Jun 2008

PAYG.

Pay As You Go.

No wonder I still feel like a visitor in London, everything in my life is temporary.

Pay-as-you-go, often abbreviated as PAYG is the system whereby you pay for something up front, prior to use, and when you are done with the service, you can buy more or never buy again. It is a contrast with any sort of long term contract. Most of us would be familiar with the concept when it comes to mobile phones.

My new mobile phone is PAYG. I will get a contract phone once I have settled in a bit more, but for the time being, seeing as I didn't know how much I would use my phone or what types of services I would need, in addition to the fact that my new job, once I get it, might provide me with a mobile phone, it seemed sensible to not get anything long term.

On a side note, I don't know how to say my new mobile phone number. Mobile phone numbers here are 11 digits long. In North America, our phone numbers are 10 digits, and you always split those 10 digits up the same way - 3 digits for the area code, 3 digits for the exchange, 4 digits for the "station code." Therefore, you said your number as such. "My number is 416 (pause) 555 (pause) 1234."

Here in the UK, though, everyone seems to approach it differently. Some do 3-4-4 (011-1111-1111), some do 4-3-4 (0111-111-1111), some do 3-4-2-2 (011-1111-11-11), some even do 5-2-2-2 (01111-11-11-11). Strange. With no constancy, when someone asked my number, I don't know what to say. Usually, I just mumble and show them the number written down. Seems to work.

Beyond my phone, though, even more of my life is PAYG.

My flat is a rent-by-the-day place - you rent it for as long as you need, starting and ending on whatever day you want. In fact, if you really wanted to, you could rent the place just for one day. You come in, stay and then leave the place as you found it, with nary a sign that anyone every was there.

The tube is PAYG as well, with the stored value Oyster Card.

The Oyster Card allows you to put a certain amount down (say, £30) and then use that amount until it is done. There are "travel cards" which allow unlimited travel for a set period (a week, a month), but I choose for now to go with the PAYG service as I am not sure I will be using London transit every day. So far, I have been using London transit everyday, so perhaps it was a bad gamble, but it seemed like a smart choice at the time.

Even the power in my apartment in pay-as-you-go. I have a pre-paid power meter for my place. Once the money runs out, the lights go off. To "recharge" the meter, I take a small electronic key down to the local variety store where I can put money on the key. Returning to my apartment, I can put the key in the meter, and the amount I put on the key will be transferred to the meter, keeping the lights on for a few more days.

All this pre-paid, use it and then leave stuff lends are real impermanence to my life over here. Pounds in for as long as you have them, then off you go somewhere else.

It'll be nice to start to develop some "long-term" connections to the city. Then perhaps I'll get more than a toe in the water. I might even get a whole foot into this living abroad.

Sneaky Nazis, still trying to bring us down.

Oh, they had their crazy plans. I can just see them in their little bunkers planning this thing out. "Let's drop a massive bomb on London, but instead of having it explode right away, let's have it buried in the earth until 2008! It will cause them no end of grief!"

Another Nazi officer looks at the map and says, "but where will we drop it?"

The crafty SS Commander points to the map. "East London, right here, future site of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. Yes, that will pay them back for winning the Gold Medal in the 6 metre sailing class at our superior Berlin Olympics!"

And so it was that workers digging on the future site of the 2012 Olympics uncovered a 2,200 pound bomb on Monday. Tube service in the east end has been interrupted all week as The Royal Engineers bomb disposal squad, which one news report describes as being "the modern-day equivalents of teams set up during the conflict to deal with unexploded Nazi ordnance," went about the process of trying to disarm the beast.

Things were tight. At one point, the bomb "started to tick and ooze liquid when experts tried to disarm it. One Royal Engineer was sent back repeatedly to the ticking device to 'freeze it' by pouring a salt solution on to it. He used a powerful magnet to stop its timer." (source: This is London)

Last night the Royal Engineers used a controlled explosion to disarm the device. London is safe again from the scourge of the Nazis, the trains can again run (though they tend to run slowly and late - one thing Fascists can do that apparently democracies can't) and the march to 2012 continues just slightly abated.

Those Nazis though, they are tricky. Don't think we've seen the last of them. After all, they are still up to causing mischief in the circles of Auto Racing. Ain't that right, Mr. Mosley?

I am an immigrant and a resident of a new country. I just don't know it.

