Toronto

On this day, I met my host-family. We decided to take an earlier bus to travel to Toronto to have a short look around in the city. But you know us, things always turned out differently from what we expect. At first there were no busses going from Andi’s house to Hamilton downtown. According to Andi’s roommate it wasn’t a long walk to the GoBus station, so we decided to go. But after half an hour we were still walking and finally after one hour we found the bus station. Then the bus was too crowded and so we took the other bus, which should only take 15 minutes more than the other one, the bus driver told us. To conclude, we were in Toronto exactly at that time, when I told the Homestay department of the ILSC to pick me up.

They drove us to my new home, where I’m staying for the next 3 months. My homestay family is very nice and I have my own room and even my own bathroom on the third floor. You can see my windows at the picture beside (the three windows on the top). My first evening ended like a typically American dinner, a pizza ordered from a restaurant while watching TV. My hostfamily also has two boys, at the age of 6 and 7, which are very cute. One day they taught me how to play American football and I now know what’s a spin shot and how to catch the ball the right way :-)

I go to school everyday from 9 am to 4 pm and I like it. Sometimes I feel like I am back to school in Austria. I found many friends from all over the world, Switzerland, Brasil, Mexico, Venezuela, Korea, Japan, etc. After school we often spend our time together, discovering Toronto, searching for Outlet Malls, which we by the way never found.

One bad thing is that it takes me 45 minutes or longer to get to school every day. That’s what I am missing of Austria and especially of Graz, standing up only half an hour before the course starts and riding the bike to University for only 5 to 10 minutes. But compared to others I’m glad to live very near to the school, others need over one hour each day- yes Toronto is a big city. See some pictures in my photo album.

Toronto itself is a very multicultural city, there are lots of people from different parts of the world and it is hard to find real Canadians. But everybody is very friendly and helpful.
I’m really enjoying my time here in Canada, everyday is full with new experiences and I learn a lot, not only English but also things that are important for my future life.