Friday we received the keys for the apartment. Which meant getting up early-ish to meet the owner to give the cheques to hand over the keys and sign the forms to move in. We caught the train with one suitcase each and our backpacks. We’re getting quite used to the public transport thing now and have only experienced one rush hour and that wasn’t as bad as London Underground rush hour.
We loitered in the foyer until the owner arrived (she was running late). She’s a first-time landlord, which makes Glen a bit anxious as he thinks she’ll be particularly upset by normal wear and tear. There was a bit of glue on the fridge door and a scratch on the floorboard before we moved in that she had fixed up. We’ll see how it goes. She seems friendly enough. We’ll give it a few weeks before we ask her about putting some shelves or paintings on the wall. We want to get this giant clock from IKEA.
After getting the keys, we dumped our stuff in the apartment, had a quick look at the view (we’re on the 21st floor and look out over a couple of buildings and then a whole lot of parkland. We then caught the train to Bed Bath and Beyond and Marshalls to get towels, pillows and a few other things. We got 20% off one of the items (I think it was pots and pans) for giving them my blood email address.
Loaded with shopping bags, we went back up to the apartment and dropped the stuff off. The train takes three or five minutes from College or Dundas so it’s quite convenient. We found later in the day that if we exit the station near our place through the back door we can take the quieter and more direct route to our apartment, and it’s only a five minute walk. Very handy and it’s a bit more sheltered than the openness of Bloor St.
Another train ride (we’ve now got our week’s worth of travel) so Glen could go to the bank and the apartment we’d been staying at to wait for Pauline who was helping to drive the rest of our baggage up to the apartment. I went to Canadian Tire and bought dishwashing liquid and sponges before going back to Bed Bath and Beyond to buy a knife set. Then I caught the train. In the wrong direction.
We’d been up and down so much that I’d forgot whether I was on the up (going north) or on the down (going south). A bit of delay but arrived back at the apartment about five minutes before Glen and Pauline.
Emptied the car, unpacked a few things, went for lunch at Freshii’s with Pauline (before she had to leave before the parking money ran out – which she didn’t and got a ticket). By this stage it was bucketting down with rain. Welcome to summer.
Glen then went to the doctor’s for his TB test check-up while I pottered around in the house unpacking things and washing cutlery and crockery. It’s a brand new apartment so all the appliances (comes with a dishwasher, fridge, washing machine, oven, dryer and microwave) still had their stuffings and needed to be completed. I enjoyed getting things ready, unpacking bags and watching the magnificent rain storm roll in from the distance. I think I’m going to like it in this apartment when it snows. The view will be spectacular.
The technician from Rogers also arrived bang on 4pm (he was going to be there any time from 4pm) to connect the home phone, internet and cable TV. Rogers (the phone/internet company) offered six months free to apartment owners so we got to take advantage of that. We get two cable TV boxes (we don’t even have a tv), the phone box and 140GB per month internet, with modem. FREE! How joyous.
In the evening Glen and I went for dinner at Mercatto at the Eaton Centre. Good service and tasty food. While at dinner we were discussing whether we should go out that night and I remembered that a drag queen called Willam Belli was performing in Toronto that night. We had to go. We booked tickets online from our phones (which still amazes me as much as I take it for granted) and after dinner went to Sears to buy an iron.
We left with a Nespresso, Joseph and Joseph cutting board and bowls/measuring cups, and two types of salt.
And an iron.
They had a sale. We were powerless to resist.
Later that night we caught the train and subway out to somewhere I have no idea where and went to a club called Mojo’s. Nice place. Like Ambar but less dingey. We got some drinks and then went and stood near the stage, about one person back, so we could hold a spot and be guaranteed a good view. This was at 10:20.
The club started to fill up and the area in front of the stage got more and more packed. People started pushing and elbowing. At one point it looked like there was going to be a fist fight. Happy Pride! We waited and waited, thinking there’d be a show at 11. Then 11:30. At about quarter past 12, once it was all getting a bit much, one of the girls near us pointed to her phone and said Willam wasn’t coming and that he was stuck in Detroit (all this from a message he’d put on Twitter).
Bugger.
At that point a drag queen came on stage to say she’d be performing soon and that Willam was on his way. Slightly conflicting stories there. We trusted Willam more so left shortly after, disappointed, over the crowd and in pain from standing in the same spot for so long. On the bright side, two girls gave us glow stick wrist bands, and the music was pretty good while we waited.
We caught the streetcar and subway home (and there were still people on both) and came home to our lovely new apartment to fall asleep on…an air mattress, the only piece of furniture in the house. Our (king-size) bed arrives next Saturday so the air mattress is a good stop-gap. It needs pumping up again though.
And for anyone who doesn’t know who Willam Belli is (and wants to know), here’s one of his/her videos:
Travels with Dan 
What do you say, eh?