Highs and Lows

As I mentioned in my last blog the huge highlight of the week was the Foo Fighters gig. I have of course been to several other gigs in Ottawa but they have all been smaller indie shows in bars like Zaphod’s or Barrymore’s and this was my first big stadium gig. It was simply amazing! We all pilled into the back of a friend’s truck to drive across town to the stadium and blared their music the whole way singling along as we grew more and more excited.

 

The gig was at Scotiabank Place and this was an odd choice but a necessary one. Strange because Scotiabank place is the home of Ottawa Senators and a hockey stadium for a start so consist of a huge oval arena with the seats around an ice rink which does not immediate lend itself to a rock concert. However for a Foo Fighters gig it was unavoidable as it is the only venue capable of holding all there screaming fans. The stage was set at one end of the oval creating the only downside that a huge majority of the crowd have to sit a long way from the band. However halfway through the gig the problem was miraculously solved by the genius that is the Foo Fighters when they lowered a second stage into the centre of the standing pit and bringing the band incredibly close to where we were sitting. This was my second time seeing the Foo Fighters live and their show is all ways worth seeing because there live show always consists of interesting rare songs, new adaptations and this time even a triangle solo. After two hours of fantastic entertainment I went to sleep last Wednesday with a smile on my face and music ringing in my ears.

 

Unfortunately this last week has also brought the first of my final exams for this semester and the pressure of studying and work are now pressing down on me. I have two essays as well as two presentations due at the end of next week and then four more final exams in mid-April. All this work mayhem creates a dichotomy as I wish that it will all be over soon but also dread that it will because when this term ends it will mark the end of my time at Carleton and I will certainly miss it. Carleton has given me brilliant opportunities, shown me new courses and subjects, helped me find new friends from all over the world and most importantly given me the chance of a lifetime to live in a whole new country. However the end of term does bring some exciting new adventures since I have a whole month to travel from East to West by train for before I have to leave Canada.

 

So this week has brought highs in the glory of a brilliant gig and lows in the ever looming presence of exams, deadlines and of course the inevitable end of my time in Canada.

St Patrick’s Day

You might assume that St. Patrick’s Day would not be as big a deal in Canada that it is back at home but you would be wrong, so very, very wrong. St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated to an insane extent across North America in a way that puts the UK to shame. Many of the baseball and hockey teams where green jerseys in celebration of the day, many cities dye there rivers and canals green while other paint all the buildings on the parade rout instead, people are known to have dinner parties containing only green food and drink and of course like in the UK finding a good bar and drinking green Guinness for most of the day.

Celebrations were of course extended this year because the Pope moved St. Patrick’s Day from the 17^th to the 15^th in observation of Easter Holly week. Of course for all those who are not Christian this effectively created two St. Patrick’s Days or even better one three day long party.

I celebrated the occasion in Montreal with Canada’s oldest St. Patrick’s Day parade that started in 1824 with my one of my flatmates. People showed up in their thousands and braved the cold and snowy weather to watch the parade pass through down the main-streets of the city. There was an entertaining mix of acts in the parade from marching and pipe bands, to roller-skaters and cheerleaders to firemen and many famous people who I didn’t recognise but was told that they were very important anyway. There were floats celebrating the cities many Irish dance and music societies as well as it many Irish pubs. Local radio and televisions stations also put in an appearance with floats blaring music across the city and handing out green flags, beads and hats to everyone as they passed. The parade was lead by a ten foot tall moving statue of the pope dressed in green holding a shamrock and ended with the Montreal American Football team waving from the open top of a double-decker bus.

After the parade was over we found a somewhere to eat warm food and warms drinks to thaw out after our extended period flag waving on the street. We found a little café that served Poutine and other fries of every variety imaginable. After filling our stomachs and thawing our fingers we headed back out onto the streets to work our way through all the little boutiques that are scattered along St Catherine Street and sell beautiful jewellery and clothes that I wish I could afford. St Catherine Street eventually fades into more affordable and mainstream shops and malls and we whiled away the rest of the afternoon trying to no buy everything we saw in the labyrinth of malls and underground tunnels. Not bad for a daytrip.

The rest of the week was uneventful except for tonight when I am heading out to see the Foofighters in two hours so I will leave to get myself ready for the party!

Snow

Now I know that I have bolgged about snow to an almost ridicules extent in the past few months but like any good Brit (and any good Canadian for that matter) I can talk endlessly about the weather.

 

This weekend saw the arrival of Ottawa’s biggest winter storm of the season with 50cm of snow falling on Saturday night, pushing the totally snowfall for this winter well over the 4m mark. This is means that Ottawa is only 30cm short of having its snowiest winter on record.

 

This ridicules snowfall also means that the snow outside has now reached the height of my window and that I couldn’t get out the building on Sunday as drifts were reaching up to 8m high. Even if I could have got outside it would have been very difficult to get anywhere. Even id I didn’t get swept off my feet or buried in snow and managed to struggle my way to the bus stop there would have been no busses. Most public transport ground to a halt on Sunday as busses could no longer navigate the snow clogged roads. On campus no roads got ploughed until Monday morning so most shops and sports facilities closed as their staff couldn’t get to work. This was the pattern through out the city as snow fell faster than ploughs could move it and even when snow was being moved they have run out of places to push it.

 

Stories have been trickling in all week about crazy disruptions caused by this epic storm. The o-train got suck in a drift and passengers had to hike back to roads. There were hundreds of abandoned cars on unploughed streets were not being moved because the tow-trucks also got stuck and then the ploughs couldn’t clear the street. Ambulances couldn’t reach thousands of destinations and were parking on ploughed streets and snowshoeing to accidents. The police patrols had changed from cars to skidoos to allow them reach most areas of the city. All fights to and from the airport were cancelled and many others just scheduled to pass over eastern Ontario were forced to land. Therefore thousands of people were trapped in the airport and forced to spend Saturday night sleeping in the terminal. This was not the only case of people being trapped as thousands of shop and office workers elected to sleep at work rather than brave the weather home.

 

Despite all this mayhem and getting a little trapped I really do hope that Ottawa gets that final 30cm of snow before the spring thaw. To be in the city during its snowiest winter ever would be an exciting experience but even is this doesn’t happen I still will have experienced the snowiest winter season in 60 years.

 

So anther blog on snow and I hope that I have something new to talk about next week or that we will have broken that record and I’ll have more now to talk about.

Looking Back

This week has been quite compared to the last and has slipped past surprisingly quickly in a blur of exams and studying and work. It worries me that there have been many weeks when I have felt this happening and I start to wonder if I have wasted my time here in Canada. In light of this disconcerting feeling I have tried to sum up my feelings and experiences of the country (so far) in my blog this week.

 

When my plane first touched down on Canadian soil it was still summer and Canada was a land of mystery and wonder to me. The sun was shining from the bright blue sky over wide streets in a city made of sky scrapers. Summer was the season of new experiences the sunny weather reflecting my mood of excitement. I explored the city of Ottawa finding all the best places to eat drink and hang out in the city. I spent hours exploring the city’s parks from the Rideau Canal for Gatineau Park and hours more finding good places for live music. I was in love with my new city and never wanted my time there to end.

 

Summer turned into autumn and the trees turned into every glorious share of red and orange imaginable. As the leaves fell and crumpled from the trees, even as the world became a beautiful paint pallet I felt that feeling of wonder leave with it and as the brisk October wind blew after thanksgiving weekend I started missing home. The city so full of wonder still felt too strange and I longed for the familiar streets of Edinburgh.

 

November brought the end of autumn as the now bare trees were blanketed in snow and winter began in full force. Perhaps it was simply the passage of time or maybe the snow which brought about my change in mood but either way winter brought with it a sense of contentment. It could be simply that I no longer feel slightly lost as I have to fully concentrate on where I’m going far too much to enjoy shopping but in any case Ottawa became home. Of course it could just as likely be that the joy I feel in the snow and the beauty in Canada’s frozen landscape has once again captivated. I re-explored all the places I found when I first arrived and returning to them drew me back into the wondrous mindset I was in when I first arrived in Canada.

 

Now in March as the days finally start to become warmer, even only slightly I look towards spring and the exciting new adventures it will bring, in Ottawa and as much of Canada I can squeeze in before I return home. As I read back over what I have read in this blog I have realised that I have basically describe ‘the three steps of living in a new country’ written in the university handbook. This are ‘honeymoon’, ‘home sickness’ and ‘a new home’ I think my way sounds more exciting.