2013/12/25: The End

“Toronto is a marvelous cocktail between New York and London, at a human size” (Umberto Ecco)

“Toronto is a kind of New York operated by the Swiss” (Peter Ustinov)

“The town itself is full of life and motion, bustle, business and improvement. The streets are well paved and lighted with gas; the houses are large and good; the shops excellent” (Charles Dickens)

“It couldn’t be any worse. You can’t imagine it. I’m not going to describe it.” (Ernest Hemingway)

“There is no question that Toronto is exceptional in North America and the developed world for the scale of its ethnic diversity” (Edward Relph)


Toronto is a great, interesting, although not always beautiful city that is suffering from a terrible mayor and a bad public infrastructure – as you can see at the moment, with hundred thousands of people without electricity and public transit.
There are so many topics I could have written more about in this blog – Canadian multiculturalism; environmental justice; Scarborough subway; low taxes and bad infrastructure; condominium boom. But now it’s too late. This is the 93rd and last post. I’m back in Germany, enjoying warm, rainy, relaxing Christmas days on my parents’ couch. I had a great time in North America. I saw a lot, I learnt a lot, I met great people, I had a lot of free time and fun. But no black bread. Now it's over.
The blue and pink lines show that I’ve been to almost all corners of Toronto in the last four months:



As I am a geographer, I have to finish the blog with another map. At the end of every month, I showed a map with the tours I did. Now it’s the end of the last month, here is my December map:



That’s it. Thank you for reading my blog. Let’s stay in contact!

2013/12/22: New York

My last day in North America started with a Megabus trip from Boston to New York, which cost only 1,50 $. I’ve seen parts of Bronx and Harlem out of the bus window.



The rest of the day I spent mostly walking through Manhattan. It was really warm (70° Fahrenheit, i.e. 21°C). I was not the only one wearing only a T-Shirt. Welcome to New York, climate change.



I’ve been into the “world’s largest bookstore” (a bit disappointing, I’m sure Dussmann in Berlin and Morawa in Vienna are much bigger).



In Greenwich Village I’ve seen the building with the “Friends Apartment” –but only some external shots were filmed in New York, Friends was all filmed on sets in Los Angeles.



Another movie set in New York is “Home Alone 2” (in German “Kevin allein in New York”). Here you see the bridge where Kevin first met the pigeon lady, in the background you can see The Plaza hotel, where Kevin McAllister checked in (more information on movie locations).



Other film locations in Home Alone 2 are the ice skating rink in Central Park…



… and the Christmas Tree in front of the Rockefeller Center.



Christmas markets in the States are obviously sponsored by big companies…



This was New York. In the evening I boarded an Iceland Air plane, to fly back via Reykjavik.



Offenbach is also ugly seen from above…



After exactly five months, I’m back in Frankfurt.



Parents, brother, cheese and black bread are waiting for me.

2013/12/21: Boston

A little sister of New York or an oversized copy of an English university city? Boston is something in between. For me, having been in North America for five months now, Boston seems to be a European city, with all these small shops and streets, old buildings, walkability and cycle-friendliness. For someone arriving from Europe, Boston probably seems to be a typical American city, with skyline, big cars, security warnings all over and Starbucks at every second corner.

When Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party and all these important things in American history happened, Toronto was not even founded. Consequently, you find much more historic buildings in Boston. Old cobblestone streets, subway tunnels that are more than 100 years old, a lot of monuments and museums, 200,000 students – Boston has it all. Harvard, the oldest university in North America – older than the United States – is located in Cambridge, on the other side of the river. Of course I was on this famous campus. I visited also “the only 360 degree observation desk in New England”, I walked through Back Bay, Charlestown and Beacon Hill and all along the so called “Freedom Trail”, that connects all the important buildings in the inner city.