Canadians use certain constructions that are unique to their British heritage. These are phrases that are not used in American English.

The one that stands out every time it cross my ears is the phrase “to hospital.” An example would be, “He was taken to hospital for treatment.”

In American English, we would throw in an article to create the phrase, “to the hospital.”

It’s a small, but constant reminder that I’m visiting another country.

I’ve done a number of things to Amy’s apartment. I like to think that I’m making it more livable.

I’ve installed a Grundtal Magnetic Knife Strip in the kitchen. Amy keeps her knives loose in a drawer. I always feared for my fingers when reaching in there. With this knife rack, I keep the knives I use the most (Chef, bread, and generic utility) in arm’s reach but without all the lost-thumb danger.

I’ve also installed the Grundtal Spice Rack in the gap next to the stove. This opened up some cabinet space.

Our latest installation is my favorite. We’re using a set of IKEA things in a manner in which they were not intended.

One of the things Amy misses from her apartment in the Plaza Frontenac was the coat rack I installed near the entrance. It was a small thing, but made things more convenient as we entered and exited.

Here in Toronto, we’ve been searching for a coat rack that could also double as a shelf for gloves, scarves, and hats. All of which are necessary for living in a frozen wasteland. The problem was that all the coat racks that also had shelves were either too expensive or too large for her tiny apartment. They just couldn’t fit.

Our solution was to hang a Grundtal Rail and use the Grundtal S-Hooks for coats and hats. This just fit in the space behind out door. For hats and gloves, we hung a Grundtal Dish Drainer from the rail and put a Komplement Storage Box on there to hold the loose stuff.

It looks pretty good for being scrounged from random IKEA stuff.

One of these places is T&T Supermarket.

T&T is a supermarket that specializes in catering to the Asian population. Announcements are made in Chinese. All the labels are in both English and Chinese. Of course, the goods are mostly Asian foods shipped from the Far East.

Shopping here is interesting for me. Here are some of the things that really stand out.

First, the music piped throughout the stores is Asian covers of Western songs. My favorite was the Mandarin version of ‘O Susana’ complete with melodic flute solos.

Secondly, we keep finding amazingly good deals. My favorites tend to involve meat. The last couple of times we shopped there, we found 4 pounds of beef roast for $2 and 6.5 pounds of roasted pork for $3.70. So far, I’ve made a pot roast from the beef and still have 2 pounds left. We haven’t even touched the pork yet.

How do we get such great deals? We tend to visit the store late in the afternoon. T&T will mark down lots of their perishable items in the evenings to clear them out. That’s how we got the roast pork. They literally set a giant plastic bag of roast pork on a folding table in front of us as we browsed by the deli section. When I grabbed it, there were several elderly Asian women circling like sharks – waiting for me to drop my guard and the bag of pork

T&T – it’s a great market, but watch out for elbows. Those old ladies can be mean.

That’s just great.

As most of you know, my universe is governed by irony.

So it’s par for the course that when I come to stay at Toronto for awhile – the Artic winds blow and dump all the snow this town can handle on me. Everyone – everyone – tells me how this is the worst winter they’ve ever experienced. Local governments complain about rapidly dwindling supplies of salt, sand, and money for road cleaning. Mounds of snow tower over the sidewalks and spill into the streets. Parking is impossible. Biting winds blow ice bullets between the builidings. Everywhere you look, people are mummified in their own winter garb.

I’m done with winter.

In order to fit all my stuff into Amy’s tiny, tiny apartment while I’m staying here – some adjustments had to be made.

Most of you know that I have shed most of my possessions in order to make this abrupt change in my life. There are a couple of things of which I refuse to abandon. My slowly re-growing professional wardrobe is part of this collection.

To fit this in, I bought a Malm dresser and rebuilt the closet to include a second bar.

I also put in an new GORM bookshelf and extensions for my previous double bookcase. I have a lot a books and mixing in the law school tomes creates a overwhelming amount.

So, most of my stuff is now out of the way and in a safe place until I figure out where I going to be in a couple of months.

On top of this I worked for 15-20 hours at the Missouri Attorney General’s office. I worked on prosecuting cases of discrimination for the department assigned to the Missouri Human Rights Commission.

Immediately following my six finals, I loaded up the car and drove across Missouri, visiting my Grandmother in Jefferson City and my Mother in Nevada. From there, I raced an ice storm to Kansas City where I attended the wedding of Josh and Susie.

As soon as the roads thawed, I raced back to St. Louis, cleaned the apartment and had a tearful farewell with JennyR and I began the long trek to Canada.

Crossing the border was uneventful. I received a 6-month visitors pass. Registering Pop’s heirloom was actually the most difficult part of the crossing. No one knew whether I needed to register it or not. Finally they decided to register it simply because I already filled out the paper work.

My arrival coincided with Xmas. Amy made a great dinner of gourmet ham and herb roasted potatoes.

To come, the madatory visit to IKEA.

Toronto Gallery starts here.

Just a quick note to tell you I’m still alive.

Paris was amazing and Brussels has been as well.

10 hours of lecture each day have made it tough to keep up with the blog.  Quite frankly, the last thing I want to do is set at the computer some more.
I have thrown up lots of photos in the Spain, Paris 2, and Brussels Galleries, but they’re waiting for captions.

Still, have a look and see where I’ve been for yourselves.

We’ve been to Valencia, Seville, & Granada.

Now, we made it back to Madrid and I just dropped Amy off at the airport.

Me, I’m on a train to Paris for the weekend before school starts in Brussels on Monday.

I’ll be off the grid until then.