Markus in Toronto (and Halifax, and Vancouver, and Las Vegas, ....): 2013/09/06: One week of shopping and cooking

The first week is over, and some problems are still not solved. Enrolling in courses is somehow complicated, spaces are reserved or I’m not allowed to enroll or whatever; I still haven’t any proof of my health insurance plan; warm twin duvets are already sold out (and it is fucking cold at night in this room); my lovely smartphone seems not to accept any Canadian SIM card; BUT: WE HAVE A BIKE!!! The best thing that happened today: going to this crazy bike shop in Chinatown with Laura, haggling and discussing with Israel and Chinese manpower, buying our favorite bike, still not believing that we got it that cheap, silently moving around the corner, and then celebrating our success. If Laura really gets 110$ back when she returns the bike in April (we have a written proof for this), than we paid only 115$ for using a quite good bike and a very good lock for more than half a year! 115$ equals 3 kilograms of Mozzarella or 11 Camemberts, that's not much!
The bike is by far not the only thing I spend money on this week. I already wrote about the Walmart experience, in the meantime I experienced some other shopping adventures: a Swedish furniture store (ok, this one is not surprising…), a Russian furniture store (this one was surprising!!! Stuff and all other clients speaking Russian, food that I haven’t seen since my last visit in Russia, and there's no hint from outside that "European food experience" means "Russian paradise"), Pacific Mall in Markham (stepping off the bus I recognized immediately that I've been their on our field trip five years ago, it’s a unique Asian mall, bot no-one was able un unlock/repair my cell phone), a funny Chinese supermarket (where many things are much cheaper than in Canadian supermarkets), a huge "normal" Shopping Mall (with multiplex cinemas, furnishing houses, big food core, Tesla shop and everything, but no groceries at all…) and so on. Every single shopping experience takes about 2-4 hours and 40-60 dollars…

Special offer at the Russian supermarket:

Pacific Mall before the first shop opened:

Chinese supermarket:

As I met Karen (geography student in Passau) for an ice cream (pardon, gelato) in downtown Toronto and Lucas (fellow student in Frankfurt who is starting an internship here), and I got to know Max, Katharina and Laura at the welcome events on campus, I spoke a lot of German this week. We watched the Kanzlerduell and Neues aus der Anstalt together, we cooked almost every evening together and we gave each other the good feeling that we are not the only ones having problems with some administrative, furnishing or technical barriers. It feels like we’ve known each other since a long time, but it’s only three days! We already share many nice experiences - and a bike.

Two things are really typical for my (our) stay in Toronto:

1.) Being the only one to do/be something (e.g. being the only one walking along the wide street to the IKEA market while the rest of the world seems to drive a car; being the only non-Russian in the Russian supermarket; being the only non-Asian in the Pacific Mall; being the only white person (and the only one jogging) in a park near the Finch-Jane district; being the only one older than 20 at the college introduction (besides the professors); ...

2.) Figure something out – and immediately notice that it doesn’t work today (e.g. finally finding the clothes washers in the apartment house – and noticing that they only work with money charged on your student card; finally finding a favorable SIM card offer – and figuring out that your cell phone doesn’t accept the SIM card; finding a perfectly fitting duvet – and getting told that is not available in your size; finally having internet in the flat – and asserting that the Ethernet cable doesn’t reach from data jack to desktop (wireless internet is not allowed…); …

To proof that I’ve already been to downtown Toronto (which is about one hour, or 23 cycle kilometers south of our campus), here are pictures of the Royal Ontario Museum, …