The summer of 2022 was one of the craziest times of my life. I had secured a great internship as a product manager at an exciting, Nebraska-based startup and had spent the school year mentally preparing for a summer of survival living in the Cornhusker capital of Lincoln.
And then I got the email that changed everything. I’d been sent the list of recommended accommodations by mistake. My world changed in three lines of text.
Workers in the software and technology departments didn’t have to work in office. We were fully remote. I could live and work wherever I wanted.
My heart raced with possibility. I had just started getting serious with Jia, so my initial thought was heading off to Tunja, Colombia.
But we weren’t there, yet. Chasing her across the world would’ve killed us before we ever got started. So I started looking for alternative options. It wasn’t long before I had a three-pronged shortlist.
- New York City: THE greatest city on Earth. Or at least that’s what they say. I wanted to find out for myself. And I will, one of these days.
- Montreal: My mom’s side of the family’s hometown. The French capital of North America and one of my favorite cities in the world.
- Toronto: A combination of the two, kind of. Still Canada, but their answer to NYC.
As you can tell by the title of this article, I ended up booking my flight and moving to Toronto, Ontario three or four days after receiving that initial email from the company I was interning at.
Everything isn’t as it seems
Shortly after moving to Toronto and heading downtown, I headed off to Kensington Market to start my search for my AirBnB.
Don’t ever wait until you show up to whatever city you’re going to to truly investigate where your AirBnB’s at. I trusted the listing, and believed that it “was right in the heart of Kensington Market” when, in fact, it was in a back alley the city’s westernmost Chinatown.
This was the first major solo traveller mistake I made on this trip. Thankfully, the neighborhood I ended up in was pretty good—great food nearby, shopping, and I never felt in danger—but still, it wasn’t what I paid for.
The apartment itself was filthy, though. This made me learn, that if a host will lie to you about the location then other things about the place won’t be up to par. If I ever have this happen again, I’ll probably immediately cancel the booking or at least report the host (though if it’s on AirBnB, they probably won’t do anything).
Domesticate disputes and soup dumplings
Turns out accidentally ending up in Chinatown after moving to Toronto wasn’t the worst thing in the world. It didn’t take long to slip in to something of a routine. I’d wake up in the morning, make some coffee with milk and maple, crack open my laptop, and start work.
After that, I would work for a few hours before heading over to the Cantonese bakery on the corner to get some breakfast (usually an egg tart and pastry of some sort).
Next, it was time for a few hours of deep, focused work before heading back outside to eat some of the best food Toronto has to offer. My usual lunch was an order of xiaolongbao, or soup dumplings, to eat as I finished off my work day.
My after dinner time almost always looked the same. I’d either meet up with some new friends (like the one I met on the subway after it got closed down for four hours) or walk around and explore the city on my own.
Nights were when things got a bit tricky, and why I now thoroughly investigate every AirBnB before booking. Almost every night there would be some sort of major incident with one of my roommates and her boyfriend.
They would scream at each other, break things, and keep us all awake throughout the entire night. This is how I learned the number of Canadian 911 and the local police department. They were called over 5 times throughout my summer in the city after moving to Toronto.
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