Pickering Food Truck Festival

Food, Food, Food.

That seems to be the theme in Toronto this year, every weekend there is a different food related festival happening.

This past weekend, Aug 5-7 Pickering, ON was the place to be as the City of Pickering celebrated their 2nd Annual Pickering Food Truck Festival, a collaboration with the Canadian Food Truck Festivals. Food Trucks from all over Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area came to the city to showcase their delicious cuisine for everyone to taste. There was an array of different food choices from all over the world, ranging from Latin American to European to Hot and Spicy to Sweet and Savoury flavours.

Some of the Food Trucks that were at the festival are: Beavertails, Berlin 95, Chimney Stax Baking Co, Fidel Gastro's, I Love Churros, Untamed Chef and Curbalicious.

After walking around and checking out all the Food Trucks, I saw this humongous iron skillet under a tent and I knew I wanted whatever was under that tent. The huge skillet belonged to this bright yellow truck that is La Fiesta Catering, and in the skillet they were making Ecuadorian style Paella. The last time I had Paella was when I was in Barcelona, so I was so excited to eat it again, La Fiesta reminded me why I love Paella; the Spanish seasoned rice mixed with seafood was the perfect evening meal for a festival.

If you missed the Toronto and Pickering Food Truck Festival this year, the Canadain Food Truck Festivals is having one more festival before the summer is over in Richmond Hill, September 3 & 4 at Richmond Hill Greens.

What Food Festivals did you go to this year?

Afrofest Toronto 2016

Hey Guys!! yes, I know, it's been months since I've posted anything on this blog, which is sad. But I promise you that there will be more content coming out as the year goes on.

This past Sunday, on July 10, my friends and I decided to attend Afrofest in Toronto, which is the largest African Festival in North America. It has been years since I've gone to the festival, the last time I  remember going was when the venue us to be Queen's Park. 

There has been some controversy with the City of Toronto and the organizers of Afrofest this year. The city wanted to cut the 2-day festival to 1-day, which would be horrible, as the festival draws thousands of people from Toronto and abroad to the City of Toronto. Thankfully the people of Toronto came together and voiced their love of Afrofest and the city granted them their regular 2-day permit.

If You want to submerge yourself in African culture, Afrofest is the best place to be. You get to walk around to all of the different type of vendors from different countries in the wonderful continent. People were selling textiles, clothing, jewellery, beauty products and live paintings, along with some amazing food. If you want organic products, it is the perfect place to be.

It was nice to visit some of the vendors and talk to them about their products, I even purchased a hair product from London Ivy a Toronto based hair care line, that is 100% Vegan and Cruelty-free. Artist like Toronto's own YouTuber Femi Lawson was there selling his Tantalization merchandise and meeting his supporters, Kofi Frempong was at Afrofest doing live paintings, that were for sale.

Now that I am reflecting about what has happened in the last couple of weeks in the world, I've realizing that I don't support a lot of local or black local artist, or businesses. Afrofest and other festivals alike are the best place to discover local businesses.

There are so many festivals happening in Toronto this year, which one's are you going too?

Bye Bye 2015, Hello 2016

2015 has come to an end.

WOW, that was fast. I wold have to say 2015  has been the year of dreams and goals. 

At the beginning of 2015 I told myself that 2015 was going to be my year of travel, and that's exactly what it was.

 January and February of 2015, I embarked on my first solo flight to Germany, where I started my 2 month Study Abroad trip with my school. I had the wonderful opportunity to travel to 5 different countries while I was there; London, Spain, France, Germany and Switzerland.

I will remember that trip for the rest of my life.

Once I got back to Toronto, I found out that my cousin was getting married and that it was going to be in Jamaica. I saved everything from my summer job and in October my cousin and myself jetted off to sunny, beautiful Jamaica for a week, it was beautiful.

Just when I thought my year of Travel was about to end, my family decided to take a trip to New York for American Thanksgiving. Even though it was a short 3 day trip, I was back in New York to celebrate Christmas with family and friends, and also to bring in the New Year in Manhattan.

2015 has surly been an eventful year for myself, it was about family, friends and having a good time, I wouldn't change anything about it.