That is to say that while I know it intellectually, I don't feel it in my core. When I am walking around in London, I still feel like a tourist there to take in the sites, have a few pints, and get back on a plane to Canada. During all the weeks spent in Toronto in denial emotionally about my impeding move, I always felt that once I got to London, it would all hit me like a ton of bricks and I would realize that it was real. Instead, I find myself still sitting around feeling like a temporary visitor.

That's not that bad, though. Getting hit by a ton of bricks doesn't sound like much fun. Perhaps easing myself into this whole adventure seems a lot better.

The adventure started out poorly, frankly. My last day in Toronto was drizzling, cold and wet. My flight over was long and sleepless. I couldn't sleep, so instead I watched movies and thought about sleep.

Immigration was surprisingly easy. The immigration officer asked me who I was claiming as my "ancestor" for my ancestry visa. I said my grandmother.

"Where was she from," he asked, punching keys on his computer.

"Birmingham," I replied.

He looked up and raised an eyebrow. "Really," he asked. "I am from Birmingham, you know?"

I didn't know, but I thought it best not to point that out to the man in charge of deciding whether or not this whole adventure, for which I had given up my apartment and job in Toronto would continue, so instead I nodded and said, "really."

"Yes sir. You know what Birmingham is famous for?" he asked.

I didn't. In fact, I never had been to Birmingham, and prior to seeing it on my grandmother's birth certificate, I hadn't even bothered to think about it, except in the context that it was also the name of the capital of Alabama and that Birmingham gets mentioned in the Lynard Skynrd song "Sweet Home Alabama."

"You know the band UB40?"

"Sure," I replied. Red, red wine, and all that.

"They are from Birmingham," he said, looking at me with a very satisfied smile on his face, like he had just told me that the Queen or Elvis or the Dali Lama was from Birmingham. I made noises to indicate that I was very impressed, while on the inside was I was thinking that if the best Birmingham could do was UB40, perhaps they should just pack up shop and all move to Edinburgh now.

He went on to add two other notable Birmingham contributions to the world, those being Land Rover and Jaguar, which I have since learned are not, in fact, contributions that Birmingham has made to the world, as neither company is headquartered there. Though they do, I believe, have factories there.

I have also since learned that Duran Duran was from Birmingham, which is (at least to me) 100 time more impressive than UB40. No offence to UB40 fans, but Red, Red Wine doesn't hold a candle to Hungry Like The Wolf.

Heathrow didn't lose my luggage. In fact, quite the opposite happened. I exited the immigration hall to find my luggage already off the plane and waiting for me. I exited Heathrow into a bright, sunny day, exactly what I was not expecting from the United Kingdom. I left Toronto where it was cold and raining to arrive in London where it was sunny and warm. Perhaps I flew into Bizarro London instead of regular London. "Me am Bizarro Greg. This am bad weather."

After a very sweaty ride on a packed underground with three transfers and a number of evil looks from commuters who were cursing the fatty, sweaty foreigner taking up all the space with his three bags, including a backpack which he didn't even bother to take off, I arrived at Willesden Green station. I called to get picked up by the accommodation company that had arranged my flat for the month.

"Did you not get our confirmation email," the voice on the other end asked when I called. I had, and so I said I did. It said to call this number when at the tube station to get picked up, so that was what I was doing.

"Then you would have seen that we can't pick anyone up until 10:30 AM. The check in isn't until then," she said. In fact, I hadn't seen that. I must have skimmed over that part. I looked at my watch. 9:45 AM. "Perhaps you can go and grab a coffee for a while, and call back and 10:30 AM?" she suggested. I guess I would.

Instead of coffee (which I don't drink), I grabbed a Coca-Cola Light and sat on my suitcase outside the tube station, watching the world go by and reading, occasionally, from a travelogue book by Tim Cahill. The neighbourhood seemed a pretty multicultural mix of people, and struck me as safe, which was at least one less thing to worry about.

10:30 rolled around, and I called back to get my pick up. A blonde Aussie girl drove around and took me to my place. She was quite pretty, with large full lips like Scarlett Johansson that kept drawing my attention when I should have been paying attention to riveting things like lease arrangements, power consumption keys and garbage collection schedules. Eventually we got all the papers signed and the leave paid, and I sadly saw Scarlett out the door. I turned around to face my new home.

It's a studio apartment. Not very big, but clean. It sits on the second floor in the front room of a row house on a quiet though central located street. Just steps away is a busier street full of shops, restaurants and bars which cater to a mainly Polish population in the area, but are welcoming of "foreigners" like myself.

