Home

Coming home from Canada has left me with a very strange mix of emotions. One the one hand I’m excited to see all the people and places I missed so much when I was away that made me homesick and on the other I’m homesick for all the people and places I left behind. Coming home also made me realise how much it isn’t the big obvious things that even make you homesick. I missed all the familiar things that make up the city of Edinburgh, the cobbled streets, the familiar shops, my favourite café, the castle and a million other landmarks even if those landmarks like they so often are only landmarks in my mind. I missed ‘landmarks’ like my favourite place to sit in the gardens, the building sight wall with my favourite graffiti, that rut in the pavement I always trip over! It is not really these things that made me realise I was home it was much simpler things, and the strange little dirt path that leads nowhere behind my flat. However the excitement and relief of finally being home really rushed back to me when I ate a packet of pickled onion Monster Munch, which are impossible to find in Canada along with a huge list of other foods like Marmite, polo mints and Tesco brand tortilla chips. This in turn made me realise that there are similar things I will miss about Canada like Silk brand Soy Milk and Mike ’n’ Ike’s jelly beans. Now I’ll miss other things about Canada not only the food like Zaphod’s Bar- the best place for music and Tila Tequila- the worst! I’ll miss having the canal to run along (or ice-skate along depending on the season), I’ll miss that it actually snows in the winter and that there seams to be a protest outside the parliament every single day of the year. Most of all I’ll miss all the people I met and friends I made but I suppose as a trade off I get to see everyone I left behind last September. Coming home is also strange because everything is not quite how it looked a year ago. It’s like someone had taken Edinburgh and shifted it ever so slightly, road-works have moved and buildings have popped up, shops have closed and new ones have opened. All this means that I find myself walking along, suddenly noticing something new and then finding myself a little confused because it’s as if everyone else in Edinburgh just jumped forwards a year and left me behind.

Coming home had also brought with it a bit of a reality check. In allot of ways being on exchange in Canada is like living in a dream or just being on holiday. Your requirements for the year are to pass your courses, you can’t get a job on your VISA so you have no work commitments, and you meet a million new people from all over the world and travel around as much as you possibly can. It is fantastic exciting and exhilarating. Now that I’m home I realise the need for a job is much greater than before, I have a dissertation topic to pick and then write and a degree to finish but in a way its just the next stage of the crazy adventure that is life and it will bring its own exciting challenges and I can’t wait.

In the Middle of it

When you start a big trip like this one it is incredibly difficult to know if all your plans have been enough and if its all going to work out, if you did enough planning, read enough books and saved enough money but at the same time didn’t over plan and spoil the trip. Before I left Ottawa I began to worry that I was cramming far too many stops into this tiny short month and that instead of seeing everything I would see nothing. I can safely say I think we did pretty well.

Travelling buy train is a perfect way to see and understand the vastness and diversity of this country. We started on the damp and cloudy east coast where we smelt the salty tang of the fresh Atlantic air. Then before we knew it we were in French speaking Quebec surrounded buy good food and winding streets. Then onto the big city of super-urban Toronto with its baseball and skyscrapers. Except these places weren’t reached in the blink of and eye and the roar of a jet engine but by the slow craw of a train snaking across the landscape. The feeling of travel that a train gives you and the way you can watch the landscape develop is where the magic of train travel lies for me.

After Toronto came the slow crawl across the never ending flat expanse that is the Prairie Provinces. We passed mile after mile of nothing, nothing that stretched out so far you can see the curve of the earth’s surface on the horizon. This incredible monotony only broken by the odd deserted road winding gently beside the train tracks and the odd blip on the horizon that grain elevators allow. Of course we have stopped in many of the prairie cities and one thing is for sure they are strange places, like islands in this vast sea of emptiness. Each of these had there one special charm, Saskatoon with is beautiful river and slightly insane shop assistants, Edmonton with the worlds largest mall and Calgary with its surprisingly good shopping and tantalising glimpse of the Rocky Mountains. Only Winnipeg was a disappointment to me because although the deserted and derelict industrial areas had a certain sad charm to them, it was essentially a dirty, run down and poor city which I ultimately found depressing.

So when we finally boarded the train to the city of Jasper deep in the Rocky Mountains I couldn’t wait for the change of scenery. It is a spectacular sight to see the huge snow covered mountains rise over the horizon until they seam impossibly vast. They also bring a huge sense of relief as you leave the intense flatness and are suddenly bombarded with everything, trees and lakes and elk and eagles and even a couple of black bears! The Rockies are beautiful a snowy wonderland of awe inspiring views, lush forest and crisp fresh air. I love the Rockies because of the beauty and freedom of them but I also can’t wait to board that train again and move on because that’s the draw of the railway, that need to board that train again to watch more of this amazing country slip by the window unstill we can stumble out into our next dazzling location. Next stop Vancouver and the Pacific Ocean!

A new Journey Begins

Unfortunately to start my exciting new adventure I had to end my last one and leave the wonderful city of Ottawa that has been my home since September. Stripping my room of all my photos and posters to leave just a bare empty shell and hugging goodbye to all new friends I had made unsure of when I would see them again was hard. So it was with mixed emotions that I got onto a plane and we left Ottawa, flying east to the start point of our epic journey that will take a month to complete. I am (hopefully) going to complete coast to coast crossing of Canada on the Pan Canadian Railway with my equally crazy flatmate, Julia. This journey will take us from the city of Halifax in Nova Scotia over 3000 miles west to the city of Vancouver on the pacific coastline.