For 2016 my affirmation is STABILITY, and I found the perfect motto for 2016 on Instagram EAT. PRAY. SLAY. I want to be stable in everything I do an grow this year.

Do you have any resolutions or goals for the New Year?

To see more pictures,

 make sure to check out the Instagram @youngblackventure

Toronto A.K.A Panamania: Tessanne Chin

The year of 2015 will go down in history for the City of Toronto.

Courtesy of Instagram @leighazon

Most North Americans and Caribbean's know that the 2015 Pan American Games are being held in the Canadian city Toronto, and if you didn’t know, now you know.

The city has been buzzing with tourist from all over the world who have come to watch the games, some knowing and some who just came to Toronto on vacation at the right time. because of all the tourists, the city of Toronto has gone out of it’s way to make the city appear exciting and energetic, with cool new statues, like the big ‘Toronto ‘ in front of city hall and free events held all over the city.

Courtesy of Instagram @astroroy

At least once a week a free concert is held in front of Toronto’s City Hall, with headlining artists from different countries within the Pan American region, as well as cultures acts from the Americas. I recently saw Tessanne Chin, an up and coming singer from the island of Jamaica, perform in the heart of the city.

If you don’t know who Tessanna Chin is, she is the Jamaican artist who got her big break after winning season 5 of the hit show The Voice, as a contestant on Adam Levine’s team. If there is one thing Jamaicans are famous for, it is supporting one another. To say that Toronto’s Jamaican/ West Indian community came out to support Tessanne would be an understatement. The support of Toronto was real; people from all nationalities and cultures came out to hear her beautiful voice see her perform live.

Courtesy of Instagram @janaydw

Tessanne performed a medley of songs from her album Count on My Love. During her performance she did a Bob Marley tribute, singing 'Redemption Song', along with a dedication to Whitney Houston, by singing 'I Will Always Love You'. You should also check out her new song ‘Fire' from her album.

Tessanne's performance, along with the exciting acts that are to come within the next two weeks, al aid in creating an amazing atmosphere within the city. Toronto has always been a hub of exhilarating festivals  and events, and the Panamania concerts are a well-welcomed addition to the city for the summer. 

To find out when someone Panamania events are happening, check out Toronto 2015’s website.

To see more pictures,

 make sure to check out the Instagram @youngblackventure

Andy Warhol Invades Toronto

A couple days ago, a good friend and myself decided to go visit the Andy Warhol exhibit in Toronto.

Andy Warhol: Revisited is a Warhol exhibition in Toronto that provides an engaging and educational walk through of the development of Warhol 's artistic language and it's greater effect on culture.  The exhibition brought Warhol 's most recognized pieces to he city.

This was my first time ever going to an art exhibit, so this was a new experience for me. The price to get into the exhibit is $10 but if your a student, like myself all you have to do is show your student ID and you pay $5.

To be totally honest with you, I recently discovered who Andy Warhol is. I knew he was a famous artist, but through my school course that I'm doing I learned he had/ still has a very big impact in the art world and also pop culture.

Out of all the amazing painting a and prints that were on display at the museum, I would have to say that the Energy Power painting was my favourite. Something about the painting caught my attention compared to all the others, especially when I read the little article that went wit it. 

" The painting portrays a hand cradling a symbol of a nuclear war which was a looming anxiety shared by the Americans at the time. The quick gestural lines along with the stark black and white contrasting colors serve to convoy a sense of visual and further highlight the anxiety at the time."

You have until December 31st to come and see the exhibit. If you live in the Toronto area or will be visiting soon, I recommend you go and check it out. 

To see more pictures,

 make sure to check out the Instagram @youngblackventure

#RogersFamilyDay Day at the Rogers Centre

Two week ago I had the opportunity of being in the Rogers Centre and walking on the Toronto Blue Jays baseball diamond.

Thanks to my amazing cousin who works for Rogers Marketing department, I was allowed to attend Rogers Family Day with the Toronto Blue Jays.

All of Rogers Communications Network employees from all sectors, were allowed to invite their family and friends to spend a day at the Toronto Rogers Centre.

