Toronno

I'm still a little in shock that my time in Canada is basically at an end. I always knew that this was a short exchange, and how quickly uni terms go etc. etc. but I don't think I anticipated having such a great time over here. Now that I've been here for over 3 months, I thought I'd make a stab at a blog about the city where I (apparently) live.

I say "(apparently)" because, to be honest, YorkU isn't the best located university. As the crow flies, it's 10 miles from the Keele campus where I live and study to the downtown core. By car it takes about 40 minutes in clear traffic, and using the TTC nearer to an hour. On the relatively few occasions that I have been downtown, I've enjoyed it - not least because it presents a stark contrast to the incredibly low-density development around York.

Yesterday, Ryan Lawrence and I took a trip downtown. He lives in Scarborough, and borrowed his parents' convertible to show me around, which was very cool. We saw the delights of the DVP (with good traffic), headed across town on the Gardiner, then drove back around downtown a little. Ryan found a place to park - for only $5 - and we grabbed dinner at the "Old Spaghetti Factory", a kind of 1930s TGI Fridays - 1930s in the junk on the walls, not the type of food! It was starting to get a little dark by the time we made it to the CN Tower: thankfully there was virtually no queue to get in, which I imagine is pretty unusual... Ryan hadn't been up for about 10 years so he enjoyed it too, even as a local. Well, I'm sort of a local now ;)

I took plenty of pictures, as you would guess, and put them on facebook here. Some of them are a little touched-up, because taking pictures in the dark through smeary glass isn't too easy! And there was evening, and there was morning, the fourth-to-last day.

Today is Good Friday! I had a lift to church with the Twins, Carl and Josh - it's a tradition for GFC to meet at a church out in Burlington (45 mins west) on Good Friday. How does a 5 year old church get so many traditions? Must be a Baptist thing. Anyway, it was a fantastic service. The lead-up took nearly an hour when we sang and listened to a lot of excellent hymns. The sermon though was - amazing! I really hope it makes its way online soon, because I'd love to listen to it again. The preacher was a Caribbean guy called Dr. Glendon Thompson who is a seminary teacher. You can tell what a great preacher he is easily:

• knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic and Latin
• pronouncing "Isaiah" and "wrath" with British vowels not American ones

Josh promised to blog on the sermon itself, and as I cannot explain it, I shall merely preach that his blog is here. I have to get down to some packing now, although I might go out later. 48 hours left at York!