Dobrindts Dot Com

It's Friday late afternoon and I am sitting at the Toronto airport waiting for my flight home. This is the second time I have ever been to Toronto, the first about 5 years ago, and I am back next week. Nice trip and I like the city. I am sitting here waiting because I missed my 4PM flight to Boston, which would have had me walking in to my house at 6:30, and I missed it by 5 minutes even though I left where I was at 2PM and it was only about 40 miles away, but that is a bad story for another frustrating time.

Couple of thoughts on Toronto.

- First, I like writing paragraphs in a bullet form. It saves me the trouble of having a logical transition from one paragraph to another. I can be as fragmented as I want and I like reading thoughts this way, I know when the author is going on to another point.

- I’ll start with my flight from Boston to Toronto yesterday morning at 6:40AM. I usually don't find flying on airplanes a huge relaxing experience but the flight yesterday was great. I love flying and find it fun, but I am usually on a crowed flight (shuttle from Boston to NY), on a small plane (puddle hoppers) or anxious because I want to get somewhere, so I seldom find it relaxing. The flight from Boston to Toronto was on a smaller plane but for some reason I found it really roomy. The configuration was 2 seats on either side and the seats were bigger. The trays were bigger and the windows on the jet were higher than normal. I usually site in the aisle but for some reason the window placement made the plane seem bigger. I am not a giant person but am not small so I usually feel a little cramped and when I don't have to look down to look out it made me feel more comfortable.

- Toronto is a nice city. Much like any other big city with bad traffic, tall buildings and nice architecture. It's a lot different from Montreal. I also noticed a lot of tall apartment buildings all over the place. I spent half my time in Markham, about 45 minutes away, and noticed the same thing with the apartment buildings. They are mostly flat on the sides so it reminds me of housing complexes, like low rent housing complexes.

- The people are really really nice. I find people nice everywhere but it is different than a NY nice, or a Dallas nice, or a Miami nice. It reminds me more of Midwestern United States. I know it's not the case but it almost feels like they are being fake with their niceness, that they are putting on a show and maybe that’s my New England skepticism because I think deep down inside they are genuine. Even the clients I met with who grilled me pretty hard on something were nice.

- For some reason I focus on the details. The small things. With this trip it was little differences in speech. In Toronto they pronounce things differently than the US and I have a feeling it is because it's grounded in a more European way. For example, we say "Process" where it sounds like "prawh-cess". They say pro-cess and pro-ject (like golf "pro"). And it's not "again" that sounds like agen, it sounds like agane. Kind of cool.

- Another thing is the metric system. For some reason our digital thermostat at home only reads in Celsius. At first it was annoying but I have grown to gauge temperature in Celsius. So when the weatherman said it was going to be 20 degrees out the next day even though I was in short sleeves at 8 at night, it took me a second to understand. The biggest thing was when I got into a cab. We got on the highway and I saw a speed sign that said 90. Alright, my kind of place I thought. But it's obviously Kilometers, same as the speedometer on the cars. I doubt a colleagues Taurus could really go 200 miles an hour.

- I think it's because Toronto is so far north but at 8PM it was still fairly light and at 9 it was dusk. In Boston it's pretty dark right now at 7.

- So that leads me to right now, sitting and waiting for a flight that is 2 and a half hours away. Not to get into details but it was a combination of traffic, road construction that took down airport signs, going wrong ways multiple times and being dropped off at the wrong terminal. And I missed it by FIVE FREAKIN MINUTES. Ugh. And I leave at 7AM Monday morning and don't get back until late next Thursday, so the short weekend hurts. Sometimes, now that I think about a lot of times, my job is very frustrating and things like this add to it. It's tough being on the road when I hit all pegs, but when things get thrown out of kilter it hurts.

One other thing about the airport. They are not nice Torontonians at the airport. They are mean people who are not nice. I can look past the faster customs line for Canadian citizens because maybe they have to go through a special screening, but the people at the gate are mean. And not friendly at all. Jerks. Not nice.

I like coming here. Having to exchange my money is a pain but it’s very close to Boston and is a nice enough city. And, I have no choice.