Thursday we spent our day within the bowels of two monoliths: Services Ontario and IKEA.

Services Ontario is the Canadian equivalent of Australia’s Centrelink but bigger. It’s a one-stop shop for health insurance, ID cards, drivers’ licenses and a bunch of other things on a list that was too long to read. We needed to visit them to get our health insurance sorted. Glen has already got us health insurance with the university for the first three months of his fellowship but after three months we then move on to this other health insurance which will give us a whole heap of free things like eye tests and hospital cover and something else. All we needed to do was fill in a form.

We arrived at 8:20am (ish) and about 20 or 30 people were already waiting. We joined a queue, got our number (C5) and sat down. We filled out a form (one we’d already filled out on our computers but hadn’t gotten printed) and then we waited. I’d picked up a free newspaper on the way in so did the Sudoku. Finished it. Waited. We eagerly watched the numbers go BING on the screen. It was about an hour before ours appeared and we trundled off to one of the counters.

No dramas with our forms, though because we didn’t have an original copy of our lease (there is in fact no original because everything has been scanned, printed, signed, scanned and sent so many times that an “original” doesn’t exist. I find that quite an interesting concept) the woman at the counter said they might not accept it. In the end it didn’t matter. We had our photos taken, put ourselves down for organ harvesting and we were done.

She was really pleasant to talk to as well and I remarked how quiet and calm and nice looking the Services Ontario area was compared to back home. We said there was no shouting or screaming or parents calling their kids “f**king c**ts”. She said that it was early and to give it time. Hahaha.

We asked about getting our drivers’ licenses as we’d seen it could be done here and she very helpfully put our number (C5) back into the system and transferred us to another counter. No sooner had we sat down to wait than our number was up on the screen and we were dealing with customer service officer number two.

Getting the drivers’ licenses was easy. I’d looked it up online before we left Australia and had gotten a letter from Department of Transport to say how long we’d been driving and various other bits of information. This made it so much more smoothly. I was worried for a second as on the website it says if you’re visiting Canada for more than three months then you need to get an international drivers’ license before you leave your country. I guess being on the work permit means we’re not visiting and we can get a proper one. Now I just need to remember what side of the road they drive on here.

Anyway, blah blah blah, done in two hours and now we waiting for everything in the post. Next: IKEA.

We caught the train to IKEA. We took the first journey ourselves, up to an interchange station (which had a guy playing harmonica on it, just quickly and breezily), then we got off to get on the next line. As we were going up the escalator, Pauline (who we were going to meet at IKEA) called out from behind us. She’d been on the same train, had seen us get off, then got stuck in the doors (well, she was on one side and her bag on the other) but managed to come through safely in the end and joined us on the next leg. Happy coincidence.

$1 breakfast at IKEA made Glen very happy, as well as all the possibilities for furnishings. I think we spent three hours there all up, buying a few things that could be easily transported, and taking photos of the rest that we wanted. We also stopped for lunch at IKEA in between.

Pauline had brought a car so we packed our stuff into it for her to drop at our place on Friday, then we helped her unload a table at her parents place, before going for more food and bubble tea in a place outside Toronto. I think it’s called Markham.

By this stage it was about 4pm and we were all feeling a bit shattered. Getting stuck in crappy rush hour traffic didn’t raise our energy levels either. She dropped us at a train station and we went back down to the apartment we’d been staying at, excited that we had bought things from IKEA and tomorrow we’d be moving in. Strangely, on the train ride back, there was a different guy playing the harmonica. Must have been bring-a-harmonica-on-the-train day.

In the evening we stirred ourselves and ventured forth. It was Toronto Pride after all. First stop was Woody’s, a bar on Church St. I was excited to be there because it’s featured in the US version of Queer as Folk. We think it was a bit early for people as it was a bit empty. However, it seems like a nice place and we’ll probably go there again.

Next we checked out a free outdoor dance party at Cawthra Square. There’s one on every night from Thursday to Sunday. It’s a big green space (in fact, I think it’s called Green Space) and it was heaving with people. Free to get in but you buy tokens for drinks. Big drag queen DJ playing some fun camp music, then a show from the winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race…whose name I’ve forgotten or didn’t hear. We stayed for a while, danced a bit then decided to call it a day at around elevenish or so.

On the way back down Church St we were giving free passes to get into Flash, a male stripclub. According to Glen, the guy gave us the passes and said, “You’re the type of guys we need in here.” I hope that means he thinks we were young, attractive, upstanding members of society. Anyway, we went in (for free!), watched a couple of shows then left. It’s a bit of odd thing, watching a strip show. Half the crowd seemed to try to ignore the fact that a guy was getting starkers on the dance floor, while the other half was transfixed (mostly on their crotch). All in all though, it was a fun night and I’m glad we made the effort.