top ten in toronto

My list of the top ten things we've done in Toronto thus far. Alternating between the top five worst and the top five best...

#10 : Best Food

The BEEF at 256 Monarch Park Ave. The folks invested in a side o' beef from the cattle farming brother of Mum's colleague, Maria. Let me just say this: after five months in Delhi, nothing tastes better than grilled steaks. Ooooh, so yummy. The way the crispy outer layer gives way to the inner, juicy meat. The way the salt goes ever-so-perfectly with the beef. No sauce, no mustard, no butters, just salt, glorious salt!

#9: Worst Food

It's hard, this catergory. Everything just tastes so unbearably delicious. The pho, the rice (I love basmati, but when I first arrived at aunts' I ate a huuuge bowl of plain, chinese-style - ie fat, squishy, and not dry and long like basmati - rice in a big gulp), the hot dogs, the coffee (though I drank myself into a bellyache when I had four coffees one day when it was, like, seven degrees outside and the coffee was insanely strong and perfect and hot and warming), the taquitos (thanks, Adam!), the chicken souvlaki and taramousalata, the cheese OH SWEET GLORY OF CHEESE from the St. Lawrence Market, all so wonderfully tasty. Ok, I think the worst was last night when I was at Mum and Dad's and I had a big spoonful of a brand new tub of Liberty 10% fat yogurt in plum 'n walnut flavour, and the yogurt looked perfect but tasted moldy. Eeeyeech. Turned out the expiry date was JUNE 10th, not JULY 10th.

#8: Best Baby Moment

Definitely watching Seung Yi learn how to dance, as taught by her Great Grandmother, Gramma Sayo. There's Seung Yi on the floor staring upwards, pushing her shoulders back and up and down and her belly in and out, and 84 year old Tai Ma wiggling her hips and laughing and laughing.

#7: Worst Baby Moment

Ok, so I had to get a new passport and I had to get it before Phet got back into town because I needed it to be ready as soon as possible so that I could get ready to apply for my new Indian work visa. Since Phet wasn't around, I had to take Seung Yi and Ji with me to the passport office. Since Seung Yi LOATHES the carseat, I figured it'd be best if I didn't have to wrangle her into it after a loooong stay at the passport office. So we asked Mum for a lift down to Victoria street on her way to work. She pulled into the small parking lot next to St. Michael's hospital downtown and the parking attendant immediately came over to hassle us about not being official parkers. I grabbed the stuff I needed, strapped on my backpack, got Ji out of the car, pulled Seung Yi out of the horrible carseat, and then I noticed a very bad smell. Yes, it was a poop. Yes, it was in Seung Yi's diaper. Mostly. It was only after I'd picked her up that I realized the poop was sort of squoozed out of the diaper INTO the carseat. And all over her very cute denim Gap dress. And, um, all over my forearm. Mum and I decided to just suck it up and let be the trailer park queens we wish we were and we changed Seung Yi on the back of the car. I have to say that the benefit of my own car, simple as it is (ie manual locks and windows! How retro!) is that it has a hatch-back trunk and therefore it is very easy change a baby tailgate-party-style. Anyways, Mum's car has a normal trunk, so we just changed her on the raw metal top of it. With the parking dude yelling at us. Like, what did he think we were going to do? Go walk somewhere covered in baby pooh? No. We flung all the crappy wipes and the diaper on the floor while we were dealing with the disaster, and then Mum collected them all up when Seung Yi was once again presentable. I'd just gotten Seung Yi into the Baby Bjorn (she also hates the stroller...) when it started to pour rain. Oh goody...

#6: Best Canadian Moment

Actually having a toonie somehow miraculously BE in my wallet when I arrived with Ji and Seung Yi at the airport after a dinosaur's age of traveling and thus be able to "rent" a frickin' luggage cart without resorting to using my visa card.

#5: Worst Canadian Moment

Getting kicked out of the premiere of my Famous Brother's film screening at the Worldwide Short Film Festival because even though we'd checked with the box office and even though the films were about things like EMROIDERY MACHINES and BALLET and such, the stoopid officious lady who took our tickets came right to our seats and said that the baby would have to leave since (get this!) the films hadn't been rated. Only in Canada would someone be concerned about the negative effects of artsy fartsy movies (and short movies at that) on a soon-to-be-sleeping nine month old baby. Ooonly in Canada.

#4: Best Beaurocracy Experience

Getting through the passport office in less than an hour!

#3: Worst Beaurocracy Experience

[At the Indian Consulate...]

#2: Funniest Worst Experience

Tonight we went out for Greek food on the Danforth and I had to do the parking by myself. I went up Chester to the Green P parking lot (I don't know if anyone else refers to those as Green Ps, but that's what we Niedzwieckis say) but there weren't any spaces. So I had to drive up Chester looking for street parking. Which there wasn't for several long blocks. Finally, I just barely drove past what turned out to be a great parking spot. I turned around, checked, and it was a parking spot! And I was in just the right position to back into it. So I started to do that and this crazy old Greek man went careening into MY parking space. What the hell! I parked my car next to another car, kind of in the middle of the street (no one was coming), and I went and said to the guy, "Hey, that wasn't very polite." Oh yeah, me, that's right: Queen Of The Road Rage.

#1: Best Overall Experience

Coming home!

[Toronto-28-June-2007]