The First Snow Has Arrived

I had woken up in the early hours of the morning and caught sight of it through a gap in the curtains. I’m not even sure what I saw that made me look but something caught my eye and drew me to the window. Perhaps it was that strange reflected light from the early morning sun bouncing off the snow and through the curtains or maybe the flutter of tiny flakes as they fell from the sky. In any case there it was like a dream in the dawn light, spiralling down from the heavens and dancing the sunrise. The first snow of the season! It was settling in that almost comical way on every surface blanketing the world outside my window in a think layer of white and excitement rushed inside me.

 

I love the snow. I love everything about it. They way it looks falling from the sky and the way is covers everything in its pure white beauty. I love the way the worlds seams to become quiet and reflective as all sounds are swallowed up in piles of white. Most of all I just love being in it, running around to feel the crunch under my boots before flopping down to make snow angles. I love building snowmen and laughing at our pathetic creations. I love getting together with a bunch of friends and throwing snowballs at each other, until my hands become numb with cold and my ears burn. I also love the absurdity and childishness off all these things. I am so incredibly pleased that Canada has allowed me to experience snow not as a memory from my early childhood back in the days when the UK got more than drizzle at Christmas but snow is now right outside my window an adventure waiting to be had.

 

Even to me I think it is strange that snow still holds such wonder to me because as a geography student I’ve studied it. I know at what temperature it forms and why and how. I know what weather patterns brought the pile of snow I’m currently staring at it and the reasons why we don’t get it in the UK anymore. Thankfully for whatever reason none of these things seam to matter and snow just brings out the five-year-old in me jittering with excitement.

 

The presence of snow has seeded the idea of adventure in my mind and fantasies of leaning to ski, going dog sledding and ice skating along the canal as well as all the other exciting opportunities created by Canada’s freezing winters. I can’t wait to watch all this snow pile up through the winter and if rumours are true the ground cover will reach past my knees and drift to cover my ground floor widows.

 So I stood standing there barefoot and in wonder at this 5am miracle before slipping back into bed to dream of the excitement that lies ahead. The first snow is here and it’s only going to get better.

Meet the Parents

This week my parents came to visit me in Ottawa. It was amazing to see them after 3 months away from home. We had a brilliant few days showing them around Ottawa. This was the first time in my life I have lived somewhere my parents haven’t been to before. It was strange to play tour guide and show them round all the little places I had found and showing them a part of my life they had only imagined from my descriptions over the phone and photographs I send in the occasional email.

 They eventually reached the city on Friday night and we had dinner in an Italian restaurant on the Sparks Street mall called Carmello’s. The waiters were friendly and all about the show. Everything was served with a flourish and a twirl. Saturday we headed to the Parliament buildings early to beet the rush. There was a full guided tour as well as an elevator to the top of the peace tower. The building is beautifully sculptured inside with portraits of famous prime ministers and other dignitaries. The most exciting discovery I made was that the stone the building was made of is full to the brim of fossils. Its AMAZING there are some spectacular examples of worms and trilobites with I got completely over excited by. They also have a wooden carved parliamentary library which is extraordinarily ornate and stacked to the ceiling. In the afternoon we visited the National Gallery and the Notre Dame Cathedral. The cathedral is ornately decorated inside and painted completely silver on the roof which shines extraordinarily in the brilliant sunlight. We visited the Canadian hall in the national gallery where we could follow the work of Canadian artists through time. There were some spectacular modern interpreter paintings of northern landscapes including some I really loved by Lawren S. Harris which were bold and simplistic. Finally I took them to Zak’s Diner for dinner so they could experience the true joy of 50’s Diners and good Canadian burgers although they refused to try Poutine! Sunday was a more relaxed day as my folks visited campus in the morning and we walked along the Rideau Canal taking in the beautiful countryside and fresh air. We head across to Gatineau in the afternoon to visit the Canadian Museum of Civilisation which is an amazing place full of extraordinary exhibits. We only managed to see small amount in the time we had but we got to stroll through the 20 totem poles they had in the main hall intersperse with native history. We also followed European settlement as it creped across the country from the initial fisheries in the Maritimes to the Canadian Pacific Railway which allowed expansion all the way to Vancouver. We finished the day at a tiny Thai restaurant called “Coriander Thai” with the best deep fried tofu I have ever tasted. Monday was my parents last day in the city and after classes we met at Mexicali Rosa’s for good Mexican food and goodbyes. My parents also gifted me with a duvet cover which I have been meaning to buy for about two months now! All in all a great visit and I can’t wait to see the whole family again at Christmas!

I miss Tesco

My shopping trip last week was successful and I am now a proud owner of a big red extremely warm, waterproof jacket which will hopefully protect me from hypothermia through the winter. I have noticed a few things about shopping in Canada mainly I’m much better at it at home.

 

When I was looking for my jacket I simply didn’t know where to go. If I was in the UK I would know what shops to go to and what brands I would like. In Canada there are none of the shops I am used to and I have no idea where to go to find something I would wear. I think I might employ the practice makes perfect technique in this situation and shop more often.

