I feel super good today. I finally overcame one of my biggest fears: driving. I passed my driver’s license!
I can’t pinpoint the exact moment when I became terrified of driving. My instructor was a fairly old guy, who loved cars and hated people who didn’t fall in love with the Freudian stick shift: “can you feel how smooth it is?” No, I couldn’t. I didn’t care either. To me, driving was getting from point A to point B safely.

Dundas Square, located at the intersection of busy Yonge Street and Dundas street, is famous for hosting public events. This is one of the busiest intersection in Toronto. The square is surrounded on all sides by gigantic commercial billboards, which is fairly unique (and controversial) in Canada.

Canadian politics takes some time to get used, especially for Europeans. The three levels of government are new to us (there are no provinces nor states in Europe) and national politics is somewhat eclipsed by local news, more relevant to communities in this huge country.

Past Chinatown, we ended up in another cute multicultural neighborhood: Kensington Market. The eclectic shops and cafés are stuck between Spadina and Little Italy. We spotted Latino, European, Middle-Eastern and North African small businesses and vintage stores in old Victorian houses.

Toronto’s Chinatown didn’t disappoint me. It was colorful, messy and it smelled of exotic and spicy food. I observed the people attending their daily business: biking around, shopping, cooking and chatting.

In Toronto, most of the party takes place downtown, in Nathan Phillips Square, at the corner of Queen and Bay. There is a small skate rink (small by Ottawa standards – remember, we have the 7.8 kilometers long Rideau Canal!) and skating seemed to be the number one activity.