Happy Birthday, MCL!

Holy whoa. Two blog posts in less than 24 hours. Rare but necessary as I just realized that today is the one year anniversary of My City Lives and I just have to send out my love. For those of you who don’t already know, MCL is an online platform that lets you capture and share your daily experiences around the city on video. Presented on an interactive map, these web stories show exactly where each video was filmed so you can learn more about the city based on the stories of others. It's unique and poetic and downright brilliant.

I had the pleasure of collaborating with MCL on behalf of blogUT to shoot some videos exploring the University of Toronto campus. I live and breathe that campus and this city and I just loved being able to document the everyday spaces that make for those simple but extraordinary moments that is la vie.

With MCL Co-Founder Adil & blogUT video partner, Coleman.

I often blog about my travels and love for other cities (see below) but the truth is, Toronto is in my blood. The vibrance of this city just makes me swell with pride and a quick scan through the many videos on the MCL website will show you just what I’m talking about. From our many coffee shops (a staple in my life) to the spaces of innovation, from the obscure spots to find your hipster girlfriend to our Corktown "ukelele jams", MCL captures what makes this city, well, live. It's more than a website, it's a place of discovery.

So with that, happy birthday, MCL! Thanks for bringing in the human dimension that makes our city the pure awesome that it is. Here’s to growing old and grey and taking on more cities than that interactive map of yours can even handle ;)

Sending my love to my friends at MCL (apologies for my sad Photoshop "skills")

Au Naturelle

So I decided to commune with nature and the cold winter air yesterday and took a trip out to Peggy's Cove, Lunenburg, and Mahone Bay. Now I'm not your outdoorsie kinda girl but it was definitely nice to get out of the city and see the natural world in all its glory. When we first got to Peggy's Cove I'm telling you, the same feeling of awe that I felt when I visited (dare I say it?) the Grand Canyon rushed right through me...the amazing grandness and immensity of the landscape is more than enough to put you in your place. In the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives it's easy to get lost in it all and forget that there are things much bigger than ourselves. Being right smack dab in the middle of the vast expanse definitely helps to put things into perspective. Cliché? Maybe. But it was my moment of zen.

Before getting there I was a little worried about it being off season and beyond freezing but I'm actually really happy I went there this time of the year instead of the summer time. I can just imagine how packed the place would be with all the tourists and though I'm sure I would've enjoyed it nonetheless, there's something different about seeing a place when it's empty. There's a certain je ne sais quoi about it...a kind of romance of solitude. It's like I had the entire ocean all to myself as I was walking along the rocks...

...But now I'm back in Toronto and back to the daily grind. Loved getting away even if it was just for the weekend. Loved spending time with my mom just hanging out, chatting, chowing down on seafood, and sippin' on lattés like nobody's business! It was refreshing. The pace of life in Halifax is definitely different from here in the city and as much as I enjoyed my quiet time for self-reflection...can't deny that I'm glad to be home. There's nothing quite like the feeling of interconnectedness, of knowing that there's always something exciting happening somewhere, and of being right in the centre of it all! What can I say? I'm just a big city girl and Toronto...I love you.