Meet "Pedro"

I think Pedro is the youngest friend I met in a while, he's 19 years old.. He's the cousin of my cousin and he moved to Toronto a week ago from Brazil for 8 months to study English, so for a change I felt I know in Toronto a bit more than someone else and this time I can help or give couple of advises especially how to fight the crazy cold.. We both come from much warmer weather and it s our first freezing winter..

So to keep us warm, my cousin, her husband Fouad, and I decided to take Perdro for few drinks, especially that he was very stressed as it was his first time going away from home for few months, so we went to Earls, but one drink wasn’t enough, so we had second round then a third one and ended with shots where Pedro decided to share with us the tradition in Brazil on how you would toast before drinking a shot, so u start with “A cima”(up) then “A bajo”(down), then “A fuera”(outside) and you end it with “A dentro”(inside) and you drink..

It was tough after a warm nice time at Earls to run outside to catch a cab, but it was a very short ride for me and left the cousins going back to Stouffville after dropping Pedro by his place.

Time with cousins is always fun, and I’m sure we’ll be taking Pedro for more drinks in the coming few month during his stay in Toronto especially that after few drinks, his English becomes fluent. J

Meet "Yasmine"

After couple of days from moving to Toronto I received a message on Facebook from my dear friend Carole G. Putting me in contact with one of her close friends from the days she used to live in Cairo.. And she insist that we meet as she was sure that we have many things in common especially our love for art.. So we messaged each others couple of times until Yasmine asked me if I' m interested in attending a nude sketching class with her at OCAD, and my answer without hesitation was "of course" even though I wasn't sure if I was still able to do proper sketches and I felt it's a pity to lose that skill as the last time I did it was long time ago at the fine art school in Lebanon.

So went to a library got a sketchbook, a pencil and went to meet Yasmine in a very cold night at OCAD..

It was a pleasure meeting her and get to know her and discuss our backgrounds and she gave me some tips for my move and about her experience so far in Toronto since she moved from Cairo, Egypt and we kept talking until we had to stop our conversation the minute the class started.. Every week is a different model, and that night it was a male nude model.. And I got reminded that I have to hit the gym as soon as possible :).. It was a great feeling to be in a class again surrounded by very talented students and artists who some of them blew my mind with the sketches they did in the very short time we had for each sketch..

We both left before the end of the 3 hours class, as I was tired and Yasmine had a long way to commute back home.. But I was glad meeting her and I felt she will be a good friend and I'll be seeing her for sure again and again..