Spring Break

So I have eventually returned from my whirlwind tour of the USA that we crammed into our ten day spring break. The original plan included two twelve hour bus journeys, two plane flights, three cities and two different coasts.

 

We had planned to roll out of Ottawa early Friday morning and head for New York City however out organisations skills meant that we missed the early bus leaving us to arrive at 12.30am rather than the far more respectable 8.30pm. However New York was worth the ridiculous travel time and we squeezed allot into our two days in the city. We saw Times Square, the Chrysler Building, climbed the Empire State Building, sailed past the Statue of Liberty on the Staten Island Ferry and even managed to secure tickets to see ‘Legally Blond’ on Broadway.

 

On Monday we jetted cross country to the west coast to the city of San Francisco. I adore San Francisco, it’s a vibrant and exciting city with intense distinct neighbourhoods and allot of stuff you might term as history. San Francisco was a change of pace in the holiday where we did less and enjoyed more. We visited Alcatraz to learn the history of what once was the USA’s most secure prison. We spent time on Pier 39 which offers beautiful coastal views, historical ships and sea lions as well as excellent fish restaurants. We spent time wandering through the vintage clothes and second hand bookstores in the old hippy areas where I struggled not to blow all my money, watched a parade in China Town celebrating Chinese New Year and drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and most excitingly for my geologist’s brain, saw the trace of the San Andreas Fault. San Francisco also gave us the opportunity to eat out in good restaurants and heave quiet nights out in lively cocktail bars so by Friday we were relaxed, well fed and ready to head to Boston out final stop on the trip.

 However flying to Boston is allot harder than initially anticipated as our flight was cancelled due to the heavy snow storms that blanked the city and suddenly we couldn’t leave San Francisco until Sunday night. To be honest this was not a major disappointment to me as I was enjoying San Francisco too much to want to leave. This delay in our flights did leave us with one minor problem- I needed to be back in Ottawa by Tuesday for a midterm exam which meant that there was no time for a rest between out plane and out bus journey. Our plane left San Francisco at 9.15pm and touched down in New York City at 5.20am. From JFK airport we headed to Port Authority bus station to catch the first bus to Ottawa. This bus left at 9.30 and with the stop at the boarder and a change in Montreal didn’t arrive into Ottawa until twelve hours later. We splashed out on a taxi back to campus and I crashed into bed almost 36hours after I got up and slept. An exhausting journey but totally worth it.

Winterlude

This week Ottawa is in the middle of the Winterlude festival. This tradition is a tradition celebrated in many Canadian cities and is the Canadian winter festival. In Ottawa these festivities are centred on the Rideau Canal as it freezes in the winter to become the longest skate way in the world.

 

This week marked my first venture out onto this historic ice rink and it was eventful to say the least. I have purchased a pair of budget hockey skates on the recommendation of my Canadian friends with the assurance that I will love skating and they will be a major improvement on the rentals. My skating experience consists of a few trips to indoor rinks as a kid and the usual trip to the temporary rinks in Glasgow or Edinburgh every Christmas. Therefore my skills on the ice are pretty non- excitant. We stumbled out onto the canal in the early evening just as the sun was setting over and casting a pinkish glow over the scenery and just as the snow began to spiral from the sky. We rushed piles of snow off the benched placed on the ice of the canal to change into out skates and we were ready. I rose unsteadily to my feet and scraped my skates tentatively over the bumpy surface. Skating on the canal is more difficult to master than skating anywhere else I have been as the surface is much rougher than the artificial rinks I have skated on before now. However I found skating with more confidence and a little more speed as well as pretending that the ice was flat helped a little and soon I was managing to propel myself in a forward direction, not with any style but at least I was skating and not falling too much. Skating on the canal is a beautiful experience when we arrived it was quiet and calm and I felt like I was visiting another world as the snow spiralled around us and the sun slowly set.

 

The peace and magic of our ice skate was broken by a yell from one of my friends and I turned to see her lying on the ice clutching her knee and yelling “It popped out!” It looked gross and very painful. We called 911 and tried to describe exactly where we were exactly on the ice and then described how to get there. Eventually after some detailed descriptions and 30 minuets of confusion they eventually arrived and whisked her off to French speaking hospital for even more confusion and more pain as they popped it back in!

 

Despite this slightly unfortunate start to my Canadian ice skating I have returned again to skating on the canal to perfect my technique. Ok- so my technique is a long way from being perfect but it was improved as well as being enjoyable and definitely less eventful than the first trip.

 

The other festivities associated with Winterlude include a snow sculpture competition, a snow slide park and a multitude of outdoor concerts. I’m still trying to figure out why in this freezing cold country Canadians feel it is logical to celebrate winter with outdoor entertainment. Therefore these events are scattered throughout the various parks and open spaces thought the city. So it has been another week celebrating the winter and I have to say I’m looking forward to the sun in San Francisco.

