Maybe some of you have already noticed small changes to our website, it’s something I’ve been thinking of a long time and this christmas I finally was able to find the time. I’ve moved our website to a new domain: www.rotmensen.com so if you have a link to our blog in your favourites or on your blog please change this to the new address. But for now the former address is forwarding automagically so you don’t have to worry and do anything to reach us.

On the 29th of December we finally got our Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) at the Service Ontario at Bay Street, we lined up 15 minutes before opening (7:45) and left the our OHIP-Number at 8:25. That was faster as we expected and we directly got our addresses on our driver’s license changed. Having OHIP makes it easier for us to go to the doctor and was also the final step in the immigration process. Now we can start getting sick and visit doctors, I guess it’s obvious that we don’t plan to but it feels good to have OHIP. For lunch we went to the Pickle Barrel, a restaurant with a view on our building.

Also some sad news on our blog this time we needed to say goodbye to our German “neighbours” because they went back home after being here for 2 years. The last 3 months we had a great time together while we were discovering Toronto and mainly Yonge and Eglinton they were saying their goodbyes. After the movers left their condo and it was empty we took over the official responsibility for Suzy, luckily this was an easy transition for her since she already got used to be with us over the last 3 months. Afterwards we brought Martin and Sabrina to the International Airport for their flight back home. And yes all the suitcases fitted into our car and there was space for more, I love our Chevy Equinox! Thanks for showing us around here Martin and Sabrina.

On the way back from the airport we decided to visit the blue box again since I found a nice cabinet for our living room/kitchen. The Bestä system and we went for a version with 4 glass doors and 8 drawers.

The morning after I woke up early and started building the cabinet, it took slightly longer as I expected and my hands hunted from the screw driver, I guess I should have invested in tools instead of nice gadgets. But after 4,5 hours (including a coffee break) the cabinet was finished and Danielle could start filling it. The existing cabinet was moved to one of our walk-in closets to add some shelves.

In the Evening Danielle and I decided to go to the movie-theatre to watch “The Imitation Game” for which we used the christmas gifts we got from our former neighbours (movie tickets). The movie was even better as we expected and it’s unbelievable that it is based on a true story. Some of the things happening in that move are hard to believe…

The last day of 2014 we spent shopping (can you believe that?). I mean we need new stuff to fill the new cabinet with, to be honest we wanted to get some under the bed storage boxes and we planned to get a milkshake at Johnny Rockets. But we were really unlucky since the Johnny Rockets at the Vaughan Mills was closed and looking at the site it seems to be closed for ever. We decided to get ourselves a Ben & Jerry’s scoop (Sander) and a Ben & Jerry’s milkshake (Danielle) instead. Later I added a Red Velvet scoop to this at the Baskin Robbins.

The evening we chilled at home by watching a Dutch Comedy show called “Oudejaarsconference” (Old years conference) which summarises the past year in a funny way while enjoying Dutch Oliebollen (Oilbolls).

And at at 10:45 pm we left towards downtown. During New Years Eve the Toronto subway is free to use for everyone to reduce risks of drunk driving and most certainly to boost the alcohol consumption since it’s sponsored by Corby Spirit and Wine. We got out of the Subway at Queens and walked with a lot of other people towards Nathan Phillips Square and the Toronto City Hall. Here the city of Toronto hosted the New Year’s Eve celebration with live entertainment and the city’s official fireworks display. Below a part of the firework as Animated GIF (I did some training with GIMP again).

After the fireworks was over everyone left the square since it was really cold -4 degrees Celcius but due to the cold wind it felt like -10. We left the square through the parking garage below and then walked to College Street to catch the first subway home and I believe that was the fastest possible way and before 2 o’clock we were back home.

The first day of 2015 we decided to relax and go see a movie at the Cineplex Don Mills VIP Theatre. These VIP theatres have more luxurious seating, a nice lounge to have food in, serve alcohol and serve you in your seat so you can have dinner during the movie. It’s a bit more expensive but the seats are amazing as is the leg room. We really enjoyed watching “unbroken” which is a must-see movie. We’ll definitely need to come back to this theatre (only 6 km away from our place) since the waiters told us that 2 of the theatres are equipped with even better full reclining seats. After we came back I sprayed our car cleaner with at the washing area in our parking garage (one of the amenities).

And then we live today on which we did nothing except enjoying our view with a beautiful blue sky with some clouds floating over and going to the Solutions store to get an Ornament storage box for our christmas ornaments since we’ll put the christmas tree back in its box today. I’m curious how our living room will look like without the tree since it has been there for more than 2 months out of the 3 months we lived here.

To every reader: HAPPY NEW YEAR!! We appreciate all the reactions on our blog as comment, e-mail, like, etc. last year. It does encourage us to keep writing about our adventures and we’ll try to keep up blogging in 2015!