electric relaxation

Since a very explicit purpose behind my little adventure in Toronto is to figure out whether I would want to move back here permanently, it’s important for me to keep track of stuff that I dislike as well as the stuff I like. This will likely be the first in a series of posts.

I want to write these things down before they get purged from my memory during an all-dressed-chip binge or west-indian-food coma. They won’t be in any particular order (though perhaps I’ll go through and re-order them by importance once I’ve built up a comprehensive collection of complaints).

1. It’s fucking cold. No surprises there. Well actually, I forgot what it’s like to be so cold that you can’t just wear gloves, you have to wear the right kind of gloves or your fingers still freeze. And you can’t just where a warm wool hat, you need one that still fully wraps around the bottom of your ears when your hair has started to grow out. Also, it’s only December, and a relatively warm December at that.

2. Google Public Transit doesn’t work. Seriously, what the shit? In my mind’s little fantasy world, this city is supposed to be much better run than San Francisco. Unfortunately, the TTC is apparently pretty bureaucratic and heavy-handed (though this is just downright lazy).
   
3. Health Care. This one is actually suppoed to be better in Toronto obviously, but I’m putting it on here as a note to review and revise this one once I get around to having my follow-up appointment for last week’s fun Swine Flu adventure. But my recent experience with trying to pick a new PCP in San Francisco sucked balls. There’s no way it’s worse here. As I understand it, the surgery lines thing is mostly a stupid American myth. Actually, maybe it’s better in the US if you actually know doctors (and I know a few); if that’s true, I can always pull some elitist bullshit if I needed to at some point in the future – and go over to the States as necessary. After all, since our family already crossed that moral chasm back in 1995 with my mom’s health issues, so I figure I’m already tained.

Ok I need to go do some work. But that’s a start.

P.S. There are a few interesting tidbits in this forum discussion on San Francisco versus Toronto which I might mine for further inspiration.

P.P.S. I should get Brian Li to start tracking these things since he just made the reverse move (Toronto to San Francisc0 just a few weeks ago).