suze's adventures in winterland

let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee. follow my wandering adventures across the globe from sydney, australia to toronto, canada and beyond.

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sydney>auckland>vancouver>toronto>montreal>toronto>new york>london>edinburgh>london>paris>madrid>milan>rome>london>sydney

seven months. mad jetlag right now.

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ran out of milk.

so i just ate my cereal with gelato instead.

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too much living

not enough blogging. or photos. it's a bit bad.

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quick life update.

before i get back into catching up on previous posts.

today i went skiing! and it was so exhausting. and i have a firm belief that if you can ski/snowboard you're somehow super human. i got snow down my pants several times. spent a lot of time on my ass. and actually had a really really fun day.

i just don't think skiing is my thing. maybe next time i'll try snowboarding. or something. i mean, laying in the snow laughing my ass off is kinda a thing i could see myself doing, but i just don't like that whole "trapped at the top of a snowy mountain, you'll have to slide yourself down it" whole thing. especially because i can do it fast, but not an intentional fast.

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seventeen. two. twelve. and beyond.

so again i fear i have left it a while between long wordy posts about my life. in fact i even have to dig out my calendar to tell me what exactly i have been up to, since i feel like all the days of my life are blurring into one.

it was the friday right before reading week, formally known as spring break, and it was the biggest waste of time going to my class. i'm being entirely serious, there were perhaps thirteen people out for a class of nearly forty there that day. and i could have stayed home and not had to go outside. yes, i am that lazy. you should all already know that. anyway, so that was my friday day and then on friday night i attended my first kegger. also known as a keg party, an apparent north american tradition where someone buys a few kegs of beer, opens his house to his friends and their friends and everyone pays $10 for a lot of beer. basically as trashy as it sounds, but when in north america, do as the north americans do. it was similar to a house party, except that we paid money and there were far too many people for that tiny amount of space. i couldn't help but wonder what would have happened in the event of a fire. but it was a fun night for all, and maybe i'll go to another at some other point in time.

saturday was a pretty chill day, with most of my group from our residence away, nat and i decided to finally go skating. which i had been intending to do for a very long time since being here. we headed to the harbourfront centre, which has an outdoor rink on the edge of the water, super pretty. and since it was saturday night, it was DJ skate night, where tunes were played and pretty coloured lights lit up the rink. to be fair, i spent the first twenty odd minutes skating very slowly and clutching natalie's hand like i was about to die. but after the initial wobblyness, skating proved to be lots and lots of fun, even though when you think about it, you're pushing yourself in circles on ice. let's try not a read too much into that. sunday was another slow day, church in the morning. then a nice walk home with people i had met, nicole, nicole's cousin. then attempting to do some work. which let's be honest never happens when you want it to. like now as i procrastinate from real life by writing all of this down.

now in ontario, the government committed to add a holiday in February within the first year of its new mandate. this holiday is now referred to as family day and occurs on the third monday of february. so on this day, because nat didn't have class, we went shopping down to queen west, dubbed as toronto's fashion district. which was a very fun time. it is further down than the eaton centre, but with more boutiques and the nice sobering break of cold air, between shops a much more pleasant shopping experience. i didn't end up buying much that day, but had a very nice time browsing the area. after my retail therapy, we were invited to go to snakes and lattes, a board game cafe, similar to norita's in sydney, and play some games with some friends and also meet some new people. but when we first got there, the lines of the place were crazy, because of course it was a public holiday, so we went to clintons first and played who wants to be a millionaire. which i won, of course, knowing so many random facts and not much else. haaaaaah. i told you all it would be a good thing one day! but then we received a call from snakes and lattes and proceeded to play games with far too many people. games including cranium, which i really still don't enjoy at all, and jenga, which on a coffee table surrounded by twelve or so people is such a risky game. but it was a fun night for all and we went home happy.

on tuesday in toronto, the Royal Ontario Museum is free for students, so with that in mind and a free pass to the shoe museum, i made plans with spence to finally get some touristing in. the shoe museum was really small, but the design of the displays was very well done, especially in the very lowest level with cubes of shoes on display appearing to have been pushed in or out. the ROM was alos very exciting, being so huge that there were so many things to look at and not forget to see. my favourite, as always was the dinosaurs and skeletons and animals, because i am actually in fact am a giant, overgrown five year old child. yes. after all the excitement of such a primary school excursion i went home and proceeded to pack for montreal! MONTREAL. which i will reserve for another post. and hopefully catch up on the happenings in my life. hopefully.

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i will...

update eventually.

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snapshots from come up to my room, part of the toronto design festival 2012.