Even though the Toronto Blur Jays were not playing a home game, the staff at the centre put the game up on the jumbotron for everyone to watch. the Rogers Centre was full of family fun activities for everyone to do. Along with a free meal with admission, you had the opportunity to walk on the baseball diamond and even go and sit in the Blue Jays dugout.

There was a bouncy castle for the kids to climb on, and there was also an autograph booth, were a Blue Jay veteran was signing pictures, baseballs and baseball gloves. People even got a chance to win baseball jerseys. It was a fun filled day, and it was great that Rogers allowed people onto the baseball diamond, it was smaller then I actually thought it would be.

To see more pictures,

 make sure to check out the Instagram @youngblackventure

A Day Trip to Versailles

On my last full day in Paris, two fellow classmates and myself decided to take a trip and go visit the majestic Chateau de Versailles.

For those of you that don't kn ow where Versailles is located, it is in the "western suburbs outside of central Paris" (Wikipedia).
The palace once housed Louis XIV, Louis XV and Luis XVI and his famous wife Marie Antoinette. Valerie Bajou describes Versailles as, "Versailles is a mirage, a sumptuous and theatrical entertainment. It is also a manifestation of glory and power imposed to great extent by art, luxury and magnificence".
 From walking throughout the palace you can see exactly what Bajou is talking about, you can tell that every inch of the palace was carefully though of because hundreds of year later, even though they have touched up the original work, it still looks amazing.

Even though you don't get to go through the whole palace, you get to see majority of it and what really counts.

Like the grand court, the Hall of Mirrors and the Great Lawn.

The only con of visiting Europe during winter is that everything is under construction, so while we were walking around they were cleaning out the infamous fountains.

 One thing that I didn't get to see, was Marie Antoinette's guest house.

Which in reality is actually a mansion on the ground of Versailles, but now I have a perfect reason to go back to Versailles. 

It's worth the trek to see this beautiful palace.

To see more pictures,

 make sure to check out the Instagram @youngblackventure

Solo Dolo in Paris Part 2

After giving myself my own little tour, I made my way over to the most beautiful fountain I've ever seen. The Fontaine Saint-Michel is where i met my tour guide Anthony, who is a freelance tour guide in Paris who works for Sandemans New Europe. 

Fontaine Saint-Michel

Sandemans offers free tours all over the world, in cities like Amsterdam, Barcelona, Jerusalem and New York.

Once everyone arrived, we headed out to start our journey to discover this beautiful city.

Our first stop was the Prefecture de Police de Paris (Translation: Perfect of Police of Paris) which is where the Paris Police Academy, the embassy, Paris court of law an everything government related. It also use to be the castle where the Kings of Paris use to live.

The police Department is located right in the centre of the city on it's own island.

The next stop we made was the statue of King Henry IV, where we learned her was refereed to as the 'Good King' of France.
We also got to walk across the infamous Love Lock bridge. Surprisingly, they started to put up wood panelling against some of the railings because the weight of all the locks were starting to destroy the infrastructure of the bridge. But it was beautiful to see all the locks on it.

Then we made our way to the most beautiful museum I've seen, The Musee du Louvre. 

Even though I didn't go inside the museum, which I will leave for another trip to Paris, the outside is just as beautiful and majestic.

The attention to detail to every inch of the building is incredible, especially the famous triangle in the centre of the court yard, which is actually the entrance of the museum.

  

The sign of the Louvre meant the end of our wonderful free tour that Sandeman offered, so with my trusty map I headed out to find the the gateway of this wonderful city, the Arc de Triomphe.
The best thing I have to say about Paris, among all the previous great things I've said is that the Public Transit system is very easy to understand, even if you don't understand the simplest of French.

Once I arrived to the Arc de Triomphe, I was trying to find how to get underground to actually get under the Arc, but go lost. But nevertheless, I was able to find a group of girls to take a couple of snaps of pictures for me right in front of it.

To see more pictures,

 make sure to check out the Instagram @youngblackventure

Solo Dolo in Paris Part 1

Finally, I have reached the city of love, and now I know why people fall in love with it.

