In and around North York, Toronto

Huda and Sarah have a lovely home in North York, with a beautiful garden. Huda loves gardening and grows vegetables and herbs, but also has some lovely flowers.  It reminds me very much of my parents home in Germany.  They have a very big garden, also with flowers, vegetable and herb patches.  It is so nice to have an outdoor area to relax and enjoy! The whole suburb is very nice and reminds me of where my parents live. (home away from home...,)

The climate here is also very pleasant - at the moment - apparently I have just missed a heatwave... and of course, there are the Canadian winters.... but right now - very pleasant in the mid late 20sC during the day and 18C or so at night.  Beautiful!

The suburb is quite multicultural, Jewish, Korean, Iranian, Italian, Filipinos and lots of others.... So you get the respective restaurants, supermarkets etc. all within close reach - absolutely great!

North York is a dissolved municipality within the current city of Toronto. Geographically, it comprises the central part of the northern section of Toronto and has a population of 635,370. Until 1998, it was the second-largest of six municipalities that comprised another larger municipal structure called Metropolitan Toronto. The provincial Government of Ontario passed legislation to merge these municipalities into a single, new amalgamated City of Toronto. North York is one of the most diverse areas of Toronto, as it contains some of the most affluent areas of the city and some of the poorest.


They have some bizarre traffic rules here... They have "4-stop intersections" - and the rule: whoever gets there first, can drive through first.. Just visualize this: several cars approaching at the same time, and then throw in a pedestrian who wants to cross (and pedestrians always - whether there is a crossing or not) have the right to go! now I find that whole scenario very scary.

Huda and Sarah have been very kind to drive me around the area to give me some idea of where I am and how to get to places.  It is very nice here - reminds me a lot of Europe, the landscapes, trees, the squirrels (they are bigger and darker than the Europeans, but still cute).

People leave nuts out for them - they get the nuts and bury them for winter.. sooo cute.

There are also farmers markets everywhere.  And me being the crazy tourist, I decided to walk to one that was close by on Mel Lastman Square.  It turned out to take me 1 hour to get there.  (I took the bus back home... one way was enough!) Yes the climate here is much better, but it was still hot (28C about).  The markets were held on the square, small but very nice, a bit more like it!!  However, still no coffee cart anywhere - only a Starbucks of all places on the corner. So not quite like Sydney! But enjoyable.

Had a very lazy rest of the week... can't believe I've almost been here a week.... how time goes when you have nothing but leisure time (hi hi hi)....

S & D