It wasn't all about the shopping....

I actually came to TO to visit with my friend Olivia. Long overdue. I got to see her apartment, which is a totally grown up apartment with really nice stuff in it, which is funny because the last place of hers I was in was a futon / Ikea picture type of affair and most of the stuff wasn't hers. So its cool to see a place that is entirely her style and all the stuff she's collected in the years since I was in a place of hers.

We had a great time on Friday night splitting a bottle of wine and chatting about life and the future and how we got here. Our friendship is one that has been able to evolve through alot of life (and geographical) changes. Conversations range from books to cooking to the environment to kids and and the old rowdy days at Cowboys and men and love and kids and whatever else Liv is 'obsessed' with (her favorite expression). We talk until our eyes are sagging and we're yawning and barely able to stay awake.

On Saturday after a full day of shopping we went out for dinner at at a Thai place and then off to a movie (Music and Lyrics - wait for the DVD) and then to a late night bookstore where I bought a book with a short story about a woman who takes a belly dance class and it kind of opens her middle aged third eye in a way that is similar to my belly dancing awakening.

I practiced my belly dancing moves in the big double mirror in the spare bedroom here for awhile before walking / taking the subway downtown. I'm not too shabby at it now.

There is something about being able to find my way around a big city that I find satisfying. It makes me feel a little more metropolitan, coming from this small place where I never needed a map for anything and directions go something like 'turn left at the Tim Horton's - the one by the store that Jimmy's uncle had his store (20 years ago). East and west, north and south.

I'm glad I came down. I'm not sure why I don't come more often. I think sometimes it seems easier to just stay put when I'm tired after a long week, but there is something about a little change of scenery that fills up the tank a little bit.