13 abril 2007

You Know You're From the Greater Toronto Area when

Encontrei essa "listinha" na comunidade Brasileiros em Toronto, no Orkut. Foi postada pelo Matheus que a encontrou no Facebook.
Se você mora em Toronto talvez se identifique com algum dos itens (ou com todos!).
Prepare o fôlego porque ela é bem grande!

You Know You're From the Greater Toronto Area when:

- Your commute time is 90 minutes into the city.

- You don't live in Toronto. If you do, you want to live away from there.

- You know path and PATH are two different things.

- You have connection to any one of these gangs: Tamil Tigers, Chinese Mafia, Bloods and Crips, Hells Angels, etc.

- City life sucks.

- You love complaining how shitty our transit service is.

- You never been to the CN Tower, and never planned to. In fact, you never will since prices went up 400% (and still going up) since it opened, and all you see up there is a restaurant and a view of Toronto minus the CN Tower.

- You still refuse to call Skydome the Rogers Centre.

- You speak better Chinese than French.

- Yonge and Bloor is the "centre of the universe" for subways. And you always grab the front car on the Yonge Line to go north and the back car to go South.

- You buy all your million dollar clothing from Yorkville.

- Yonge and Dundas is the "centre of the universe" for shopping. However, you tend to avoid Eaton Centre.

- Snow in downtown? Meh, it's called "underground shopping"!

- You don't mix Union Station and Grand Central up.

- You never been to Hard Rock Cafe. What the hell is that place?!

- You wonder why the Sheppard Subway doesn't have a T in the word Subway.

- Transit fares go up every 6 months, with TTC and YRT leading the charge. Hey, at least YRT has REAL service...

- You've walked for less than 2km on Yonge Street, and that stretch is usually in downtown.

- (for transit enthusiasts in York) You made friends with the York Region headquarters.

- Cars are faster in public transit, but in Toronto during rush hour, it's the other way around.

- Your family owns at least 2 cars.

- You memorized all the 400-series highways.

- You laugh when someone says "Highway four hundred and one".

- You actually know Highway 7 in York Region and Highway 10 in Peel Region are not highways.

- You love being in sardine packs in buses or subways.

- You know people of all races and cultures. In your neighborhood.

- You can see people of at least 5 races in a transit ride.

- You memorized all 7 Chinatowns.

- Jane and Finch is Harlem.

- Scarborough is SCARlem.

- You envy New York. No, seriously, you envy New York.

- You call the Don Valley Parkway the Don Valley Parking Lot.

- All you see when you go by the lake are condos, and you wondered why.

- Wanna tear down the Gardiner Expressway?

- You never went swimming in the lakes before.

- You knew Toronto is a bit slanted. If you didn't, now you know.

- You wonder why we are "technologically challenged".

- You eye the city hall as "where all the evil politicians live".

- You moved more than once. When you did, you moved north.

- You listen to 88.9, 94.7, 96.3, 97.3, 98.1, 99.9, 102.1, 103.5, 104.5, 107.1 for FM channels, and 640, 680 or 1430 for AM channels.

- You prefer the GO Train over the TTC (non-Toronto residents).

- Peel Region drivers are sooo slow...

- (in Toronto) Everything that is not in downtown, or the far east/west has the word "don" or "york" in it.

- (for Durham Region) The only way for Durham people to get into Toronto if you don't have a car is by GO Train. If you're sad enough to be one of them, and you miss your train, you could go buy a coffee, take a walk around the park, play poker, and the next train STILL wouldn't come yet.

- You can say "The world's tallest freestanding structure" 10 times fast.

- During the FIFA World Cup, you can book a ticket to the host city for free. It's called the big widescreen TV at Casey's.

- During the Super Bowl, you can book a ticket to the US for free.

- (in downtown Toronto), green means go, yellow means speed up, red light for one second means floor it.

(in York Region) Viva? or Free-va?

(in Markham) You refer to First Markham Place as FMP, Pacific Mall as PMall, and Markville Mall as The Mall.

(in Scarborough) You refer to Scarborough Town Centre as The Mall, Agincourt as Asiancourt. And you don't flinch when someone pulls a knife at you.

- Transit service has shot up in the suburban cities in the GTA, but seeing the already torn and crappiness of our buses and subway systems, does it even matter...?

- If you live in Toronto, you cheer for the Leafs. And you have never-ending faith in the Leafs even though they got pounded by Ottawa several times, you hate Ottawa and Buffalo's guts, but you actually don't mind Montreal for some reason.

- If you live out of Toronto, you never cheer for the Leafs. You cheer for either Buffalo, Ottawa, or Montreal.

- Even if gas prices are $5 a litre, you'll still drive. Because you think transit's for the poor.

- Mike Harris still gives you the chills. Or in some cases, the kills.

- White is a minority. If you think it's a majority here, PISS OFF.

- You know that the CN tower is secretly a giant mind control tower which send information back to its' headquarters in Abu Dhabi.

