Hello home. Hello cold.
After a long flight from Buenos Aires, we arrived in Toronto early morning. We took the airport bus to downtown, jumped on a Greyhound bus, and arrived in Ottawa a few hours later. It had been a while.
It wasn’t that cold, and there weren’t too much snow on the ground. The city hasn’t changed… I guess it never really does. It’s both comfortable and slightly disturbing to slip into our old lives, like nothing happened.
We spent the last few days seeing friends, emptying our backpacks and doing some laundry (which doesn’t dry that well considering it’s 0ºC outside). I stopped by at work and got talked into working full-time next week. Eh, why not… although I’m not dying to take the early morning bus, once again.
My citizenship application has finally been approved, and it will apparently take another 12 to 15 months for the exam and the ceremony. I’m not in a hurry… but I’m glad to know it’s being processed. I also received my TOEFL exam result, and I scored 115/120. That was a good surprise.
I spent the last couple of days trying to tweak my WordPress theme, since it had been discontinued. Well, after a headache and two days of trials, I reverted back to the old theme. I don’t care if it’s discontinued, I’m keeping it. I got nowhere even close to what I wanted with the new themes, no matter how geeky and improved they look.
I’m 26 years old today. I looked for new wrinkles but we are still very tan, and I couldn’t spot one. Who cares anyway. I want to keep on traveling, keep on seeing the world, keep on writing, keep on taking pictures. I want to keep on learning more and more.
Here we are, in Canada, once again. And leaving soon… for a trip to France in 10 days.
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Zhu! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! And Welcome home!! 🙂 Also congrats for the citizenship thing! What a wonderful holiday you had and wait, its not over yet? LOL! You’ll have exciting 10 days ahead!
Happy Birthday Zhu and welcome back!!!!
hihihi it sounded like a Johny walker pub, keep walking! After all, correr es tu destino, We’re living in a big blue world, it’s always nice to find someone who’s really living it.
Congrats on the citenzenship and happy birthday, again. Cumpleaños feliz! Joyeaux anniversaire!
Bonne fête! Tabarnak! Tu voyages beaucoup:p La chanceuse…Félicitation pour tout. I’m better at speaker Quebec French than writing proper French sentences. Anyway, there’s a new article about a new rule on citizenship application. The applicant must speak at least one of the official languages to do the test.
Bienvenue au Canada.
Happy Birthday!
So you are back…and already planning another trip !
Lucky you! I love France!
Hey Zhu!
I tried coming here the whole day, but with no success (it said that your page was on maintenance.
Anyway, I sent you a message via a site (expat site) your blog is in…I hope you received it!
If not: belated Happy Birthday!!!!!! 😀
I hope you had an excellent day, darling!
Bisous
What? You just got back and now you are leaving again? I suppose you have a worse case of itchy feet than I do. Anyway, enjoy being 26. I on the other hand am savoring the last four months of 26.
Happy Belated Birthday! I’m itching to get on a plane again. It’s only been a few weeks, but I have the urge already.
You’re nearly a Canadian, but if you continue to sneak away during the winters you will only get half a passport 🙂
Thanks for dropping me a line in my blog! I can be your free guide to explore colombia as long as you teach me mandarin. So, deal? hehehe (I’m serious)
Zhu – I checked for your blog several times while it was down (I’m addicted) and ended up missing this post. Happy belated birthday. Smokey sends you a tail wag.
@Final_Transit – Thank you! Yes, I’m lucky, it’s cool to go travel again… even if it’s in my home country!
@bumanguesa – Gracias! Yep, correr es mi destino 🙂
@Bluefish – Merci! Ton français est bn, mais je comprends ce que tu veux dire… je perds aussi certaines expressions…
@Sidney – Lucky me indeed 🙂
@Max Coutinho – I know, I know, I was trying to update and choose a new theme for my blog. But eventually, I kept mine! Thanks for your wishes.
@Linguist-in-Waiting – Oh oh, I’m older than you? Man, you are much wiser!
@Gail at Large – It’s okay, as long as I get summer residence in Canada 😆
@bumanguesa – Sure, no problem! I wanted to blog a bit about Mandarin anyway — we will see if I’m a good teacher 😆
@Tulsa Gentleman – Sorry about the down time – but meanwhile, the food posts are here!
Happy (belated) birthday! Wishing you many more years of travel and adventure, love and happiness!
You are such a jet setter! Leaving so soon already! 🙂
Welcome back and Happy Belated Birthday!
Happy belated birthday almighty citizen of the world! Be healthy and keep doing what you do, enjoying life to the fullest.
Take care.
Holy Cow – Well I am hopefully not too far behind on apply for citizenship, and yes time just keeps going even after people leave. But I can’t believe it’s already been that long of a trip! And that is so wonderful that you are probably already in France. Ah to travel somewhere far again in Europe! Enjoy! I miss my broken camera already. 🙂
I hope your birthday was great!
Welcome back! I know it’s so hard to settle back into old routines which in one way seem so comfortable, but in another way seem so ‘unexotic’. The challenge lies in blogging about life in Ottawa. 🙂 Now to France? Wow….