Where are they now?

So we arrived in Toronto in the midst of the all important Canadian Summer. We don’t know a Canadian Winter yet but it sounds horrific and I am hoping that just as I was made to feel about the Inca Trail (that it would be the most treacherous four days of my life), the Winter here will end up not being as dreadful as reported. Sure it will be tough, and do not hold me to this but fingers crossed all the snarky remarks, “oh you haven’t been in Canada for a Winter yet!?” *smirk* will have scared me so terribly that when this Winter actually comes I’ll be saying, “is this it!?”. Seriously I was actually banging my head against the wall the night before we were to leave for our Inca Trail trek, reports of other people’s experiences petrified me. I’ll give you an update in three months times when the average temperature will be -3ºC, haha actually that does sound scary!

Check out this nifty idea, you can pop a little cardboard divider into your yoghurt cup so when you are self serving your flavors don’t mix

We spent our first three and a half weeks with family here in Toronto, part of the reason we chose Toronto over any other part of the country, having family here does give us an unfair advantage. After our time spent in the luxuries of my auntie and uncles basement we spread our wings and made our way to a “Bachelor” apartment, which basically means that the bed is in the same room as the dining room, study and living room, lucky for us in this instance the kitchen and bathroom were separate. We have decided to go with AirBnb for the entirety of our time here in Toronto for a few reasons.

1. No bills and only a one off fee that is easy to manage and pay upfront. Not to mention setting things up like gas and the internet is pretty time consuming in itself, AND no bond/deposit!

2. Furniture and all the trimmings won’t need to be purchased. It’s just us and our suitcases moving A to B. Setting up a whole new home can cost a bomb and we really weren’t up for this for just one year. We didn’t even give a thought to house sharing so it always would have been just us to get everything organised.

3. Leases begin at the start of month, which meant we would need to wait to move out to our own place and time it all correctly.

4. We intend on traveling quite a bit while we are here so why pay for a place while we aren’t in it? Instead we have strategically booked our places around our trips meaning we won’t be doubling up on rent at any point.

5. AirBnB is Easy!

We ended up spending only one month at our first abode, the bachelor pad. We weren’t working at this point so we just went for a cheapy for the time being plus the area was great and the apartment was really well located. After we both landed work we booked our next place, across the other end of town in Leslieville and off we went. This is where we currently are and will be here up until the day we fly to Chicago to watch the All Blacks at the end of the month. We already have our next place booked which I am excited about. At that point Winter will be in full swing and this place is close to where I am working so I can walk instead of standing in the cold at the bus stop waiting and it has a gym in the building so I won’t need to leave the house in the dark to go workout before work. Can I just say that again, it has a gym in the building, SO excited!!!!

Rob has been working remotely for his old boss in Sydney who has started up his own agency Little Sydney and he has found some cool shared working space which he has been biking to on his $40 push bike he bought from a pawn shop. The wheel almost fell off yesterday but luckily he was actually at a gas station when he noticed so there were no causalities. I’ve been working for a digital and direct marketing agency, JAM Direct where I have been freelancing as a Project Manager and will be here at least until Christmas. It is unfortunately a little bit of a hike from our current place, and I have to travel across the city to get here. It actually is quicker for me to run the 9km, which I will be doing again next week as the past couple of weeks I’ve been training at a gym nearby on a two week trial. I love running to work, you get to wake up at a normal hour (7:30am), exercise and arrive at work (for free) all by 9am.

Rob’s $40 bargain bike

I have gone back to training 5-6 times a week again which has consisted of a few trials at various gyms, lots of running and then training in the park doing sprints, squats, lunges, push-ups etc. Our previous accommodation had a couple of weights in the cupboard so I even got Rob jumping around the park with me on occasion. I’ve also gone back to my preferred style of eating, which is basically unprocessed and often (which is a little annoying as I now has Invisalign but worth it) and the comment’s from co-workers “you are always eating” have started up again haha, the finance lady even told me today we should set up a little fridge next to my desk.

All in all Toronto is treating us well, it is nice to have disposable income for once in a very, very long time. Rob and I have basically been saving for travel from the moment we met each other, with last year 2013 being an extreme saving year. We have been pretty successful with our saving and seem to be able to do so without suffering too much although it is no secret that saving tens of thousands of dollars means cutting back in every aspect of your life, but that’s just who we are nowadays naturally and the fact that now we can just spend the money we are currently earning is quite a novelty (but we both still bring our lunch to work everyday).