My street

The main room of my flat

Kitchen in my flat, with bathroom off to the side

As you can see there are only two rooms, the large main room and a very small bathroom. I quickly dubbed the two rooms the greenhouse and the cold storage. The main room has large windows that were closed when I arrived, and with the bright hot London sun (there are words I didn't think I would be saying), the main room had heated up to an almost unbearable level. In contrast, the bathroom door was closed, and upon entering one felt a frigid chill.

I have since figured out that if I keep the windows open a crack to let in some cool air and keep the bathroom door open, the temperature in both rooms evens out to a liveable level, but the names have stuck.

I dozed for a little while in the afternoon, but didn't want to sleep all day, as I was afraid that would mean I was up all night, so I went out for a walk. My mind raced with a million thoughts, a million things that I needed to do as a new resident of London. I tried to put them all out my head, telling myself that I could worry about those things tomorrow. For today, I would just try and let the day wash over me and let my new found residency sink in.

It didn't sink in, though. Instead I still felt like a tourist all day. Perhaps it is because I have nothing permanent over here. My flat is rented for the month. I have no job, no permanent place to live, no bank account, no phone, no friends, no connections to this place at all.

Dejected, I walked back to my flat, and continued to read my book. The book, Road Fever, by Tim Cahill, tells the story of an attempt to break a Guinness Book of World Records by driving as quickly as possible from the tip of South America to Alaska. Just before he is about to set out on the adventure, he talks about feeling down.

Remorse before the fact is a common preadventure sensation. There is an overwhelming sense that you left the water running in the bathroom. You have, in fact, neglected something so simple and self-evident that people didn’t see any reason to tell you about it: the Wall of Flame in Chile, for instance, or the Big Hole in the Earth that Swallows Trucks just south of Rio Gallegos, the River of Acid, the meteorite Firing Range, the Living Dinosaurs...

I read it, and recognized the feeling in me. In the days leading up to leaving Toronto, I had been feeling down, and the feelings had carried over to my first day in London. I felt like I was missing something, that at any moment I was going to get a call from back in Canada that I hadn't paid my rent, or that the UK police were going to bust down the door and deport me. I knew that I was here in the United Kingdom, but it didn't feel like it is permanent. It still felt temporary, and it felt like I was not in control.

I went to bed early the first night at 10:30 PM, and I didn't walk up the next morning until 11:15 AM, getting more than 12 hours of sleep. Despite the late start, I headed out and got 3 things done on my list of things to do:

• Buy Shaving Cream - okay, not exactly complex, but it was still on my list
  
• Get a phone - kind of complete, as my voice mail doesn't work, but at least I have a phone number now
  
• Get an adapter plug from my Apple MacBook
  

In addition, I took a double-decker bus for the first time today, riding the 189 from Oxford Circus to Brent, where I am staying. Like a tourist, I sat up top in the front to watch the view. More importantly, however, is the fact that this bus is a 24 hour bus and will come in handy in the future if I get stuck in Central London after the subway trains stop running. I know that many of the 24 hour buses run through Oxford Circus, and I now know how to get home from there, which could save me a huge amount on cabs in the future.

Music fans will also be interested to know that the 189 runs along Abbey Road, right by the Abbey Road studios. These studios are famous for being the place where famous British rockers "Camel" recorded their 1981 album "Nude." I also understand that some mop-top kids from Liverpool recorded some crap there, but that's 1960s/1970s ancient history, dude.

Anyway, I felt better about the whole adventure after completing the little things today like getting a phone, an adapter and riding the bus. I can't say that I exactly feel like a resident of London now, or that I have completely shaken that feeling that I am just a tourist here, but at least I feel a little more like someone who lives here now. If the first day I felt like I was floating on top of London, not at all immersed into it, the second day I felt that at the very least I had a toe in the water, slowly sinking into my life.

Only a couple more days before I am...

...Europe Bound! I had been hoping to use my last couple weeks in Toronto to play a little more tourist and get to see the sites before getting on a plane, but things quickly started to pile up, and the amount of time I was spending getting my stuff packed up, donated or thrown out took a lot longer than I would have expected. Eventually, though, I was able to clear everything out, and spent my last couple days in the apartment sitting in a lone chair and sleeping on a carpet in a sleeping bag.

I have since moved a little closer downtown, and am staying in a hotel. Given that I am staying in a hotel and I finally don't have anything left to do to enable my move, I figured I might as well take a day and really go all out tourist. So I got my camera ready, grabbed my tourist map, put on a sweater emblazoned with the name of the place that I am visiting, and hit the town!

