my jeans are falling apart...

and each time I patch them, I become infinitely more attached. My Captain Blackbeard t-shirt is beyond faded, from salt and the sun. I often have a "wash-off tan" (also known as road dirt). So it's no wonder I had a woman give me directions to Brampton's soup kitchen.

A bit of context, too - I'd taken the bus from Guelph and was hoping to get downtown on the bus, skip the city biking and all. But, the driver refused to let me on, so I ended up stuck in Brampton without a map, and with a bunch of Toronto to bike through. So I went to town hall in the hopes of finding a map, got sent to the Economic Development Office, and got some amazing help from the secretary there. She got me a Google map to Angela's place on Springmount Ave, made sure I knew where the soup kitchen was in case I was hungry (which I thought was a very considerate thing to do), and was just generally kind. Anyway, we weren't aware that Toronto has two Springmount Avenues! So I ended up going to the wrong part of town. But I met a friendly Swede named Ulf who set me straight (total fluke).

Toronto was amazing, especially Chinatown and Kensington Market. And also especially the art galleries on Queen. Cities are really quite cool. Montreal is also really amazing, and much kinder on bikers (although I did get a bent rim from one of the city's infamous potholes). McGill is really impressive, and hopefully tomorrow's chemistry lecture will be as impressive as the Chaucer class at Laurier.

It's really nice to be back in Canada, because now I'm seeing people I know from before. The basic getting-to-know-each-other is already done, so you don't have to start from scratch every time. It's also given me the chance to spend time with people I haven't seen for a while, and haven't spent enough time with. It was so, so nice to be with Scott & Jen and Nicola & Alex and catch up on who they are and how they are and what they're up to. Thanks guys!

Something snuck up on me on the way to Kory in Brockville - Lake Ontario (with islands a ways from shore) gradually turned into the St. Lawrence River. So gradually that by the time I noticed the change, it was all over, and felt quite abrupt.

I encountered two very odd smells that day, too. A couple of times, the air smelled hugely of cheesies. I think it was from the trucks whose sides proclaimed "COSCO - Quality Corn Products". "Natural cheddar flavour"? I also smelled rårörda lingon (basically cranberry sauce, but I like it better).

As usual, Kory and I had a huge amount of discussion to do, and spent lots of time talking politics. We entertained ourselves by considering the idea, among others, that "Aulac survives mainly through vampirism". I got to meet Kory's entire Peruvian-Canadian Canada World Youth group, and am super-happy to have spent some time with them. I also tagged along and helped out at the Prescott food bank, which is actually something I could imagine doing back home.

So, that's only really the beginning of what I'd like to say, but I think it's all my fingers can manage. Moving on to some pics. Wait, Tereza needs her computer, so another time.

Love to all

/Dan