Since i reached Paris on a Friday night, I decided to take a much needed nap unlike my fellow classmates who decided to go out on the town.

The next morning I had breakfast at our hotel the Alliance Hotel Paris Place d'Italie and decided to look at their brochures where I found a free walking tour that takes you all over the city of Paris. 

So i got dressed, grabbed my umbrella and headed for downtown Paris.

Even though it was raining the whole time i was there and it was still winter, I totally understood why Paris is one of the top travel destinations in Europe.

The first place I decided to go see before my tour was Notre Dame de Paris. 

I would advise you not to go inside, not to say that it isn't beautiful, but the line ups are really long, and next thing you know you spent the whole day waiting in line. 

But standing right in front of it does do it's justice.

Notre dame de Paris

To see more pictures,

 make sure to check out the Instagram @youngblackventure

Roaming Reims

Our last stop before Paris was Reims.

Just like how Beaune is in the Burgundy regions and they have the largest wineries, Reims is in the Champagne region of France. 

Reims is a small city that holds a lot of history.

Out of all the Cathedral's I've visted in Europe I have to sat the Notre Dame in Reims was one of my favourite.
The architecture and the attention to detail was amazing.

Another historical landmark in Reims is the La Potre de Mars, whcih is the widest arch in the Roman World.

And of course you know I couldn't go all the way to the Champagne region and not taste any champagne.
So We headed to Taittinger to learn about their strong history of wine and champagne making, and we also go to go down to their sellar where they have champagne bottles dated back to the 1700's.

To see more pictures,

 make sure to check out the Instagram @youngblackventure

Mustering Through Dijon

Another city we stopped at, on our way to Paris is the City of Dijon.

The first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word Dijon, is Dijon Mustard, and that's exactly where I was. the beautiful City of Dijon, is the motherland of delicious Dijon Mustard, they eat it with everything, you can even get little packets of it at burger joints in the city.

In Dijon, you'll see these little owls on the ground, make sure you follow them. Their the symbol of the city, and they act like your own personal tour guide. They all have numbers on them, and if you follow them they'll bring you to all the tourist attractions in the city. The Owls will end you off at the Dijon Cathedral, where if you strike the owl with your left hand it will lead to good luck.

Minus the bad weather, Dijon is a beautiful vibrant city, and If you ever get a chance to go make sure to check out one of the many Dijon Mustard stores, to bring back home as a souvenir.

To see more pictures,

 make sure to check out the Instagram @youngblackventure

Discovering Beautiful Beaune

So it's getting close to the end of out trip, and where making our way to Paris where most of us take our flight back home.

On our road trip to Paris, on of the stops we make is the City of Beaune. Beaune is the wine capital of Burgundy, so for all my wine lover, you should take a trip down here, and it's also a very cute little town.

Since we arrived on a Sunday, like most of Europe most things were closed, and we were only staying one night, so we decided to take a walk and discover this small little town.

While in Beaune we stayed at Hostellerie de Brentonniere, which is a barn turned into a hotel, it's very cute.

"The largest wineries in Burgundy"

If you ever find yourself in Beaune and you need somewhere to eat, make sure you check out Le Carnot. It's a Brasserie, which is like a bar/pub, where you can get great food at reasonable price, and just as great desserts. Also, since Beaune isn't far from the city of Dijon, you can get a lot of Dijon Mustard, which is why I recommend the burger, trust me you'll thank me later.

To see more pictures,

 make sure to check out the Instagram @youngblackventure

Beautiful Barcelona! Part 2

On our second day of being in Barcelona, we decided to  try and find the beach. Even though it was to cool to go swimming in the ocean, as a Canadian being able to go to a beach in the middle of February is a huge thing so we headed out and started walking.

While heading to the beach we stumbled onto so many things.

Luckily for us, we were in Barcelona during their Barcelona Light Festival 2015. during the day they have Fiesta de Santa Eulalia, which is Barcelona's biggest festival for children where they have plays with life size puppets that take up to 5 people for it to work.  Saint Eulalia is a patron of  Barcelona.