Seeing as I am staying at Yonge and College, I decided to head south and follow the PATH.

PATH is downtown Toronto's underground walkway linking 27 kilometres of shopping, services and entertainment. According to Guinness World Records, PATH is the largest underground shopping complex with 27 km (16 miles) of shopping arcades. It has 371,600 sq. metres (4 million sq. ft) of retail space, and connects more than 50 buildings. It's southern end would be my eventual destination for the day, and it's northern end is the Atrium on Bay at the corner for Yonge and Dundas.

On the south-east corner of Yonge and Dundas is Yonge-Dundas Square. The corner of Yonge and Dundas used to be quite a sketchy area, full of strip clubs, head shops, XXX theatres and tacky t-shirts shops, not unlike New York's Times Square back before it got cleaned up. Much like NYC's Times Square, the City of Toronto took it upon themselves to turn the dive atmosphere of Yonge and Dundas into something more tourist friendly. So they knocked down a bunch of the buildings and made part of it a square.

The square at Yonge and Dundas is now a meeting place, and they often hold music, film, and community events in the square and on the stage at the east end. This weekend was the Desi Fest, a South Asian music festival in celebration of South Asian Heritage Month. Yonge-Dundas Square is transformed into a South Asian bazaar and live music showcase for more than 20 Canadian and international artists. This picture of the square was taken this morning, long after the Desi Fest party had cleared the area.

Across Yonge Street from Yonge-Dundas Square is the Eaton Centre, a massive mall originally named after the main tenant. However, Eaton's department stores went belly up a few years back, but the name was so intrenched they decided to keep it, claiming that the complex is now named the Eaton Centre as it represents a tribute to Eaton's founder Timothy Eaton and the small shop he once opened at this location.

The Eaton Centre has a massive glass roof that runs the length of the mall, and the floors are designed to have many large gaps to allow for light to stream down, creating a very large atrium. At the south end of the mall, an art installation called Flight Stop by artist Michael Snow hangs from the roof. The art piece depicts a number of Canada Geese heading south. The artist and the management of the mall had a falling out one year, after the mall put red ribbons on the geese to celebrate Christmas. Michael Snow ended up suing the mall, and the Eaton Centre was forced to remove the ribbons, as the judge ruled that the "distortion" of the work infringed on Mr. Snow's copyright.

Personally, I thought it looked festive, but whatever... I'm no artist. Here's the geese, sans ribbons.

The south end of the mall empties out onto Queen Street. Heading west on Queen you will come across Old City Hall.

Built in 1899 and serving as City Hall for Toronto until 1966, when the city council moved west, across Bay Street to the new City Hall.

Designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell and engineered by Hannskarl Bandel, the modernist architecture building opened in 1965. Two curved towers flank the main council chamber, which sits like a big round flying saucer in the middle of the buildings, almost looking like it's ready for flight. Given some of the loonies we have on city council, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that a few of them are aliens, actually.

In front of City Hall is Nathan Phillips Square, named after mayor Nathan Phillips of Toronto (1955 - 1962). The square often holds concerts and events, and in the winter the small concrete fountain in front is frozen over to provide a large, outdoor skating rink.

Even though my plan called for following the PATH, I decided to stay above ground and enjoy the sunny weather. I headed south down York Street, and came across one thing that you can't escape in Toronto, the hot dog cart.

Due to public health regulations requiring food serving establishments to have sinks and bathrooms and a number of other things, only "prepared, pre-cooked food" can be served by street vendors, which means that every food stall sells pretty much the same thing, hot dogs and sausages. It's one of Toronto's great failings, if you ask me, that you can't get a decent meal from a cart vendor in the city. They are working to change it, but like all things related to government, the right to sell a decent empanada or taco on the street is mired in red tape.

The other thing you run into, much like any other city, is people handing out flyers and free samples of stuff. It always bothers me when they try and hand something to me, but I must admit that I feel overlooked and sad when they ignore me.

Today I passed two young ladies handing out samples of something. I rolled my eyes as I approached, thinking, "oh great, somebody else trying to pass me garbage." The young lasses were handing out the samples to everyone but as I approached, they both looked away.

I stopped and cleared my throat. One of the girls turned to me. "Am I not good enough to receive your pamphlet and product sample? Have you thought that perhaps you've just lost a potentially loyal consumer?" I quizzed her.

