Author: Amit Schreiber

Today we went for a walk in the Toronto suburbs. It was a beautiful sunny day and the snowy streets were even more beautiful than yesterday (maybe it was just because I felt better.) You can see it too in the pictures below. We had brunch at a nice place called Richtree Market Restaurant, which is a place to get all kinds of quality food and there’s a nice atmosphere in the place, which made it a rewarding end to our exhausting 10 minute walk.

After that I went to see a musical called We Will Rock You. The musical is a funny fictional story based on songs by Queen and I enjoyed it a lot. It made me miss the music I used to listen to in my car. Luckily, I’m getting a car tomorrow so I’ll be able to listen to my favorite music again (in this sense I came unprepared – I should have at least put some of my music on one of my SD cards and dump it on the computer when I got it.)

Tomorrow I return to the US, where I will pick up my rental car and drive to Rockville, Maryland, which is close to Washington D.C. The drive by itself should take around 5 hours, so there may not be an update tomorrow – I’ll probably just be traveling all day.

Today I finally felt well enough to go out. Still trying to avoid stuff that will worsen my flu, we went to Lake Ontario, which is a beautiful place both in summer and in winter. In winter, however, it’s frozen. Considering the temperature was -9 degrees Celsius, along with the wind chill my friend who hosts me here in Canada estimated it to be around -30. It was even cold for him and that says a lot.

Later we went to a very nice restaurant, Prague, located in downtown Toronto. Toronto is a beautiful place and even though I suffer from the cold weather, I can still appreciate the beauty of snow covered streets and houses. For dinner we went to a very posh French restaurant. Food was great, atmosphere… well… French.

38.8 degrees Celsius is my temperature measured at the doctor’s office after taking Advil a few hours earlier (he said I was the winner of the day). I was really in pain and finally went to the doctor after realizing that my health situation has been getting worse. He said that he doesn’t think it’s Pneumonia like I initially thought but he wouldn’t take the chance and gave me good antibiotics.

He is a Jewish doctor and speaks Hebrew so we had a nice talk. Just before I left he gave me a small present – a “Spring” can of strawberry-banana nectar from Israel. I have no idea where he got it from, but that can of juice made me really happy, like a child getting a lollipop from the doctor.

Hopefully I’ll be better in two days or so to continue my trip. For now I’m resting.

Today I really haven’t done much. I tried recovering (yet again) from the flu/cold/whatever it is I have. I’m not fully recovered, but I feel better considering that I had to take my stuff to JFK and fly to Canada today.

I think some of the ticketing service people at the airport like to play cruel games with the travelers. For example, today when I went to get my boarding pass at the American Airlines desk, the person there looked through all the pages in my passport and suddenly asked me “do you have a visa to go to Canada?” In the most politically correct way and hiding my panic I answered “I was under the impression that Israelis do not require a visa to get into Canada.” Without saying a word, the massive clicking of the keyboard started. And it lasted for about a minute or two, during which I considered the begging technique I was going to use. Or, as the great Kevin Smith would say: “Whose dick do I have to suck to get into Canada?” Keeping a completely straight face (I’m sure he got many points in the Prank-A-Passenger contest these people were running) he gave me my boarding pass.

As I sat down at my gate (way way too early) this Indian-looking guy handed me his iPhone to have it charged using my netbook’s USB port. I’m amazed at how trusting he was. Here I am, sitting pretty far away from him, and I have his iPhone. I can see when he’s not looking and simply walk away with it. I wouldn’t even hand my crappy camera to people to take pictures of me, fearing they will run away with it.

I keep being asked if I’ve met other people on the way. That’s a good question, and the answer is that so far I’ve met three different people:

Malka is a Jewish American girl from New York City who speaks fluent Hebrew (her father speaks only Hebrew at home) that came to Israel to attend a wedding and was there 9 days. We sat right across from each other on the flight to London (with an empty seat in between) and then she was seated behind me in the longer flight to JFK from Heathrow. We had very nice chats between naps and got separated in the different lines for US citizens and non-US citizens upon entry to the customs area at JFK (she was supposed to befriend me on Facebook, but didn’t)

On the first day I didn’t have a coat and was walking around Times Square. Waiting for a “go” sign to turn on I suddenly heard “Aren’t you cold? You don’t even have a coat.” I turned around and saw a smiling African-American woman. I was surprised at the fact that she initiated the conversation but was grateful for it. I told her that I’m wearing many layers and that where I come from I don’t use a coat. She asked from where I was from and I told her. Turns out she was in Israel before, visiting with her church, and she plans to visit again this May. So we talked about it and had a very nice chat. I asked her to recommend a good diner and she did and so we parted ways. It was indeed a good place to eat (I forgot the name of the place.)