- You know you live in the GTA when Wal Mart is king, you pay ridiculous tolls on the 407 :)

- You tell DOZENS of people on the subway to put on DEODORANT during and ESPECIALLY in rush hours. We don't want to add another BURDEN along with a day of work, school and you name it.

- You've been to Pacific Mall regardless of your race.

- It pretty much never snows downtown.

- TTC means 'Take The Car'

- You ride the GO train and all you see is graffiti.

- You remember how Ludacris (and many more) LOVE Carribana.

- You have the Global Marijuana March every year.

- There are more weed stores and smoking cafe's than in the rest of Canada combined.

- You don't know one person who owns an actual music CD

- All busses heading West into Mississauga all end up going to Square One

- You know the coach of the Leafs better than you know your cities Mayor

- You expect to be sitting in traffic on the 401 on a Sunday at 2 AM.
- A piece of the Gardner narrowly misses your car.

- You know what and where Etobicoke is.

- You're considering purchasing a SUV for the off-roading experience of every major road.

- You know what the "Gardner Jump" is by Lakeshore (for those of us who remember it before they fixed the original one in the early 90's).

- When you don't look out the windows of Pearson and wonder where the Rockies are.

and last but not least...

- You actually LIVE in the GTA, and we're not talking about Grand Theft Auto here!

8 comentários:

Anônimo disse...

Bom, parece que a pessoa que escreveu isso não gosta muito de Toronto ou provavelmente mora fora da cidade.

Eu morei bem o centro da cidade (uns 3 quarteroes ao sul da Bloor & Yonge), meu marido pegava TTC pro trabalho todos os dias, e depois de uns dois anos sem NUNCA usar o carro para nada, acabamos devolvendo-o para a concessionária. Ao inves de incentivar a cultura do carro, Toronto nos fez mais conscientizados com o problema de transporte sustentável, começamos a usar nossas bicicletas de maio a novembro para ir a todo lado e participar da Critical Mass (o dia de protesto quando centenas de bicicletas ocupam as ruas do centro de Toronto.

A TTC, apesar de seus defeitos, é bem superior ao transporte publico em Montreal onde eu morava antes.

Depois de um ano fora - na Europa - eu agora estou me preparando para voltar a Toronto e quero voltar a morar no centro. A vida urbana em Toronto - para quem gosta - é a melhor!

Mas uma coisas eles têm razão - se vc mora na GTA e tem que trabalhar no centro... Boa sorte!!

Dani e Rafa disse...

Oi..Adorei o texto. Me identifiquei com mtos deles.. Claro que alguns são forçados (ou é a opnião da pessoa que escreveu), mas as frases mostram bem a Toronto do nosso dia a dia. Me diverti bastante..E se prepare!!! Beijos

Mirella Matthiesen (mikix) disse...

eheheheheh.... morri de iri... já tinha recebido a essa listinha, mas tinha esquecidos de alguns tópicos :0).
Mas Toronto é bem bacana... eu curto!Bjs

Anônimo disse...

Adoro Toronto!! Mas acho que um mes ainda eh pouco pra poder se identificar com alguma coisa, ne?

Vou te linkar no nosso blog, espero que nao se importe..

BJs!!

;)

Simone Teixeira Reis disse...

Acho que no minimo ele teve uma decepcao amorosa das grandes em Toronto... A cidade e simplesmente fantastica, mesmo com os seus defeitos.
Beijos.

Ju disse...

Oi Jeanne!

Muito engraçado o texto! Principalmente a última frase! =)
Toronto desse ser uma cidade fascinante, mas por enquanto estamos pesquisando bastante sobre Alberta, e pelo que estamos vendo os aluguéis são metade do preço de Toronto! Já estamos pensando seriamente m mudar nosso destino...mas vamos ver!

Beijos!

Unknown disse...

Oi Jeanne,

Nao sei como responder ao comentario que vc deixou...:(

Assim, como ja vi gente com 5 anos fazendo praticamente a mesma coisa, ja vi gente com 2 anos de empresa sendo promovido a cargo de supervisor...

Acho, que depende muito da area que vc atua e muito mais ainda da experiencia e conhecimento que vc possui.

Aonde trabalho, eles dao muito valor as pessoas que tentam mudar de area e sempre se aprimorar dentro da empresa. A preferencia as vagas em aberto sao sempre dos funcionarios que ja trabalham na empresa. Dessa forma, caso apareca uma vaga para supervisor ou gerente em outro departamento, todos tem condicao de aplicar e caso vc seja qualificado essa vaga podera ser sua. Conheco algumas pessoas que quiseram se mudar para os Estados Unidos e aplicaram para uma la... mudando ja com emprego garantido...:)

Nao sei se tirei a sua duvida...:)

Bjs,
Ana

Fabi disse...

As coisas não são tão ruins assim não, rs... Para quem está acostumado com algumas dessas coisas em SP, isso aqui é o paraíso (e olha que eu não sou muito a favor de Toronto não, rs)... Bjokas