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adventures in ontario

so i know i haven't talked to you for three weeks, so pull up a chair, sit down and we'll have a nice little chat. in terms of the last time we talked properly it was australia day. yeah i'm bad at updating. what you going to do about it?

so in chronological order, i'll take you back to australia day night, which after being lured to a backpacker bar with posters of an australia day party (a big fat lie) we went to fynns. standard. where we bumped into my fave british expats. as well as my roomie and the lovely danes from my floor. and we danced badly until about 2am. this meant going to class quite tired and then visiting the toronto interior design show with some girls from uni straight after class. from a student perspective, ids was such an eye opener, since we never really go to shows like that back home. there were so many interesting booths and products, especially some of the lights. we also listened to two lectures by visiting architects. which were tremendously exciting, especially bjarke ingel's lecture on his past and present projects. on the saturday i managed to drag devin to the AGO(art gallery of ontario) in the morning which i found terribly exciting. and then we went to meet his childhood friend from back home (NAAAAAAAAWW) that night, we ended up having a nice predrink then an outing to city nightclub, which was a nice place until we somehow got involved in a fight. sunday i woke up late to get myself to jenn's place where we met alina who drove us out to west queen west to go see the come up to my room show, part of toronto design week.

monday was a nice day to catch up on sleep and finally get my mac fixed. it is amazing how similar mac stores are, all over the world, it is a testament to the design they create and the perceived simplicity of all their products. tuesday was an exciting day, my first day of my future coffeeshop poster was presented, and after that, all was in excitement to see jack's mannequin at sound academy. IT. WAS. AWESOME. despite the fact it was an all ages show and therefore had some annoying as heck fifteen year olds, we managed to get three rows from the front when andrew mcmahon played. and he was so great. his stage presence, energy and a really great set list. UUUUGH, i die. wednesday held the first test i've done in my learning career since 2009, which i managed to get 11/15 for. woopwoop! thursday was pretty standard with class, my favourite group of people, and presenting refined versions of our posters. and then in the night, i predrank with the australian boys and moved to fynns, which has become pretty standard, but if you keep your expectations low, fynns promises to deliever. friday we had our site visit to mackenzie house for our sustainability class, a historic house in toronto. then watching the toronto raptors vs the washington wizards at the air canada centre, which the raptors won, and got over 100 points, indicating free pizza! my first ever NBA game was very exciting, and i do hope the raptors actually managed to do well this season. we then went with the boys to the brunswick house on bloor, which was a nice, cheap night out and managed to bump into lots of people i knew. saturday was a slow day, we tried to get out to the drake hotel, but the line was too long, so we bailed and went home. sunday meant my first outing to grace toronto church, where i met demi and kat, two very lovely girls from UofT and was challenged by the word and very encouraged by singing the same songs as back home. the afternoon was spent in anticipation of my first superbowl sunday! we ended up going to elephant and castle to eat food and watch the superbowl. now i know how the game works and i won a toonie in a bet with devin.

the next week was pretty slow until thursday, where i went to a debate called "should scientists believe in God?" which was exciting for a bit, but because of me owning the world's tiniest attention span, i couldn't concentrate. so then i went home and caught up on sleep, which was a very good life choice at that moment. friday was our group's presentation in class and then we were all going to go out to crawfords' but ended up just predrinking, meeting oli in the crawfords' line and then having to take her home : ( saturday i woke up, ready to head to the distillery district with the cousin, jse-che. she has decided to drive, so i was pretty stoked about that. we ended up having brunch in a cute little cafe in corkville, then walked to the distillery district and went wandering through all the spaces, such as the very expensive design store, soma fine chocolates, an expensive clothes store and balzacs', the most pretentious of coffee chains ever. after that, we headed to st lawerence markets to see what they had on offer, mostly meats, seafood, produce and a heck of a lot of cheese. of course i bought some. that night i was going to go to a party at my res, but then decided to pre-drink with tess and her visiting friend and then convincing ben and alex to come out. but by the time they had decided to leave, it was almost one so i went to bed. sunday was church again, where i had to make more friends because demi and kat weren't there, so i met katy and nicole and some other people and it was lovely.

monday was a busy day, despite not having uni. i met up with jenn and alina to print our posters, one hundred handouts and our group's booklet. then home for a few hours and back to uni to book the montral trip with sonia and nicole. home again to pick up dinner and change and off to meet alex for the first time in person, such a sweetie! i still can't believe it took five years for us to finally meet in person! we went out to salad king for some thai food, which i had been craving haaaaaard. and then we took photos and were cute and caught up with our lives. tuesday was presentation day, we sat around for a while and watched everyone's presentations and i was very happy with our group's presentation. wednesday was the first drafting test in class, which i was quite nervous about and i really hope i did well. then we had more presentations at night where we mostly goof around in the audience. then we hung up our posters and went home. thursday class was a bust, we sat around for no reason for a couple of hours and then sat through the world's most pretentious coffee chain owner being a bitch. c-pao and i ten went to urban outfitters and the eaton for a little retail therapy where i bought a maroon sweater for $16 <3 and looked at a lovely sheer black blouse which i may go back and buy today. then after sitting around in my room after getting free pizza pizza and running lines with claudia, i got dressed to go out for dinner with the fam, for benny's 22nd birthday. i haven't worn dressy clothes for a while so it was kind of nice to play dress up. then we kept the party going by hitting up the brunny again, but this time i was more full of frat boys, but still a cheap and fun night out.

