I turned a quarter century old yesterday. In no way am I saying that I feel old or am struggling with having turned 25 years old, but I do find myself thinking about my age more this year that I have in the past. Maybe this is this the beginning of my quarter life crisis (it's a real thing you know)? I also found myself thinking a lot about my Mum and the fact that she was my age when she had my sister! I think I'm thinking about her because it's the first time in my life that I can identify with and relate to what my mother's life was like at my age. All the stories about her life at my age now seem real and possible and I can think about them using my "adult perspective" as opposed to when I was a teenager and thought "she's just telling me this to make me feel better or to teach me a lesson". Oh, the glorious skepticism of teenagers. I think we're all glad I'm 25... right parents?

I moved to Toronto from Montreal in September of 2007. So, in just under 2 years of living here, do I qualify to be a Torontonian or am I still a Montrealer who now lives in Toronto? I don't really care either way actually (I think I'm still in metropolitan limbo), but there are people (you know who you are) who care to know what city I identify with or prefer more. For some reason there is a rivalry between these two amazing cities and they're always being compared/contrasted. The fact of the matter is that they are so incredibly different and great. But, as I have experienced, that answer doesn't fly with most Montrealers or Torontonians. They just love to ask, "which city is better, Montreal or Toronto?"
Well I have decided that I can't answer that question. What I CAN do is put together my top 10 favourite things about each city:

Montreal
10) availability of Middle Eastern food
9) laissez-faire attitude (especially about booze and sex(uality))
8) Habs spirit
7) Mount Royal
6) have a full-on bilingual conversation and not even know it
5) parks & green spaces
4) cheap rent, large apartments
3) being able to escape the city in 30 minutes
2) preservation of old/heritage buildings
1) MEMORIES

Toronto
10) Doctor wait times
9) city intrastructure
8) so many interesting downtown neighbourhoods (http://www.blogto.com/neighbourhoods/)
7) the most multi-cultural city in the world
6) the green bin program - it's like garbage pick-up but for organic waste
5) TTC (public transit) system (I have a bit of a thing for streetcars especially)
4) Metro Morning with Andy Barrie on CBC
3) bike culture
2) St-Lawrence market
1) easy to feel at-home (and only a 5 hour drive/train ride to Montreal!)

It's important to note that a number of the things I love about Montreal are in "response" to my life in Toronto and vice versa (I guess I can't avoid comparing either).

Today's been a lovely day. It all started out with being woken up by brilliant flashes of lightening immediately followed by claps of thunder at 5:20am. The lightening was so bright I saw the flashes through my eyelids. The best part was that I think it hit the cn tower. I get so excited when it hits the tower because well... I think that's impressive and awesome. (Two winters ago (our first winter in Toronto) we got a couple of thunder and lightening storms during huge snow storms and that was the first time that I had not only heard/seen lightening and thunder during a snow storm, but witnessed lightening strike an object within 300 meters of where I was standing.) Usually I get out of bed and stand by the window to see it hit again, but this morning I stayed in bed skeptical that it would happen a second time. I'm pretty sure it struck a second time just judging by how closely the thunder followed the lightening. Then I fell back to sleep and woke up around 8:30am which I consider to be an optimal sleeping in time. Then I sat on the couch with a coffee in hand a my laptop on my lap (obviously) and read through Sierra's replies to my email about our India plans and what his travel recomendations are. After having read the emails and done a bit more research of my own, I made us breakfast -- a delicious breakfast of fried eggs, Sue bacon and toasted rye. After breakfast Anil and I went to mec and Europe Bound (both are about a 4 minute walk from our house... how lucky are we?!) to buy some things for the trip. I was a little hesitant about going to Europe Bound because I just love mec so much and want to support it and because it's a dog's breakfast in Europe Bound and so hard to find what you're looking for, but Anil wanted to go to for a travel adapter and to browse through their piles of products/equipment. It's a good thing we went because we ended up finding a few things we couldn't find at other stores such as gatorade packets, a battery for my sports watch and mini towelettes. So I paid and we were walking out the door when I passed a rack of little goodies and trinkets and what do I see but a 1 ounce, miniature tin of Bag Balm! As a child I was not as intruiged about Bag Balm as I apparently am now. It was simply a barn product (basically a thick ointment used to heal chapped goat or cow udders) that my parents also used as a hand moisturizer, but today it meant something to me. That little green tin made me reminisce about my childhood and growing up on the farm. It made me think about my parents and about Lenny (my mum and I put it on the pads of Lenny's paws in the winter to prevent the salt on the roads and sidewalks from cracking them and he gently licks your hands while you apply it). Plus, the little tin was just so adorable... I had to get it.

"Since 1899," the tin reads, " Bag Balm has been the farmer's friend. There is nothing like the original, and that's what you get when you buy the familiar green tin."

We're pretty on top of the administrative/logistical part of planning for our trip to India. Plane tickets... check, visas... check, vaccinations... check, meds... check, mental preparation for the extreme heat, getting gawked at and scammed... check (ok, probably not). As for the traveling itself, we're kinda planning not to plan. We have ideas of what parts we want to visit and things we want to do, but we haven't actually booked much. We want to have some flexibility because our travel itinerary will likely be affected by the monsoons and heat. Plus, as our Lonely Planet says "Expect the unexpected -- India rewards those who go with the flow."

Our itinerary so far is:
May 31 - departure
June 1 - arrive in Delhi
June 1 to 5 - acclimatize, buy clothes, tour Delhi, Agra, etc. We'll most likely be staying with Auntie Lala (Anil's paternal Aunt)
June 6 a.m. - internal flight to Mumbai. We'll be greeted at the airport by Anil's cousin (Mother's side) Gaurav
June 6 p.m. - travel by train with Gaurav and Tanvi (bother and sister) down the West coast to Goa.
June 7 to ? - Goa

From Goa our plan is to travel the South. We'll spend the month of June touring the South, move up through central India and visit parts of the East coast the month of July and travel the North the month of August.

I'd never had tostadas until a few weekends ago when Anil and I were invited to dinner at his friend Rod's parents' house in London. Rod's family is from Mexico so it felt like an authentic Latin experience. Rod, his Mom, Dad, sister, brother, Anil and I all sat around their round kitchen table passing food back and forth, stuffing our faces. We enjoyed them so much that we made our own last week. If you've never had a tostada before, they're basically like a taco, but flat. It all starts with a flat, round, crisp corn tortilla. I suppose you could make your own and then bake or toast them so they become crispy, but the ones we used were store bought. Then, you spread re-fried or stewed black beans on top of the tortilla. Then put a variety of toppings on it such as lettuce, salsa, sour cream, red onion, chicken (pork is more traditional), grated cheese, avocado, jalapenos. They usually fall apart after you take the first bite so be prepared to get toppings all over your face and hands.

Ok, fine... I copied Arianne. I'm allowed to because I'm the younger sister... that's what we do. I have to admit, it was a good idea. Obviously, I copied it.

This is where you, where ever you are, will be able to read my news, opinions, stories, thoughts and keep up with me where ever I am. We can connect through the Interweb (right Mum?).

I hope to keep it up and keep it real (which shouldn't be hard, because as those of you who know me well know, I have a hard time not keeping it real).