Looking confused, she handed me the sample packet for new super-absorbent tampons.

"Thank you," I said. "I was running short of ammunition for my tampon blow-gun."

Okay, I admit, that last whole conversation was made up. But some girls did snub me when handing out their pamphlets this morning, though I figured seeing as they only seemed to be targeting women that there was an obvious reason why I was excluded.

Continuing south I arrived at Union Station. The main train station in Toronto as well as a bus depot and local transit hub, millions pass through the station every day. Outside the station is Francesco Pirelli's Monument to Multiculturalism, the statue depicts a naked, faceless man. The statue was a gift to Toronto by the National Congress of Italian Canadians in 1985. The statue has raised some eyebrows over the years, as some have questioned why a man with no facial features should have such an accurately sculpted groin area, but I've always liked it.

The statue, I mean, not the groin area.

The birds in flight and the globe shape have always made me think of travel, which is also helped by the fact that the statue is outside the train station.

It also makes a great place to tell people from out of town to meet you when they arrive at Union Station. "I'll be by the statue of the big naked dude." That's a hard one to forget.

Kiddie-corner from Union Station is Brookfield Place, which holds the Hockey Hall of Fame.

I guess I won't get to see much hockey over in England, so I took one last, longing look at the shine to Hockey, and moved on.

East of Brookfield Place and Union Station is one of Toronto's most iconic buildings, The red brick Gooderham Building (commonly referred to as the Flatiron Building) was built in 1892. At the triple-corner of Wellington, Front and Church streets and with the financial district as a back-drop the building and it's setting are almost an idiot-proof picture opportunity. Of course, my picture happens to come when the outer exterior is being worked on, so the building is partial obscured by scaffolding, so I guess no matter how idiot proof something is, there is always a better idiot.

I doubled back and headed west along Front Street towards the CN Tower.

The CN Tower is probably the most distinctive thing about Toronto's skyline, and is a major tourist attraction. Built in the mid-seventies to serve as a radio and TV tower, the last minute additions of a couple of observation decks turned the massive concrete shaft (nothing phallic about it) a tourist sight that has (depending on which list you read) been called one of the "seven wonders of the modern world."

As of today, the tallest man-made structure is the Burj Dubai, a skyscaper still under construction in Dubai, that has reached 636 m (2,087 ft) in height as of May 12, 2008

The CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, standing at 553.3 m (1,815 ft), was the world's tallest freestanding structure on land from 1976 until September 12, 2007, when it was overtaken in height by the rising Burj Dubai. The tower does, at this point though, still have the world's highest public observation deck, though that will most likely change once the Burj is finished and opened.

I went to both observation decks today. The lookout level is 346m (1,136’) above the ground, and from there you can get some pretty excellent pictures of the Toronto skyline.

Island Airport

Downtown core, often called the "Financial District"

Looking towards mid-town and up-town

One level down you will find not only the Glass Floor, offering you the vertigo inducing opportunity to stand 342m (1,122’) above the ground below with nothing but a few panes of glass supporting you up.

The glass floor opened in 1994, and I had the opportunity to attend a corporate event a few years later in 1995. To prove that it is safe to walk on, the CN Tower had put a sign indicating that the glass floor was "five times stronger than the required weight bearing standard for commercial floors." That's reassuring, until you are back in your office the next day, looking down at the floor below you and thinking, "Dear God, this floor isn't even as strong as glass!"

Heading up from the look out level, you get to the Sky Pod. Sky Pod is 447 metre (1465 ft.) above the ground, and offers even more dizzying views of the city. I snapped this shot, looking straight down, giving a view of both the roof of the look level section and railway Canadian Pacific's former John Street roundhouse, it is currently home to a brewery, and soon to be a furniture store and small rail museum.

Enough dizziness, and feeling adequately Canadian (see photo with moose dressed as Mountie as proof of my Canadian-ness for the day), I headed out of the tower and back east towards Yonge Street. Walking up Yonge, I pass a statue that I had seen many times before, but today it draws my attention even more.

"Immigrant Family" is a work by Tom Otterness. A bronze sculpture found at 18 Yonge Street (Yonge south of Front Street), the statue depicts a new family arriving on the shores of a new land, suitcases and baby in hand. The figures are cartoonish, which has always given me the impression that this family of newcomers was happy to be in their new land.

So it will be for me on Wednesday morning, happily clutching my luggage on the shores of my new home. Assuming, of course, that my luggage doesn't go missing in Heathrow airport.