As soon as night fall happens, a new parade is started called Firework Small Devils, where little children walk in parades holding fire crackers at an end of a stick parading throw the streets of Barcelona to the sound of bands beating their drums.

It was an experience to watch all of this especially because it was a surprise to us, since we didn't know what was happening.

 Along with being able to see the amazing festivities in Barcelona, we stumbled upon the cities beautiful cathedral, Catedral de Barcelona 

And then we finally made it to the beach!!

It was amazing a beautiful and also weird to be on a beach in the middle of February in Barcelona, Spain in 10 degree weather. IT WAS AWSOME!

To see more pictures,

 make sure to check out the Instagram @youngblackventure 

Beautiful Barcelona! Part 1

*sighs* Oh Barcelona, where do I start with you!?
If you don't know where Barcelona is, it's in the amazing country of Spain, in the fabulous continent of Europe.

Since we have some free weekends, for travel. Some of the girls and myself, decided to take a little trip to somewhere where the sun is shining and get out of the cold, so we settled for beautiful Barcelona, Spain.

We decided we wanted to experience a real authentic Barcelona, so instead of staying at a hotel, be decided to rent an apartment, so we heading over to Airbnb, and started to look through all the beautiful apartments until we picked one that was located right off of Av. del Parallel, so we were right in the centre of the city and the Metro was just down the street from us.

   As soon as we got to Barcelona, the first thing we did was go to Plaza Espana Barcelona, which I recommend everyone to go see. It is the heart of the city, you can see Palau Nacional, which is an art museum and also see Barcelona's old bull-fighting ring, which they converted into a mall, you can also pay to take an elevator to the top of the mall or just take the escalators inside the mall to the top and see a beautiful view of the city.

Best In Town

Today we got to go to the best restaurant in Strasbourg, France. According to Trip Advisor, La Vignette is #1 out of 1,078 in Strasbourg. Luckily for us La Vignette is only a 20-30 minute walk from the Chateau.

I can now see why La Vignette is rated #1 in the city, it's a beautiful quaint restaurant, where you felt like you were at your grandmothers house.

We started our dinner with a Cream of Mushroom Soup with Croutons in it. I have to say that it was the best Cream of Mushrrom soup I've had, it was so smooth and flavourful.

The Soup was then followed by our main dish, Salmon with diced veggies and red rice with a creamy sauce. I've never has red rice before, but I have to say it will not be my last time, it has so much flavour and it's a whole rice grain so it reminds me of whole grain brown rice. with the salmon and the cream, it was a great combination.

 And for dessert we had Creme Caramel, which isn't my favourite, but it tasted good regardless.
If you ever come to Strasbourg, France you have to go to La Vignette.

To see more pictures,

 make sure to check out the Instagram @youngblackventure

Classic Beer

Since we were in Rothaus, Germany, It would be a waste if we didn't go to the Rothaus Brewery for a tour and a taste.

Rothause has been around for 200 years, and is much loved now as it was years ago. Once a small monastery brewery , the brewery is now owned by Rothaus Baden State Brewery.
Because of strict brewing laws in Germany, Rothaus beer is only made of water, malt, hops and yeast.

I've never been to a beer brewery before, so it was cool to see how it was made, and to see how different Rothaus was to there breweries.

After the tour we were able to get a bottle of beer to taste along with a freshly backed pretzel to eat with it.

There were 3 different types of beer we could choose from: Tannenzäpfle, Pils, Eiszäpfle, and the one I had Radler Zäpfle, which has a lemon taste to it.

To see more pictures,

 make sure to check out the Instagram @youngblackventure

Snow? But Why!?

On our long journey to Rothaus, Germany, I woke up thinking I was back home in Canada. Driving up the mountain of Black Forest, there was at least 5cm of snow covering the ground, and I was not dressed for this type of weather.

It wasn't our first time in Baden Germany, so I was very surprised when I opened my eyes and all I saw was snow upon snow for miles and miles, I couldn't believe it.

Even though I wasn't ready (in my Kevin Hart voice) we made the best out of the situation.
You would have thought we weren't a bunch of Canadians and that have never seen snow in our lives from the way we were reacting.

