The church that we have been attending down the road is a baptist church and the congregation is considered intercultural with a lot of Jamaicans, Chinese and Canadians. The elderly Jamaican ladies come to church in their Melbourne Cup hats and dance to the music just like you see them do in Gospel churches in the movies.
In the middle of Dundas Square is a mixture of Art, Religion and Politics. On a normal Saturday afternoon you are guaranteed to experience a musical delicacy on the centre stage of the square while on the outskirts of the square you will find people attempting to educate pedestrians on black American history, while on the other side you will find different religious groups from Islam, Hindu, Mormon, Arminian and Christian with signs and mega phones all trying to gain new converts. They each are trying to give away free their religious material from bibles, to music cd's to sermons. What fascinates us about this is that it is accepted freely by the people of Canada and each individual religion is or seem to be accepting of the other, to the point of harmoniously residing in their stalls next to each other as if they were apart of a religious market.
A recent conversation Tim and I have been having with our friends here is whether Toronto is a lazy city or a consumerist city. I'll tell you how this conversation came about and perhaps you can decide for yourself. So the basis for the discussion was that in Toronto, everywhere you go there are elevators, stairs and escalators and usually all three next to each other. Whenever Tim and I have had to use the elevator we have had to wait for ages because the elevator is full of people who can walk. This could be at the Subway, shopping mall anywhere you will find an elevator I can guarantee it will be filled with people who have no mobility issues or prams. I have not once seen anyone walk up or down the stairs, they struggle to take the escalators if there is an elevator available. It is crazy. It's not like you have to use much energy to take an escalator.
In the residence where we are staying there was a black out and the elevators were out for about 10 minutes. Most of the people staying here, who on average are aged at 20 years of age, were hanging out in the foyer for the elevators to come back on instead of taking the stairs. I could not understand people waiting around for 10 minutes rather than exercise a little bit by taking the stairs.
The other thing that amuses us greatly is that they have bus stops on one side of the traffic lights and one directly on the other side. It seems if you got off the bus before the traffic light and the bus had a red light you would make it across the road and reach the bus stop after the traffic lights before the bus, yet people will not do this.
Now the consumerist argument comes in when we talked about our amusement and surprise over the things just mentioned and our friend Laurie said that she suggested to a friend who wanted to loose weight that instead of paying for a gym membership just get off the bus 4 stops earlier and walk the rest of the way. Laurie said her friend looked at her in astonishment as if she had asked her to give up her house or something. Our friends Laurie and Pascal think it is all about consumerism and that people will spend their hour in a gym and the rest of the day looking for any reason to not exercise. Some say I am a picture of consumerism, going to the gym in the morning than looking for any excuse to avoid any form of exercise but those who know me well, know it's a miracle that I am even going to the gym and I usually avoid exercise at all costs.
Tim and I have never seen so many people scared of dogs as they are here in Toronto. We have not experienced this anywhere else in Canada and I am not sure if it is an environmental thing or a spiritual thing. Because we take Roxy wherever we go, which means on buses, the subway anywhere and everywhere. There are so many people that don't see her at first they look at Tim and then see Roxy just as they either walk by her or go to sit near her and they jump and let out a squeal and race to get as far away from her as possible. This is so strange to us as Roxy hardly looks scary. If we enter an elevator with Roxy people will leave when we enter whether it is there floor or not just to avoid her.
We caught the bus the other day and this little kid got on and sat as close as he could opposite Roxy as he seemed to be fascinated with her. He kept looking from Roxy to the door of the bus with this big cheeky smirk on his face like he was waiting for a surprise. Tim and I were sitting there wondering what he was waiting for and then we watched it unfold...he was waiting for his mum to come on and sit next to him, close to Roxy, and she was petrified of Roxy. This little kid rolled around in laughter, he thought it was the funniest thing while his mum was shaking in terror and shrieking every time Roxy moved. I felt sorry for her yet both Tim and I fought hard to keep the laughter inside until we got out of the bus and then we just cried with laughter at this little kid setting his mum up. Kids can be so cruel.
On the other hand some Ontarians love their pets. We have seen some pretty weird things. Just to let you know animals are allowed anywhere here. People ride the bus with the dogs, you can stay in any hotel, motel with your pet. Pets are more publicly accepted here than in Australia. The other day I saw a man walk his dog which was a little pug dog, who was dressed in a grid iron shirt which is not so uncommon here, pets being dressed in something, but the weirdest thing was that on it's feet were leather lace up boots. Now these would have had to be made and I would not have thought they would have been so cheap. They looked like they were custom made as they fit it's little paws perfectly.
I've seen a cat with a nappy on, birds on a man's shoulders in the middle of the subway and various other strange animal sightings. But nothing beats what Tim and I witnessed in the subway just two days ago. We saw a man push a pram, a very old and tattered pram, with a sign on the side of it saying 'service animal, please don't touch' and in it (I'm laughing as I type this) was a little rabbit. Just sitting there chewing on his little carrot. Not a pretty white rabbit or a dwarf rabbit but one that we would usually see, hunt, eat back home. Now being experienced in having a service animal, I'm not quite sure what this service rabbit could possibly do for this man, except help him 'hop' onto the train! (Tim's joke, he thought he was hilarious when he thought of that). We were tempted to ask but I don't think Tim and I would have been able to do without laughing. However Tim forced me to take a photo of it which it did not really work out, probably cos I was laughing so much. Tim did email Richard from Assistance Dogs Australia about a new service program they can offer in Rabbit, after all it would be a cheaper breeding program!
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