December 29, 2009

In my last email, I promised I would be back in touch just as soon as I finished my dissertation in December. Well, I finished, so now I can tell you all about what Matt and I have been up to this fall. To begin, it has certainly been a full fall. Learning the ins and outs (or at least some of them) in a new city has been fun. Toronto certainly has a lot going for it. There appears to be a tendency for the city to shut down various streets for events. Among some of the more memorable were two zombie walks, and a city-wide art exhibition called Nuit Blanche. From dusk until dawn one Saturday night in early October, artists perform or present large works of art (many of which are interactive) at various venues around the city. Additionally, our street was closed one evening for a new event called “Ice, Wine, and Dine” in late November. The businesses along our street had sample foods and large bars sculpted out of ice where one could purchase a cocktail. Finally, we enjoyed watching some fire juggling acrobats lighting the Christmas torch at Dundas square. We’ve seen a lot of great music here, at a number of unique and dark venues. Our last show in the city was Devo. What a treat!

My fall has been broken down into three four parts: Late summer, where the weather was more or less balmy, and Matt and I spent a lot of time exploring on foot. I then went off to Santa Cruz for a brief but intense visit to finalize some of my dissertation plans at the end of September. I met up with mom on the way back from Santa Cruz, and she drove me back to Toronto. We checked out the Art Gallery of Ontario (the only museum we have yet visited), and showed her some of our favorite spots, including the Three Brewers/ Les Trois Brasseurs brewery, which is just down the street. For Matt and myself, the Three Brewers is Toronto’s version of Seabright Brewery. We can drink good locally brewed beer, and eat crispy pizza-like Flamms. Fantastic. The remainder of the fall has been devoted to me working on my dissertation every day, and periodic explorations on the weekends. We visited a few of the Toronto Islands, which are bar islands just offshore from the city in Lake Ontario, and we visited Casa Loma, Toronto’s “castle” that was built by a rich entrepreneur in the last 1920’s. We had very nice weather for Halloween and Matt and I went out on the town. Several streets were closed and there was a sea of people dressed in costumes ranging from a giant Ernie and Bert to a silvery Christmas tree. Matt and I went as a 70’s duo – Jill LeBean and Dirk Dorkelstein. We had a great time.

November went quickly. We saw Dan Deacon for Matt’s birthday and we enjoyed watching the city put together lots of festive holiday décor. The rest of my life was devoted to ensuring that I would finish my PhD. Then we flew out to California for the big event. We first visited our friends up in Marin and San Francisco. My brother was in California visiting his girlfriend, Rose, and we met up in the city to be tourists for a day and then see Toots and the Maytails. We wandered around China Town and ate at Matt and my favorite restaurant, Sam Wo, which is about as authentic as one can get. Customers have to walk through the kitchen and then go up one or two flights of narrow steps. The menu is small, the prices very low, and the waitress uses a dumbwaiter. We then wandered up to Coit Tower and saw the parrots of Telegraph Hill. I have never seen them or heard them before, but they were everywhere in December. Next we found a fantastic new mirror maze at Pier 39 in Fisherman’s Warf. The maze was too good to be true and I don’t think that it will last. It’s just too dangerous for Fisherman’s Warf. We ended our day with a brief trip to the Musée Mechanique and then partook in the daily wine tasting at the Argonaut.

We returned to Santa Cruz and hit the tide right to explore some marvelous tide pools north of Half Moon Bay. Then we relaxed just a bit more and went for a much-needed hike in the woods of UCSC’s upper campus.

Living in Canada allowed us to have more than one Thanksgiving this year. We celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving the family of one of Matt’s colleagues in early October. Then we had another feast on the American Thanksgiving with our wonderful friends Chris and George up in Marin. Finally, we had a less traditional, but very tasty Indian Thanksgiving feast provided by my brother and Rose in Santa Cruz.

And then the fun had to take a bit of a break. I believe that my defense went well. If anything, I had clearly over prepared. My hand was shaken and I felt a weight lift off of my chest that has been sitting there for a long time. My defense behind me, I then proceeded to do as much lab work as possible while in Santa Cruz. Prepping a bunch of new old lemur bone specimens made my trip to Santa Cruz a bit more hectic than it would have been otherwise, but I am glad that I took advantage of my time in California. Although I officially have a “lab” in Toronto, it’s really just more or less an empty room. I need some major equipment to process specimens for stable isotope analysis and carbon dating, and I figured I might as well take advantage of being in Santa Cruz.

In the evenings, Matt and I got in as much time with our friends as possible. We played some mini golf and went on a quest. We also visited our old favorite restaurants and ate some of the meals that I have been missing here in Toronto. Food options really are fantastic in Toronto, but there are some gaps that can only be filled with Santa Cruz cuisine. Among the most obvious is the lack of taquerias in Toronto. So sad! The weather was surprisingly mild for the first half of our visit, and we were able to spend time outside. Weather during the second week was much more typical Santa Cruz and I was quickly reminded why I don’t like it there too much in the winter. It was cold outside and it was, somehow, colder inside. I would come home from the lab and find Matt working in bed with his coat on. Despite the cold, the weather was still remarkably good for Santa Cruz in the winter. No rain until the very end of our trip.

Back to the events. Among the least fun activities included some gum grafting. Due to the imminent termination of my dental insurance, I got in a nice little bout of oral surgery while in Santa Cruz. Fun! Then, before being completely done with my PhD, I had to give a public seminar, which I enjoyed giving and feel went very smoothly, but my mouth definitely hurt. That’s life. And then the final hurdle, turning in my dissertation to the university. This is a surprisingly tense and unenjoyable experience. The number of rules and regulations one has to abide to in order to successfully turn in a dissertation is just short of astronomical. I sweated as I printed up my text on expensive paper, and I sweated even more as I waited to officially turn in the document. I was told “all good” and “congratulations” and then I just couldn’t help but tune out and feel a sense of bliss I haven’t felt in a long time. I had finally finished! All that hard work paid off.

We returned to the San Francisco area for our final two nights in California. First we were treated to a special evening with our friends Chris and George who took us to see Beach Blanket Babylon in San Francisco. This is a show that I have always been interested in, but figured I would never actually get to see. It lived up to its hype and was a lot of fun. Just as promised, there were some serious hats involved. Our final evening we got to see one more unique and enjoyable show – Captured by Robots – which is literally a band of robots playing music.

And then it was time to come home to Canada. It’s still so strange to me that I can call Toronto home. I imagine that I will get used to this. I’m just not there quite yet. Back in Canada, we have had about a week to decompress. Things are pretty uneventful after a full fall, and an especially hectic trip to Santa Cruz. We did, however, get a little parrotlet whom we have named Lou. He’s young and very cute. Winter has certainly arrived here. It’s cold outside, but unlike Santa Cruz, it’s warm inside and we have yet to have snow. In the tradition of our new country of residence, we went curling with Matt’s lab on Thursday. It was a bit more exciting than I had imagined, and a bit more challenging than I had imagined. Maybe we’ll try again at some point.

And those are my updates for now. The next event will be some holiday guests next week. Matt’s family and my mother will be coming to visit us in Toronto. We’re thrilled that we are going to have some company and look forward to showing them some of our favorite haunts.

I am definitely having trouble coming to terms with the fact that 2009 is coming to a close. However, looking back on my year, I am also having trouble believing that it isn’t actually the end of 2010. I am so very grateful to everyone who facilitated our move, our transition into Canadian life, our brief sojourns to the US, and my completion of grad school. Thank you for your friendship and your support. I wish you all a wonderful holiday season and hope that the New Year brings all of us a breath of fresh air and some exciting new events and experiences.

You are in my thoughts,

Brooke