, this is the best place to read on campus. I always feel lucky when I get one of those seats by the window. This winter I have spent many a day curled up, reading in one of those big cushy chairs as the snow storms pass me by outside.

Finally, no tour would be complete without a stop at the massive and monumental piece of architecture (read: eye-sore), Robarts library. Often called the "Concrete Peacock" or my personal favorite "Fort Book," Robarts is the central library on campus. Once you get over its harsh, cold exterior... you can look forward to a harsh, cold interior of the same style. Once you get over that there are a lot of wonderful books here. Almost any book that an academic could dream of lives within these walls. There is also a gorgeous rare book library with many, many original manuscripts and first editions available to fortunate researchers such as myself.

So we will end there. There are dozens more libraries on campus so if I ever get bored of these staples I have plenty of new book-filled buildings to turn to! And so, I can sigh the sigh of a contented reader!

Woof, it's cold outside!

Well we've been hit with what the weather channels are calling "severe cold" and "deep freeze" here in Toronto. I'm sitting here by my blessedly warm little radiator happy as can be that my feet are warm and toasty and that I am not out in such ungodly weather.

 One thing that has surfaced during this unusually frosty weather that I am fairly certain is a phenomenon left to the Northern parts of the world is dog booties. Truly, it is not something I ever contemplated, but I suppose a dog's feet must get cold on the ice-lined sidewalks of Toronto. Canadians, being the caring, pet-loving people they are, don't want their pooches to suffer while out on their daily walks and thus arm their pets with booties. If the animal is really lucky it will also get a matching little coat, which will likely match the color of his or her owner's coat/purse/shoes/scarf. What cute pairs these dogs and owners make, walking down the wintry streets of Toronto!