And today I had the third encounter with a guy who was born in Tokyo and at age 16 moved to the US to a foreign host family without knowing a single word in English. He went on to study and graduate, and now he’s traveling until he starts his new job later this year back in Tokyo (he’s 25 now). A pretty amazing life story. In addition, we’ll both be in the UK at the same time (April) and later on he’ll be backpacking all the way to Israel. Naturally, we exchanged numbers/emails and I invited him to call when he’s in Israel. I’ll hook him up :)

I got to Toronto today, a short 1:15 hour flight from JFK. My friend Kosta and his family are hosting me. I’m now getting ready to go to bed. Tomorrow (Friday the 30th) – skiing for the first time.

[Updated: added images and more text under the slideshow]

I got up today feeling better. It was snowing heavily outside and since I was still recovering from my illness I decided to take it easy and go out only for stuff I had to like eating and buying gloves. Unfortunately, I realized again that I’m not well equipped for the NY winter. This time it was shoes: one step in the wrong spot and they got filled with freezing water.

I got back to the hostel to change and then went out again to complete the mission of eating (breakfast in Cafe Luxembourg, lunch in Saigon Grill) and gloves buying. Mission accomplished. So now I’m just relaxing and planning for the evening. Plans include eating at Katz’s Deli (apparently an NYC establishment) and later going to Pianos to see some shows.

Very few pictures today. Maybe I’ll add some from Pianos later.

Update: I went to Katz’s Deli. See new pics. The sign “Katz’s, that’s all” has a funny story behind it:

Per Alan Dell the owner:
“This sign originated when Benny Katz hired the signmaker to make the sign,” Mr. Dell said. “The signmaker asked, ‘Well, what exactly do you want to have it say?’ and Benny said to the signmaker, ‘Katz’s, that’s all.’
Sure enough he painted that on the sign!

(Story found here. Thanks, Ariel)
I gave up on going to Pianos, though, because I started feeling bad again.

Today I was pretty sick. Head hurting (seems like fever) and throat throbbing I went out to the cold. And it was c-o-l-d today (note the hyphenation to emphasize how cold it was.) In that sense I can’t wait to get to Toronto in 2 days. I’m sure it’ll be better there. Anyway… the lack of gloves was really hurting my hands when they were out of my pockets. But I toughed it out to go to the Sony Wonder Technology Lab. Big mistake – The “lab” is just a display of not-so-new-and-half-baked technology that is mostly aimed at school kids, the main crowd of the museum.

So I got out of there pretty quick to do my favorite activity – walking around aimlessly. But I was sick. And it was cold. And I became hungry. The two tea cups from Starbucks I had since the morning were long gone in Sony’s toilets and I decided that I needed my “get well food” – rice and chicken. And where can you get better rice and chicken if not in Chinatown? No really… let me know. I headed there looking for a restaurant and finally went into a place called Shanghai Cuisine.

The moment I sat down a pot with tea and a small cup appeared on the table. I tasted it. It was awful – probably root tea with dirt or something like that. I drank it. There’s something comforting when you’re sick and you drink awful tea in a Chinese restaurant – you’re sure it will heal you. It didn’t. I still feel like shit. Anyway, I immediately saw what I was looking for on the menu – a dish called General Tso’s Chicken, which a friend of mine recommended for me in the past – a hot/spicy rice+chicken dish. It was very good and I got back to the hostel.

Now I’m going to try and sleep it off. Here are some pictures. Today I included random pictures I took on the subway and the street. I probably overdid it and if you have any complaints feel free to leave them in the comments:

I still don’t know what (and if) I’m going to do tonight. Maybe I’ll just try to get well.

Update: slept for 6 hours. It’s 10:45pm. Feeling better but will stay in for the night to make sure it goes away.

Today I walked. And walked. And walked. I also had to do my shopping. In order of importance, I had to get:

• A coat (I didn’t own a coat in Israel). I was walking around with many layers of clothing on me, looking a little bit like a hobo and getting funny looks from store clerks.
• A GPS device – I will need it to navigate my way around the US.
• A netbook

The order in which I got these things is:

• An ASUS eee PC netbook
• A coat

NYC stores like Best Buy and Circuit City (which is going out of business) were a big disappointment. They only have a small selection of the products they sell online and the staff mostly doesn’t understand the differences between products. Luckily I knew what I was looking for so I didn’t need any help. Only it took me a long time to find a Best Buy store that actually had the eee PC model I was looking for. I still haven’t found the GPS device I wanted.

As for the coat, I went to several stores that a friend recommended but couldn’t find anything I liked. So I just went to a “The North Face” store and got myself a very nice and warm coat that now saves me 2 layers of clothing. “The North Face” products are extremely popular here in NYC.

I went to Central Park today. It was mostly covered with snow and there were very few people (except for the ice skating rink.) A visit in the evening to Chinatown lacked anything exciting (the roads were covered with confetti, though, so I guess there were celebrations of the Chinese new year during the day.) Here are the pictures from Central Park:

Now I’m going to go to a place called Comedy Cellar, a place recommended by a coworker.

I’m too tired to post stories from my first day of the trip. Here are some pictures with captions:

This year my the same coworker from my previous birthday arranged the “silver grapefruit” and also gave me a present – a fairy to keep me safe on my trip. Here are the pictures: