To my great delight Andrea is an excellent walker. I typically walk about 8km at least 3-4 times a week (that's the distance between my office and our home) but sometimes when we have couchsurfers around and our schedules switch from routine to more hectic, I miss out on my walking. Well, I didn't have to with Andrea, because - what a sport - we walked (backpack and all) to the City Park as soon as she arrived to catch the drunken end of the Bob Marley tribute day. It was there, amidst all the popcorn stands and parked bicycles that we found out that Andrea does not like beer! Ah, to not be able to share the delicious
bitterness of Skopsko with a CS guest..this is a first, I think. Hungry as we were, we stopped by a pastry shop on our way home to get some cheese+spinach Burek. Now I don't know if she was just being nice, but Andrea later tells me that it was better than the Burek she had in Turkey...anyway...

[Obviously, the topic of food slowly but definitely becomes the ever-present topic of choice of our short 36 hours with Andrea. That's because Andrea is a chef (a saucier to be exact) in a Southern Italian restaurant in Toronto (I can't for the life of me remember the name of the place but it wasn't something that just rolls off the tongue). And if you know me, you know my passion for food (it's obvious, ok?:)) and Ivica can be even worse at times. The place where Andrea works makes, among other things, fresh homemade pasta every day...mmm. In addition, they have a popular Fish Friday menu (with fresh fish coming in straight from Italy) but Andrea doesn't like fish (ok, this - unlike the beer - I can understand). Regardless, she has to try it at work and hearing that makes me think about the fact that a chef's job may not always be about cooking your favorite food (especially wnen you don't control the menu) and may ocassionally turn nightmarish. Luckily for Andrea, she has no problem with doing things like cuting up rabbits.]

I'm not done talking about food, but I need a diversion before I get too carried away. So by way of diversion, here's another etymology lesson for you. In addition to Toronto's Mohawk name meaning "where the trees stand in water", did you know that Canada's name also originates from the Iroquoian word Canata which simply means "village". Yeah, what a village. There are other versions of the history of Canada's name and you can read about them here.

Oh and about the weather - yeah, the cold is apparently not as innocent as we first thought. It gets cold and stays cold for months, with new snow piling up on top of frozen snow on top of even more frozen snow...and so on. And as a further diversion from Skopje's warm spring weather, here are some Toronto winter photos as a refreshment.  

Back soon with more Toronto, even more food and some Skopje adventures.