Winterlude

This week Ottawa is in the middle of the Winterlude festival. This tradition is a tradition celebrated in many Canadian cities and is the Canadian winter festival. In Ottawa these festivities are centred on the Rideau Canal as it freezes in the winter to become the longest skate way in the world.

 

This week marked my first venture out onto this historic ice rink and it was eventful to say the least. I have purchased a pair of budget hockey skates on the recommendation of my Canadian friends with the assurance that I will love skating and they will be a major improvement on the rentals. My skating experience consists of a few trips to indoor rinks as a kid and the usual trip to the temporary rinks in Glasgow or Edinburgh every Christmas. Therefore my skills on the ice are pretty non- excitant. We stumbled out onto the canal in the early evening just as the sun was setting over and casting a pinkish glow over the scenery and just as the snow began to spiral from the sky. We rushed piles of snow off the benched placed on the ice of the canal to change into out skates and we were ready. I rose unsteadily to my feet and scraped my skates tentatively over the bumpy surface. Skating on the canal is more difficult to master than skating anywhere else I have been as the surface is much rougher than the artificial rinks I have skated on before now. However I found skating with more confidence and a little more speed as well as pretending that the ice was flat helped a little and soon I was managing to propel myself in a forward direction, not with any style but at least I was skating and not falling too much. Skating on the canal is a beautiful experience when we arrived it was quiet and calm and I felt like I was visiting another world as the snow spiralled around us and the sun slowly set.

 

The peace and magic of our ice skate was broken by a yell from one of my friends and I turned to see her lying on the ice clutching her knee and yelling “It popped out!” It looked gross and very painful. We called 911 and tried to describe exactly where we were exactly on the ice and then described how to get there. Eventually after some detailed descriptions and 30 minuets of confusion they eventually arrived and whisked her off to French speaking hospital for even more confusion and more pain as they popped it back in!

 

Despite this slightly unfortunate start to my Canadian ice skating I have returned again to skating on the canal to perfect my technique. Ok- so my technique is a long way from being perfect but it was improved as well as being enjoyable and definitely less eventful than the first trip.

 

The other festivities associated with Winterlude include a snow sculpture competition, a snow slide park and a multitude of outdoor concerts. I’m still trying to figure out why in this freezing cold country Canadians feel it is logical to celebrate winter with outdoor entertainment. Therefore these events are scattered throughout the various parks and open spaces thought the city. So it has been another week celebrating the winter and I have to say I’m looking forward to the sun in San Francisco.

The Leafs and the Patriots

For me this week has been dominated by sports, more specifically my confused and muddled attempt to understand the scary new lands of North American sports.

 

The most exciting sporting event of the weekend was the near miraculous win of the Toronto Maple Leafs over the Ottawa Senators for what must have been only the third time this season. For anyone not into hockey- that’s bad. Considering that Ottawa is my adopted Canadian hometown my joy at there defeat my come as a surprise but I was recruited to leafs mania by my Torontonian flat mate and can’t claim to regret the choice. The Leafs are the underdogs, no-one actually expects them to win so when they do the celebrations are fantastic. The Leafs have an obsessive and committed fan base that turn up religiously to every game to watch their team get destroyed, while truly believe that this year will be the year they win the first trophy in 40 years. This kind of support is brilliantly because it reminds me of home and the ‘Tartan Army’ which seems to suffer from the same delusion. Hockey is a sport I enjoy, it is fast paced and exciting, it requires lots of skill to play and looks fantastic. It’s a sport full of ‘characters’ and the game will frequently dissolve into violent fights in the middle of the ice with the puck lying forgotten.

 

This weekend also brought the most exciting American football event of the year- the Superbowl. This was my first introduction to the sport and I thought for sure I was in for a great evening; we had tickets for what claimed to be ‘the Greatest Superbowl Party Ever!’ at Oliver’s Bar and I was ready. When we arrived the place was packed with excited fans, banners adorned the walls and drinks were being served in football shaped glasses. We found ourselves seats next to one of the huge screens that were scattered round the bar and I prepared myself for the biggest game of the year. It was going to be a battle between two of the greats with the New York Giants and the New England Patriots and tensions were high as the patriots were on track for a record breaking perfect season.

 

After about half an hour of watching I knew for sure that I hate American football. The official game time for a game is one hour so after thirty minuets you would expect to be nearing half time. However American football is played in infuriatingly short bursts of ‘set plays’ that I won’t pretend to understand and last usually about ten seconds. This crazy broken play is further disrupted by advertisements which are shown every ten minuets so you feel as if you are watching adverts broken up by football instead of the other way round. Therefore the hour long game dragged on to almost four hours of boredom. About the only exciting thing about the game was that the Giants won seventeen to fourteen and destroyed the Patriots perfect season. I left the game with one certainty I would not be watching another. At least Hockey is bigger in Canada, there’s a sport I can enjoy.