 

It isn’t just clothing which I have had trouble with the supermarkets in Canada just don’t work the way they do at home. You can get every kind of specialist food for every allergy imaginable but you can’t buy something simple like string or tape. There are specialist shops for that! So you go to stationary store and it’s a huge cavern and you get lost and still can’t find tape. Then when you do finally find tape there are about fifty choices and before you know its taken three hours and all you wanted was tape. After thinking this all over I have come to the realisation that the shop I have missed the most since leaving the UK is Tesco. Now I know you’re going to laugh because it seems so inconsequential but think about it logically. Wherever you are and whatever you need there is always a Tesco and you can always find what you need. It sells everything you might just need to pick up quickly and there is at least one which is open twenty-four hours walking distance from your flat. You can stop in on your way back from the pub on a Friday night and buy soy milk, tape and chewing gum- if there is anywhere as amazingly designed as this is Canada I am yet to find it.

 

Thinking about missing Tesco has brought me round to thinking about how strange it’s going to be when I am back in Scotland. There will be shops I recognise, the weather will make sense, I’ll bump into people who I have known for more than 2 months and everyone will suddenly be talking with a Scottish accent. Stranger than that- I won’t be. By the time I go home at Christmas I will have been in Canada for almost four months. After four months of having to tone down my accent and drop my colloquiums as well as being exposed to Canadian slang I imagine my accent has reached the point of seriously strange. I must be an odd mix of Scottish and Canadian with rolled R’s and drawled vowels where I still use words like ‘wee’ but end sentences with ‘eh?’ I think I will be mocked, scratch that- I know I will.

Remember, Remember!

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent
To blow up King and Parli'ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

The fifth of November came and went this week without so much of a bang or a flash. It was strange even though I knew it would not be celebrated in Canada it was still sad to miss it. Of course it makes perfect sense because it is celebrated in recognition of the failed papal plot to overthrow the British parliament carried out by Guy Fakes. He smuggled several barrels of gunpowder into the cellars of Westminster in the 17^th century assumedly to blow it up. So understandably the Canadians don’t really care. I missed it more than I expected, I mean my family has never had fireworks and only ever once had sparklers but I miss the excitement of it. I missed the bonfires on street corners with the popping, cracking wood and the heat against my face as a fire throws sparks up into the sky. A sky lit up with the lights of fireworks splashing over the top of rooftops and bangs echoing through the night. It’s strange because it’s a celebration I didn’t expect to miss as much.Last Friday I went to see my first film in Canada at a fantastic small screen indie-theatre near the Bytown market. I love going to the cinema it’s the big screen, big noise and junk food you just can’t go wrong really! We saw ‘Across the Universe’ which is a musical movie using Beatles songs. I wasn’t sure I was going to like it but got very good reviews and I ended up loving it. The film follows the stories very different people who all end up living together in New York City in the 60s for various reasons all a soundtrack of amazing music.

This week has also brought the first of the really cold weather and what feels like the arrival of winter. There has been frost on the grass outside my window every morning and my breath has condensation in white clouds before me as a rush to class voiding the iced over puddles. Not to mention the hail storms which seam to appear suddenly out of nowhere just to make my walk to class that little bit more enjoyable. All this and the promise of snow by the end of the month has lead me to the decision it is time to stop putting it off and just buy a winter coat. So this afternoon I am head out on a mission to search all the shops for or nice, cheep and most importantly warm winter coat. Wish me luck!

Yo Ho Ho A Pirate’s Life For Me!

 HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!  

Yes, this week brings the fabulous celebration of Halloween. In Canada Halloween is a lot bigger than it is in the UK. All week there have been parties and theme nights and most people seem to have more than one costume so as to not be seen in the same thing twice. Most people put an extraordinary amount of effort into there costumes. Aside from the usually array of Pirates (at least I had some friends- arrrgh), Cowboys, hockey players and French maids there were some really original costumes. Three guys constructed suits of armour as well as swords and shields from cardboard boxes spray painted silver and were the Black Nights of the Triangle Table. There were also a few people overheating in inflatable sumo suits and some freezing in bikinis!

 

I decided to celebrate with my flat mates by going to the International Student Society pub crawl. We started in Hoolies a fun basement bar with karaoke and huge plasma TVs to let us watch the end of the hockey match. Then we went to Finnegans a pub with cheep drinks and a dance floor to get us all ready for our final destination Coco Loco, a Hawaiian themed club with a hot tub.  Before heading home we stopped at a greasy diner for Poutien a Quebec fast food craze which has crept over to Ottawa which consists of chips, cheese curds and curry sauce. A good night even is it was a little surreal with everyone in costume and I definitely I feel luck I don’t have classes on a Thursday.

 

This week I realised that daylight savings time occurs a week later in Canada and the USA than in the UK so for one week only I am only four hours behind everybody at home and for that matter also one week in the spring I will be six hours behind. It strikes me a rather strange and I can quite place why so I did what any confused person does these day- I googled it. As it turns out Canada’s used to be at the same time as the UK but they change it this year to coordinate with the USA so save even more confusion with time differences and border crossings although I found no explanation as to why they are different in the first place. I also discovered that in Newfoundland a Labrador the clocks change at 12.01am and not 2am like they do everywhere else and that some specific districts in British Colombia and most of Saskatchewan don’t observe daylight savings time. This really must just add to the confusion of a country which already has five time zones. There seams to be no logical reason for Saskatchewan to not follow daylight saving time, they just don’t.