Last Wednesday was Sander his first working day here in Canada. Off course he had to get used to speaking English all day, but for the rest it was a typical first day of getting settled at work.

For me this was the first “alone” in Canada. I started the day with organizing our suitcases, because living out of 4 suitcases on a relatively small hotel room can cause some mess… After that I went to the Yorkdale Mall for my Starbucks and from there I took the subway to downtown Toronto. On “College” I got of the subway to visit the Shops at College Park and walk a little to Eaton Center. I got lunch at Eaton Center and looked at some shops for bedding options, because we still need sheets, shams, cover, duvet etc. But everything is named different here and it took a while before I understood what everything means and what we need.

Sander texted me that after work we were going to eat sushi in the area of our condo together with Martin and Sabrina, so the plan was to be at the Quantum2 Towers at around 6 pm. Because it takes almost one hour with the subway to go back to the hotel (and then off course another hour back to our condo) I decided to stay in the city a walk all the way up north on Yonge Street to Eglinton (where our condo is). This was almost 6 kilometers and I arrived there shortly before 6 pm, almost at the same time as Martin and Sander. We met in the lobby of the Quantum2 South Tower and not much later we had dinner at Sushi Supreme and it was delicious. We will definitely come back here.

At 8:30 pm we had an appointment with the owner of our condo to do some extra measurements and see with color the new painting would be. The had not started painting yet and we decided together with the owner to go for off-white walls. After we did the measurements we discovered that the sofa we ordered the day before, would be to long for our living room. So I the next day I need to go back to Crate & Barrel and find something different for a sofa. After we got back at our hotel room we did some research in the internet for a new sofas which would better fit in our living room.

On Thursday after Sander went to work I went again to the Yorkdale Mall to cancel the order on the sofa we ordered on Tuesday. To cancel the order was not a problem at all and soon we found another option for a sofa, the Rochelle Apartment Sofa in a nice light color. So we ordered this sofa to be sure it would not go out of stock because than we have to wait till mid-december for the delivery.  In the evening I came back to the store with Sander and he “approved” the Rochelle sofa. So when everything goes well, the sofa will be delivered early november.

After the sofa-thing we went to Home Outfitters to buy a duvet, a duvet cover, sheets and shams for our bed. I already did some research on the internet and in the stores so it all went very quickly. We also got a 40% discount on the duvet and because there was no discount on the sheets, we got there a 20% discount at checkout. I must say that it looks kind a weird walking into the hotel with bedding-stuff.

And than it was finally friday, the day we got the key to our condo. The place we are going to live for the next 3 years. In the morning the sun was shining and after a visited the Rogers Store at the Yorkdale Mall I bought 4 pillows at Home Outfitters, because as from today there was a 60% discount on the pillows. The only thing I did not think about before was how to get those pillows to the hotel (2 king size and 2 queen size pillows). But the sun was shining so it as not a problem walking to the hotel with 4 big pillows in my hand.

In the afternoon I had an appointment at the Apple Store to get my iPhone 5 replaced within the Battery-Replacement-Programm. I should get it back in 7 to 10 days. I had planned to go to the city after lunch but it started raining and I did not want to walk outside in the rain so I went back to the hotel and waited for Sander to pick me up to go to our condo.

We arrived at our place at 7:30 pm and after we picked up our keys at the concierge we went up to the 38th floor and we were very happy to see the light-colored walls and the new carpets in our condo. We took pictures and enjoyed the view on Yonge Street from our 2nd bedroom. We just sat there on the floor and looked outside.

As we went back to our car at parking level 5 to get the stuff we already bought for our condo Sander had a nice surprise for me. As we went for furniture-shopping together last weekend I saw a great sign at Urban Barn and he got it for me today in his lunch break. I am very happy with it and it will get a nice place in our condo. We also talked about how to put in other furniture and at about 10 pm we were back at the hotel.

Tomorrow we will get up early to do some more shopping. We need a lot of stuff to start cleaning the condo and off course Sander can buy his new TV.

On monday we woke up relatively early to start with a Starbucks in the Yorkdale mall. In this mall we’ve visited Rogers, a wireless telephony and cable company, to get more information about internet possibilities in our Condo. After a short wait we got all information we wanted and got a great deal if we’d combine Danielle her cellphone, internet and television we got 200GB additional data and free cable television. But it’s still more expensive as we were used to in Germany.

After taking care of the internet we went to the Bank again, we’ve now been to our bank more often in Canada already as in all 6 years in Germany together. This time we deposited a cheque, and with every cheque we will need to deposit we need to go to the bank in the future. But in 5-6 years it might change…I can’t wait for that to be happening sooner!

After bringing the cheque we went ‘shopping’ for furniture at multiple places starting with the IKEA. And it’s is almost exactly the same as in Europe. After the IKEA we went to some other stores and we found one store were we will be going back to in the future, the Urban Barn. They have some great accessories, but it’s to early to think of those tiny things since we still need a sofa, a coffee table, a dining table, chairs, barstools, a closet, a rug, a console table, ….

Not to forget we need also a new television to go with the cable television we ordered and a sound bar and some more electronic appliances for in the kitchen. So we’ve also spend some time at Best Buy and the Future Shop to see what’s available before we went to the All Star Wings & Ribs for some chicken wings. But ordering wings is quite difficult when there are over 200 flavors to pick from….

After diner we went back to the hotel and check some things online for our future home and to watch episode 2 from season 2 of The Blacklist. As always an amazing episode…

Tuesday Morning I had a surprise for Danielle, I stayed up late yesterday to try to reserve an iPhone 6 in gold for pick-up. At midnight the new stocks gets listed at that’s why. I got lucky at the Sherherd Gardens so that was our destination this morning.

And soon Danielle was waiting for her iCloud backup to load on her new iPhone.

The rest of the day we continued shopping at multiple stores to checkout furniture. And while shopping for furniture we found some cool in-between coats for both of us.

In the evening we went back to the Yorkdale Mall to check-out the sofa we liked most from all we had seen. John was in again today and after sitting, hanging and laying on the sofa we decided that this would be ours. Luckily new stock arrived and we were able to get a delivery date in october. And if it doesn’t fit or doesn’t look good in our condo we can send it back and get a full refund no questions asked…

Can’t wait till delivery. Now it’s time to put the laptop down and watch episode 2 of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. one of my favorite TV series. Today was also the last day f my ‘vacation’ and tomorrow will be the first day I put my working permit to good use.