i'll try not to leave it too long before i update again.

xx suze

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some snapshots from the Toronto Interior Design Show 2012 (IDS2012)

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just spent $80 on shoes.

if i run out of money during my time here. we'll know why. photo added so you can all drool along with me.

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meep.

i had a relatively lovely day today, with the exception of some bitches bringing me down. but i don't really care.

today i went to church up on bloor east, which was lovely. awesome to sing songs i sing at home and meet two lovely girls from UofT and have the bible taught to me.

then came home and hung out with nat and hawley and eat some tasty food.

then my first ever superbowl sunday, with devin and ranbir teaching me how the game works. i understand now. but i'm disappointed that the patriots lost. however i did win a bet based on what kelly clarkson was wearing, so yay, $2.

xx suze

ps i will do a more detailed post with some more words and sentences as well as pictures.

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things i was doing this night. catching the j's hottest 100 with my new headphones. so much love for these babies, but i really wish i was partying by a pool listening : ( second year in a row where i'm not at home for new years, my birthday or australia day. this may be a tradition starting to appear.

however i did end up watching eagle eye with my primrose family instead of getting wasted an heading to a backpacker bar with the other australians. confusing movie. but good visually.

this many updates in such short times may be a bit too much for you all. so good night. i'll be up listening to the j.

xx suze

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i now present to you, some snapshots of the last 20 days of my life. that's right folks, i have been in the great and cold city of toronto, for approximately twenty whole days. during this time i have been getting up to much mischief including making friends, as you will remember from my previous post, swapping and buying some clothes, now i have a well rounded drawrobe, getting my butt to classes and doing group work with the fabulous combination of spencer and jenn, spence who you can see casually derping next to my giant glass cup of tea, exploring the city of toronto via scott pilgrim hunts with devin and general nonsense.

so far things have been going well, it has been a warm winter for the canadians, with only a couple of days getting down to -16 or below, which i think is fantastic for the non-super-winter adjusted folks like myself. as for a routine, i used to have a fairly good sleeping pattern until something happened on saturday night when i went to bed at 3 after going to a club and dancing (i know right, these things don't usually happen) and then going back to sleep after waking up at 8. and then things changed, hopefully i can get my sleeping pattern back. i don't really enjoying being almost dead during class.

classes have been fine so far, not a whole lot of work to do, which is good in maintaining what little social life i have here which basically means going out thursday, friday or saturday or any combination of the three, movie night is tuesday night for $5, family dinner is sunday night or at least we want it to be, but i'm not sure how that will all work out.

some of the girls have strange girl politics here and i kind of feel unwanted by them, but welcomed by another group of girls and most of the guys, so i don't really know. i would much rather have an awkward uncomfortable talk with them if they had a problem with me, but apparently girls don't do that, so we'll also see how that pans out.

this weekend i want to take it easy, not do too much, i know others are going to niagara, but it's cold down there and i have a friend who lives there normally and i want to go with her and get a local's eyes' for the place, plus i'm going to a concert on tuesday night and don't want to spend too much in the next week, trying to budget and all.

anyway, enough essaying for now. thanks for reading. i'll try not to drop off the face of the internet again.

xx suze

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things i cannot be effed to do.

be alive right now. i want to crawl into a ball and sleep all day.

update this blog. i've done lots of stuff but to be honest i cannot think of words to string together.

i feel like i should though. so if you all keep bugging me, maybe i will.

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so far i am loving my primrose family a lot. sometimes they can be as annoying as heck, but individually, i like them all a lot. not all are present in the photos from my birthday but shouts go out to:

jess

tess

hawley

shiv

ben

ranbir

alex

ian

olivia

mandy

devin

natalie

and others whose names i haven't yet mastered. i'm enjoying our 7th floor dinners and chilling in each other's rooms and our everlasting long facebook chats. i will endeavour to write more about things i have been doing soonish i promise.

xx suze

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lazy saturday afternoon enjoying the sun in my room because it's effing cold outside. seriously though. the position of the window and my bed is currently most glorious. not really a bad way to sit around thinking about the last forty hours of birthdayness. when i get my hands on some pictures, i'll put them up. until then. enjoy my happy vitamin d filled face.

xx suze