coffee is a religion to some people

Hello again!

Thanks to those of you who gave some initial feedback. After a bit of reflection I have come to the conclusion a 'travel blog' is probably the most appropriate, a window into my life in Toronto per se. So my 'readers' will be those of you who want to keep up with what I am up to and don't mind my 'observations' along the way. I hope I haven't lost anyone by using so many quotation marks, just imagine my forefingers in the air punctuating everything I say, I find this 'amusing' and I'm unlikely to be able to stop (some of you will know by now my love of overusing certain types of punctuation).

Something you may not know is that coffee culture is thriving in Toronto. So much so that I almost don't feel the need to add the qualifier "for an North American city". Honestly I have found as many cafes serving delicious flat whites and americanos here as I have had any place, Wellington included. I am a fussy coffee drinker, apparently most of us from 'down under' are. When I go out for coffee I check the rims of the empty coffee cups on the tables as I walk in for a good crema stain and typically will not order a flat white unless I have seen a good looking fresh one in the cafe somewhere. I sadly will continue my 'research' as the coffees come out and the mood does dampen intermittently if your coffee comes out better than mine, based on a visual assessment of crema and milk consistency.

Upon arriving here in Toronto we promptly went downtown to look about and see what we could see. We noticed a flyer for an Indie Coffee Passport and later did some research. It boils down to this: $25 for a card that allows you one coffee, to the value of $5, in 24 participating coffee shops. I was so exited I bought two, do the Math people! So now I have been to roughly 20 different places for coffee all over the city, most of which are on my happy lil' blue coffee passport.

For anyone who visits Toronto my favourite two so far are te aro on Queen East and Rooster Coffee House on Broadview. te aro has really friendly staff, a big space out the front that feels like you are hanging out on your friends deck and is situated amongst all sorts of interesting shops, many of which sell fancy things for babies and dogs. Rooster Coffee House also has a nice space out the front, opposite a park in their case, but has a more comfy and quirky decor, here you need to ask for a cortado to get a flat white (this means 'cut short' and I first tried one in Barcelona, it was a high point on the European coffee tour). An honourable mention goes to Jet Fuel on Parliament for being the location where I wrote this, accompanied by country music (ah thanks) plus they have the cheapest americano so far! Yay! Value for money, my favourite!

The fun thing is there are loads more coffee shops to go and see, plus brunch places are different to coffee shops here, so there all of those to visit as well. I started my 'Toronto brunch journey' this weekend just been, it was a delicious time.

I just may have a job by the end of the week so if coffee is boring I may be talking about working in high heels in the 'finance industry' soon. Yay! Something to look forward to? Lastly, I will use less quotation marks next time, I promise.

job hunting is lame but you do have time to start a blog

Hmm. Why am I here? Well, I have a lot of free time and a desire to write more. Heck, I even have a desire to be a better typist. That is a good reason to start a blog I'm sure, wpm improvement. I 'm also fairly opinionated and think the world needs more opinions. We all know it doesn't really, but I do like my opinions and it could be interesting to know what you think too. Mostly I have opinions about coffee, if we are friends you should definitely know this by now.

So post number one is more or less an introduction, a sounding out of the theme perhaps. Hello! If you are reading this then either you are my friend and are humouring me by reading this first blog or I have decided I really did have something worth sharing. The second reason seems unlikely at the moment as I am job hunting. In other words I am selling my soul to the corporate world and they are spitting it back at me. This is not a unique situation but I am really not enjoying it, I am also concerned that it is making me boring. I do have a lot of time for the internet however and I am learning a few things, for example, I am an ENTJ on the Myers Briggs personality profile. Once I was an INTP. What has caused this change? Maybe we will find out in the coming weeks. Stay tuned! You should look into your personality profile for yourself, this is another thing you should know, it makes for great party conversation (FYI something INTPs don't like, pft I am so not an INTP, I am pretty sure both ENTP and INTP like abbreves tho because I love them, another thing you should know by now). I did this test here. It was pretty easy.

How long is a blog post supposed to be? Can my random thoughts really become interesting reading? Don't worry friends, I am not going to go on ad infinitum, just see where this leads, feel free to come along.

NZ peeps, I miss you.