helen-louise's journal

Things I don't recommend: travelling across the Atlantic Ocean on the first day of your period. If I did not have 30mg codeine phosphate on prescription, I don't know what I'd have done. I was taking alternating doses of painkillers: 1g of paracetamol then 30mg of codeine 2 hours later, and it was only relieving the pain enough that I wasn't screaming. Aspirin makes me wheezy and ibuprofen makes my throat close up, so the best thing for period pain, mefenamic acid, is verboten.

Anyway, we are now in Toronto. We appear to be staying exactly between the hippy/bohemian district and Chinatown, which suits me perfectly. Imagine an entire district like Brighton, but cheap. I don't know if it's the pound to dollar conversion, or simply that London is so expensive that anywhere else seems cheap. But we went to Whole Foods last night, a place that is generally considered "expensive", bought a ridiculously large amount of stuff, and it was under £20. The vegan chocolate mousse I bought would have been £5 or more at home, and it was CAN $4.80 - much less than half the price. And the Chinese restaurant on Spadina had main courses for $7-8, which turned out to be three times the size of main courses at home for £4-5.

We are going to Toronto Zoo today to see the wolves (yay!). I think we're meeting up with bcholmes & the_siobhan for dinner, though I don't know where yet. Guess I'll call one of them later on.