It’s still Movember, how big is your MOUSTACHE?!
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Tag Archives: living in Toronto
Wintertime in Toronto!
After Thanksgiving and Halloween now it’s time for Christmas!! Christmas already? YES! Last Sunday more than a half million people in Toronto enjoyed the famous Santa Clause Parade.
It is clear the winter has arrived… Not because it’s snowing or freezing cold (I love the big Christmas tree in the city setting of against the clear blue sky, HOW BIZARRE IS THAT), but because of all the seasonal closings! Since the time I got here, step-by-step everything closes for the season: cafes and restaurants on the Toronto Islands, café terraces along the Harbourfront and downtown, and even a part of the Toronto Zoo! (I was really looking forward to meet my new favourite animal: the moose! Fortunately, there was my old pal: the zebra hehe).
Thank God we have the PATH (torontopath.com)! The PATH is huge network of pedestrian tunnels beneath the city centre. Here you can find a great number of shops and restaurants. There are more than fifty buildings connected with the PATH, varying from office towers to subway stations. Here you can enter or leave the underground complex. And I’m a lucky person; I can enter the PATH without leaving our building… Let the winter begin!
One chai tea latte, non-fat milk, grande please
It’s official now: I am a Starbucks addict! Seriously, they are everywhere; on every corner of the street you can find a Starbucks. I like everything about it, including the personal approach (What’s you name? Thank you, Lara) and the Christmas specialties. As a European I really feel like a local with my ‘coffee on-the-go’, something Canadians aren’t even aware off. Maybe the best part of Starbucks is the possibility to sit there alone without feeling awkward, which is great for my blogging hehe. One little problem, I’m fed up with my all-time favourite chai tea latte, any good ideas for substitute options anyone?
Having coffee with friends? Please try Niche on Queen West (nichecoffee.com) or Zaza in Yorkville (zazaespressobar.com). Definitely more fun! But for the blogging… Starbucks it is 🙂
Drinking tap water is cool
I was already convinced that drinking tap water instead of bottled water is a smart choice. Besides the fact that tap water is almost 2000 times cheaper and only 1 in 5 water bottles are recycled, it is so easy to replace the plastic bottle with a refillable one! More water facts can be found on our website (welikewater.com).
WeLikeWater is an initiative to convince people of the benefits of drinking tap water. In order to make tap water more attractive and therefore popular, we introduced appealing but practical glass bottles, which are easy refillable and fit perfectly in fridges and dishwashers. Above all, their reusability makes it unnecessary to buy new plastic bottles of water over and over again. This applies for people drinking water at home, at the office, in restaurants… Anywhere! By replacing plastic bottles by our locally and sustainable produced WeLikeWater bottles, you can make a small contribution to a better world. Next to our signature bottle it’s also possible to customize your own bottle. Excellent branding and you can make a sustainable statement in style.
And Toronto is with us! Every bar or restaurant serves ice-cold tap water: ‘ice water’. I like that! This is not a common service in Amsterdam, so I was pleased to find out Canadians are ahead of the Dutchies 😉 Now replace the ugly jugs with stylish WeLikeWater bottles, and I am the happiest person on earth. Cheers!
IT’S A MOOOOOOSE!!
Check out our newest purchase! Canadian style! Back in Amsterdam, this moose will remind us of our life in Toronto… Sweet memories 🙂
Fashion town
Shop till you drop! There are lots of possibilities in Toronto, my favourite part of the city is Queen Street West, the so-called Fashion District. Here you can find nice boutiques like Bicyclette (shopbicyclette.ca) and Jacflash (jacflash.net). And don’t forget Canon Blanc (canon-blanc.com), this boutique brings Paris to Toronto! Selling exclusively Parisian brands makes this boutique so special, and as a true Paris lover I’m a fan! Here’s some advice from my shopping partner in crime and I, we really like the following approach. Park your bike at Queen Street West/ Spadina, take the streetcar to the end of Queen and walk back. (Little footnote for the Dutchies: the streetcar is the same as the ‘TRAM’ in Amsterdam, nothing special about it ;-)).
Another great place to go to is the Distillery District (thedistillerydistrict.com); a little village in the city. Besides really cool and unique boutiques, galleries and art studios, restaurants and cafes in the Distillery District are blessed with sunlit terraces due to the lack of skyscrapers.
In case you prefer big North American malls, Yorkdale and Eaton Centre are the best choices. You can’t visit Eaton Centre without having a delicious lunch at Mercatto (trattoriamercatto.ca) instead of the usual food court. YUM!
Arty-farty
After living in Amsterdam and Paris I’m in love with a third city: Toronto! In terms of culture, few cities can beat Paris. Toronto offers a totally different way of soaking up culture. Cultural festivities like Nuit Blanche (scotiabanknuitblanche.ca) and Art Toronto (arttoronto.ca), concerts in the Phoenix Concert Centre or Air Canada Centre are just a few examples of nice things to do. During Nuit Blanche streets are filled with people and crazy contemporary art experiences. Besides this nocturnal treat, I would highly recommend the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (mocca.ca), a small but cool museum, located at Queen Street West. The Art Gallery of Ontario (ago.net) is still on my cultural wish list. But don’t be afraid to ask me anything about footwear through the ages hehe. After visiting the Bata Shoe Museum (batashoemuseum.ca) I know all about the roaring twenties, native North American footwear and even more. The shoe museum is fun! Although the real shops in Toronto are not so bad either…
Explore the city
As a true Dutchie I enjoy exploring the city by bike. One of the main reasons why I think Toronto rocks, is because of the hundreds of really cool restaurants, lunchrooms, coffee shops (not the Dutch kind of coffee shop!) and so on. They all have this unique style, which I would describe as urban or industrial. LOVE IT!! Combining two of my newest hobbies, exploring the city and social media, you can consider me an addict of every possible app to discover as much as possible hot spots. Foursquare, blogTO, got them all!
Current favourites are Marben (marbenrestaurant.com), La Palette (lapalette.ca) and Buca (buca.ca) for dinner, Nadège (nadege-patisserie.com), Sassafraz (sassafraz.ca) and The County General (thecountygeneral.ca) for lunch, and The Drake Hotel (thedrakehotel.ca) and Le Petit Déjeuner (petitdejeuner.ca) for Sunday brunches. New tips are more than welcome!
Blogging… A new passion?
As long as I can remember, I have been interested in branding, in a broad sense. TV commercials, outdoor & print advertising and supermarkets have always obsessed me. Supermarkets? Yes, supermarkets! The supermarket is one of the most important places to expose your brand. I always enjoy grocery shopping abroad, don’t you? But meanwhile I even got used to the Longo’s (although I still think it’s a great supermarket!). It wasn’t a lucky coincidence that I worked for a big Dutch grocery chain for the last 3,5 years. Nowadays you can say the most important place for branding is on the web! Learning all about it during my Web Marketing Course. Websites, SEO, SEA, social media and of course… blogging! My new passion? 😉
Let’s go outside!
Canadians are known as people who love to canoe, hike and go camping… Enjoying the great outdoors! This, in combination with my fabulous birthday present awakened my passion for… biking! And I have to admit that I really enjoy it. As a true metropolitan we alternate places like Niagara-on-the-Lake with tours along the coastline of Toronto. WOW! This time of the year is beautiful, even this city-orientated person is amazed by all the trees with their yellow and red leaves. However, I wasn’t such a nature lover anymore when wet and windy edges of Sandy reached Toronto. I was shaking in my bed in our beloved high-rise building! Next time I will be prepared…
Toronto Diaries 