Allan Gardens

Yup... it has been a long time since I posted my blog here.. guess over time life gets too normal and are not special anymore. However that doesn't mean I haven't done anything in the mean time. Haha and off course I can't remember all anymore.. But I will try to write done what I did since January 25, because that's the last time I posted something. I promise I will keep it short ;)

On January 25th, I saw my good friend JS again. We had a nice beer, most expensive beer (Westvleteren La Trappe) at the bar Sin and Redemption (see my food map). That weekend I went to Allan Gardens and met up with the people from my meet up group. The gardens were nice and we spotted an eagle right after he had attacked a squirrel. After the gardens we went to eat at Spring Sushi, which was packed, but good and filling. Sushi was ordered on iPads and the food was then brought to your table. Since we were with a big group we did not have to wait, even though there was already a long line.

Meeting up with old friends

TO sky line

Must be nice during summer...

Allan Gardens

Allan Gardens

My new meet up friends

Snow

Time to explore!

It is still cold here. The temperature itself is not so bad, -20 is ok. But the winds in Toronto are very strong and blows the cold air everywhere. The other the I finally had (or took?) the time to walk around a bit in the city and went to the harbour side to take some pictures. I was actually already too late and missed the sunset. But I was still able to take some nice once.

My placement is going well. Last week I had a meeting with my mentor and supervisor from back home and we were able to finalize my work plan, so I would not have problems with that anymore. Hopefully I will be able to do everything in time... I only have about 5 months left (until June) since I would like to travel around in Canada and the USA in July, before I will fly back again to Holland (end of July).

To get out more and explore the city, meet new people and do stuff I signed up for meetup.com. Meet up is a great website where you can join several groups of your interest, who plan a lot of stuff to do every week or month. From going to the movies, doing Karaoke, visit museums etc. In that way you can easily meet new people, make new friends and explore the city or country at the same time. Most groups are a mix of people who came to study or work in Canada - like me or just real torontonians, who like to hang out. Tomorrow I will have my first meet up at Allans garden. I don't really care about the garden that much, but it is over 100 years old and will show me some history of Toronto! Moreover I get to meet around 30 new people who I will probably hang out more. I will bring my camera, so you guys can expect some pictures for sure!

So, if you travel - or just at home - and want to go out, sign up for meetup now! It is free!

Cheers!

CN Tower

Rogers Centre

Old VIA train

Train museum

Steam whistle brewing

Rogers Centre close up

Financial distric

again

Home of the Blue Jays!

Rain! :-(

Mozilla FireFoxOS

Last week I was at the Mozilla Community Space for a presentation about FireFoxOS. A colleague and I went there mainly to check out the office space and have some feed (admission fee was only 5$). The office was cool and specious - check out the pictures - but I found the talk itself not that interesting. Frédéric Harper (FireFox developer who previously worked at microsoft) presented this new startup FireFox OS (or also called "Boot to Gecko") however, he didn't tell me much new and therefore the presentation was kinda boring.. Live presentation of the platform and development failed (as it always does at does moments, right?) which didn't help making the presentation more exciting

However the product itself is cool. FireFoxOS is based on HTML5, JavaScript and CSS and anybody who knows these (scripting)languages can develop applications for this new platform using the FireFoxOS API. Building an application means that you have an application for both the web (FireFox browser - and others) and for the FirFoxOS mobile phones. Apps can be deployed through the app market or from your own server, however different security levels are assigned and if you deploy your app through the market more people will likely use your application. Making money on your web-app is likely not the case, because as you know FireFox is a community-based platform.

If you want to check out the presentation you can find it here.
More information about the OS can be found here.

Blog 2

Now I had seen the Christmas trees I decided to get sick, right before the actual Christmas. But I didn't miss out much, because that was right at the time, when the famous ice storm hit Toronto and caused a power outage for a big part of the city. By now you probably all have heard and seen the images, and videos of people who had to live for days without power.. Luckily I didn't have any power outage, that's why I did not found out about the whole storm until the next monday.

My friend K. who I haven't seen since summer 2011, had invited me over for her Christmas dinner with her family on tuesday night, so I could experience a real Canadian Christmas dinner! Since I couldn't show up with empty hands, I decided to make real Dutch oliebollen (Or "Oily balls" ;-), which wasn't hard (nor as messy) but just took me a couple of hours. I made about 80-100 of them.. So maybe next time I should make a little bit less. But K's family said they liked it, so that was good! The dinner was lovely, we had real Turkey and her family was very nice and somehow Santa Claus came by, because there was even a present for me under the tree! Thanks Santa!

On Boxing day I went to visit another friend and her family in Windsor (on the border with Detroit) and spend there a couple of days. They had waited for me to have the real family Christmas dinner and also that one was a treat! And somehow Santa came by again and gave me some nice pj's and a French coffee maker! Thanks again Santa! The other days, we just relaxed, hung around in Windsor area and had a real good Pita bread & Poutine at Pita grill, check out my food map to get the location!
I spent my new years eve at a bar in Windsor. It was different and quiet without all the fireworks (we are used to that in Holland) but it was still fun! Hello 2014!

On January first I took the train back to Toronto, but first a small journey to P?? and on the second I had to work again...

Santa's sleigh at Yonge St.

Waiting for the dough to rise

Oily balls

Staring at the U.S. border - Detroit at the background

Can you see the bridge to the USA?

What can I say?

Jup! They do have a drive in pharmacy here

New years eve at a Windsor bar

Some Dutch clogs hanging in the tree

My french coffee maker

Just a quick journey to Paris!

Oh Toronto, what are you beautiful

Ice cream... and

cold....