Hello, I’m Maher Qureshi, a Scarborough resident who has lived in Toronto her entire life. I come from an immigrant family who made their journey from Pakistan to Toronto in 1997, four years before I came along. I grew up as the sidekick to my cool millennial siblings, one ten and one fourteen years older than me. This left me as the younger sister who had the opportunity to tag along on my siblings’ adventures around the city I love to call home.

Coming from Scarborough means that I was able to experience a slightly boring suburb life, with an open door to adventure and mystery shaped as downtown Toronto. I had only really started exploring downtown with my friends in high school. It’s a truly freeing experience to take the subway after school, backpacks and homework in tow, with no idea what the day would have in store for us. We would hear about something cool downtown, make our way to that area, and then just walk around for hours. Some of my favourite memories include getting lost, but I always knew I could find my way by pointing to a random station on the map and taking the bus toward it. These experiences shaped my curiosity toward the city, and so I am passionate about sharing them. I want to help create a hunger for adventure in other teenagers in the GTA, especially for those who find themselves to perpetually be in a state of boredom, similar to how I was.

One thing I love about Toronto is its transportation system, the TTC. The TTC has its fair troubles and is far from perfect, but I love the way it unifies Toronto. People can create identities with their nearest subway stops, you can identify the culture in which someone lives by which busses they take. Venturing from the lesser travelled subway lines to the crowded ones downtown is a story in itself. It’s excellent for people-watching; you can observe a variety of city dwellers from busy professionals to young children, both on their way home after an eventful day. The TTC is a unifying, central hub for all of Toronto’s neighbourhoods, classes (socio-economic), and workers.

One thing I’m not the biggest fan of in Toronto is how expensive the housing market is. I love the city and cannot imagine living elsewhere, but I keep my expectations low because I know the chance of being able to afford long-term housing in Toronto is unlikely. I’d like for Toronto to remain the diverse metropolis of Canada, and so I hope there will be something done to aid Toronto’s future adventure seekers in their journeys toward their living goals.

Even though I grew up in Toronto, I don’t feel as if I know the city in its entirety. There is so much to Toronto, so many different cultures and neighbourhoods, and so much left to discover. I’m hoping this blog will help me achieve that -to meet people from other areas and to expose my own, Scarborough, for all its worth. I’m hoping this course will aid in my exploration and make it a more cultural and meaningful experience.