Canadiana Backpackers Blog

Winter has gone! (There! We said it!)

Everyone is convinced that Old Man Winter has finally gone south for the summer.

Backpackers are enjoying a particularly mild spring. Even though old guests were posting the weather reports from Malaga, Spain.

Pauline from Paris, who just left us a month ago is now in Spain and posts the weather in Malaga to make us envious! Recently, she posted “Clear and Sunny; Maximum 13C!

Well eat your heart out Pauline! On that very day it was “Clear; Sunny and Maximum 27C here in Toronto!

But the real sign of spring is the aroma of the BBQ! Elise (our staff member from France) prepared burgers on our patio for the first time this year.

And since she is a Parisian, I suppose you could say that our burgers are prepared by a French gourmet chef!

(Our next BBQ is this Saturday @ 6PM! Join us for a delicious $3 burger!)

…

Lining up behind Elise for “Le Hamburger”.

When people hear that her name is “Cigaline” they are probably tempted to think, “Well, that;s not a name you hear everyday.”

But if you think about it she probably does hear it everyday.

Nonetheless, it is a beautiful name for a lovely lady; nonetheless, a name new to most of us here at the hostel.

She is a Parisian Landscape Architect who has just arrived in Canada to take advantage of the work/travel visas being granted to younger visitors.

It is a pretty good program judging by the rapid improvement of her English after only a week or so in Toronto.

She has yet to begin her search for employment in earnest. She is enjoying a break from work.

But if she wants to land a good position in Landscaping she should begin now! There is a lot of work necessary from clean up to planting as the spring is ending. This is particularly true of parks and other large public areas.

We are glad that Cigaline chose Toronto and we all think she can make any area just a little more beautiful.

Cigaline: La jeune fille au beau sourire!

Elaine Lynch had been in Toronto for less than a day when she ran into Aisling Riordan (a former RTE reporter) doing interviews at our hostel regarding the flood of Irish nationals arriving in Canada.

Elaine is a folk singer-songwriter who is yet another victim of this recent global economic meltdown which has been disasterous to a lot of “developed” countries.

Among member nations of the European Union, Ireland has been badly impacted by the recent crisis.

Elaine was sitting on our back patio when she was spotted by Irish journalist Ms. Riordan who was on assignment for the Canadian Broadcasting Corportation (CBC) on the recent “Irish Invasion” of Canada.

Elaine was playing her guitar and singing some of her songs much to the delight of other guests and fellow travelers, a lot of whom hailed from the Emerald Isles.

Aisling used Elaine’s thoughts  beautiful singing as a nifty segue into her radio piece on the latest Irish diaspora for CBC’s World Report.

It was a bit of an auspicious beginning for Elaine.  She has already found long-term accomodation, a job AND will soon be performing at a local folk venue here in Toronto.

We’ll try to keep you posted as to when and where her gigs will be on our Facebook site and our Twitter account.

(To hear Aisling’s CBC report, it is appended to an earlier Blog entry (April 21st) “The (continuing) Irish Invasion”).