But to show you how Beautiful it was, here are some beautiful Pictures.

To see more pictures,

 make sure to check out the Instagram @youngblackventure

Maison Lissner

If you know anything about France, then you probably know that it's the land of wine and bread, If Jesus made his way here i'm sure it was one of his favourite places to be.
 With that being said, Studying in France means we do a lot of wine and beer tasting, and by a lot I mean at least once a week.

One Winery that has been super nice to us is Maison Lissner. Since the first week of arriving in France, Maison Lissner was the first winery we were able to wine taste. We have also had the the chance to go to their brewery and see how they process the wine from beginning to end.

A reason why I like Maison Lissner compared to the other wineries we visited is that it's a family business and has been in business since the town it's build in has been founded. The owner Bruno is the 8th generation in his family to own the brewery and he hopes to keep up the tradition and pass it on to his son Theo, who helps his run the business.

Maison Lissner is located in Wolxheim, Strasbourg France.

The city of Wolxheim is a city full of wine vineyard owners, and the whole city shares a 20+ acres of land where they grow their grapes. 

Something that makes Maison Lissner different from the other wineries that we have visited is that they still follow the old fashion way of making wine. They still mostly use wooden barrels to put the wine in for fermentation, instead of the metal ones and they don't disturb the natural essence of the wine, they allow it to flow down to the cellar once the grapes are crushed and any tress and unwanted substance is taken out.

We Also like them because they always give us a lot of wine to taste.

To see more pictures,

 make sure to check out the Instagram @youngblackventure

Touched Down in London Town

This past weekend I decided to hop over the pond and visit the Royals in beautiful London, England.

This wasn't my first time to England but will be the most memorable one I have. The last time I was about 5 years old and can only remember what the pictures can tell me.

Luckily for me I have family In England so I was able to have someone take me around town and show me all the tourist attractions and do a little shopping with.

The London Eye, looking over the River Thames

Now I know why my mother always jumps at the chance to travel to England, and why all my friends keep saying why they want to move to London once they get a chance. The city is just so magical.

Everything from the beautiful scenic structures of the buildings to riding on their infamous Double Decker buses to their beautiful accents. England just has so much history that they capture so well it the city.

One thing I wasn't prepared for was how busy all the tourist attractions were and it's winter. You would think it was a nice spring summer day from all the people that were at all the tourist attractions, especially on the London Bridge and Oxford Street, were you can do some good shopping. I also went on the Tube, which is like a maze. It's just as crazy or crazier as the New York Train system, but it was a cool experience, What surprised me the most was how small the trains were.

For a fact I know this will not be my last time n London, hopefully sooner then later I'll be back.

To see more pictures,

 make sure to check out the Instagram @youngblackventure

European Tour

Since I'm going to be in Europe for 2 months, I've decided I wanted to take some trips to some other countries since i'm so close. 

One thing I love about Europe is that you can easily travel to other countries and it won't make a big dent in your pocket.

Currently, I'm spending 4 days in England with some family and I only spent 86€ which is about $150 CAD, which is amazing because flying to another province in Canada is about $300+ CAD and that is all in the same land mass.

Because of the travel airlines like Easy Jet, people can travel all over Europe for very cheap. 

You can choose just to bring a carry-on which is free or choose to pay a couple more dollars to get a checked bag.

Another example of how easy and cheap it is to travel around Europe, is a couple of  girls who i'm studying with in France and I  decided we want to go to Barcelona, Spain. 

We searched for a good deal and was able to get a flight for 4 day at 137£, i'm sure if we tried looking earlier we would have got a cheaper flight, but that is equivalent to $250 CAD.

That makes two plane ticket for under $400 CAD for two different countries.

Taking a plane isn't the only way to travel and get around Europe. A lot of my fellow classmates decided to take the bus, rent cars and also take the EuroRail train to travel to different countries in Europe, and all at a reasonable price.

This is something I wish the Canadian government would do, and consider. If it was cheaper to travel to different provinces in the country i'm sure a lot more people would travel out to those places, just as they do in Europe.