Never again will I complain about feeling cold when outside in the UK. This last week, I have wandered around in a pleasant -13 in bright sunshine (nice), queued for a club without a coat to avoid the $3 cloakroom charge in -20 (silly but economically sound) and walked down to Lake Ontario in skin-burningly, face and leg-numbing cold winds. It doesn't help when you finish putting on the layers for the outside actually outside because it takes too long to do so when you're leaving, even if it does make you feel like a hardened local!

Life in the hostel is pretty chilled out and fun. There's a large communal sitting room area where lots of people hang out - everyone pretty much on their laptops! It's almost antisocial, but when everyone is sitting there doing it, it sort of becomes the way that people are spending time with eachother, much like you might spend a Sunday morning with friends over the papers. There are people from all walks of life - people like myself on working visas, backpackers, a lot of EFL students who are all about 14 years old and some randoms that you're not entirely sure where they've come from or where they're going.

But for the most part, I've met some really fun, lovely people and we're having a good time exploring the city, going out for drinks, playing cards and discussing vague plans of what jobs we're "looking" for. Although, on that note, I did send my resume off to a temp agency this morning so feeling productive AND have opened a Canadian bank account. Interestingly, if people picked their countries to visit according to how good bank accounts were, I would not have come to Canada!! Any chance they have to charge you, they will!!! I think that's the first thing I can put on my Missing from England list - a free bank account.

xx