So we flew form Ottawa to this historic starting point, Halifax. The city of Halifax is the capital of Nova Scotia and the province of new Scotland really lives up to its name. It feels Scottish not in the medieval castles and kings way but in a far more rough and modern way. The streets are often narrow and winding climbing over hills and crisscrossing in every direction in a way unexpected of North America. The buildings have a grimy industrial early 1990s architecture that reminded me so much of many of the streets in my own home town of Glasgow. This along with the grey overcast skies and the constant threat of rain Halifax felt almost like going home. Now don’t get me wrong Halifax is a great city with some beautiful and interesting sights. The harbour has a twisting boardwalk crammed with hundreds ranging from modern motor boats to grand old sail boats and of course the famous Theodore. Theodore is the tug boat- the actual working and frequently used tug boat- that just so happens to have a giant smiling face painted on it and stars in its own kinds TV show! Halifax also boasts something else that few other Canadian cities can, a (relatively) long and definitely interesting history it has a hilltop fort buried into the side of mound that the town has grown around. This fort of course built to protect the city from the threat of first French and then later American armies. Now of course the fort is best at offering spectacular panoramic views of the city all the way out to the Atlantic Ocean. It has a haunted church where the shadow of an ill fated monk can be seen praying at the window and however many times they replace the glass or clean the window the figure can still be seen.

As I write this I only now feel like the journey is truly beginning. I am sitting on our first train as we zip across three provinces on our way to Quebec City. It feels exciting to be starting this epic and historic journey however for the moment there is nothing to do but wave goodbye to Halifax and watch eighteen hours of Canadian countryside fly by my window.

The Masquerade Gala

This week is the last week of term and apart from the sudden pressure of essays and exam deadlines drawing ever closer it had brought a few ‘lasts’ for me. I had my last ever class at Carleton today which left me with mixed feelings because on the one hand it’s nice to know that the term is over and there is nothing new to learn but on the other hand it’s very sad because I will never have another Carleton class. One of my friends said that it’s like graduation but with all of the sad and none of the excitement. Although since neither of us have ever graduated I don’t know how he can be so sure. I am acutely aware of trying to not get too bogged down with this thought and that I shouldn’t get too caught up in the thought of it ending that I forget to enjoy these last few weeks. However it is ever present in my mind these days and I guess it’s because everyone is looking towards the end, everybody is celebrating there last class, can’t wait to hand in their last paper and are counting the days until their last exam. Of course this is exactly the mentality I would have and do have when I’m at home but because these are all the last time I will do these things ever the joy in them is tinged in a little bit of sadness. My final last for this week was the final event run by the international centre which was the Masquerade Gala.

The Masquerade Gala was an event and a half and definitely one of the most enjoyable ‘lasts’ of the week. The evening started as most evenings do with the mad rush to get ready. It was a formal event so we were all dressed up in dresses and heals and of course masks. The only trouble with masks is that since I only own glasses and have not contact lenses I had to choose between a mask and being able to see- I chose the mask! The event was being held at a fairly unique venue, the Ottawa War Museum so we arrived in out finery to be greeted by a banquet hall filled with tanks and half destroyed vehicles. After briefly hanging around at the cocktail bar we quickly claimed a table for our large group and before long the buffet was open. Now I completely object to buffets at formal events, not because I feel it’s not classy enough but because it is impossible to get your money’s work while wearing a very neat fitting dress. After we had all eaten out fill or at least our dresses fill the entertainment began. As the event was run by the international society the performers reflected this with singers and dancers from all corners of the globe. There were African dancers jumping to the sounds of the drums, Chinese dancers swaying daintily to soft music and an amazing array of singers who wowed the audience into silence. The evening was rounded off by a DJ and our bizarre banquet hall was transformed into an even stranger nightclub and we danced the rest of the night away.

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!

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.

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.

Qubec City

Quebec City is truly amazing, a beautiful winter wonderland. The heart of the city known as ‘Old Town’ sits perched on the highest point overlooking the river. In this area the streets winds randomly up and down the hilly landscape. These narrow streets are further closed in by the brick buildings each with an individual character then and this whole shambles in enclosed by the city’s defensive walls. From the battlements the whole of the surrounding landscape can be surveyed. Bellow this defensive boundary is ‘New Town’ built after the risk of attack from first the British and later the Americans had passed. This area squeezed under the cliff and linked by a number of seemingly endless stairways is traditionally is area of merchants and the streets are filled with shops and cafes squeezed into tiny units selling everything for clothes and shoes to pastries to glassware blown on site.

 

Moving further from the cliff side and the walls is an industrial area and eventually the St Laurent River. In the summer this port accepts hundreds of cruise ships which sail in from the Atlantic Ocean. However in the winter only the two ferry boats shuttle back and forth the 900 meters between Quebec City and Levis. These ferries churn through the half frozen waters. Huge frozen chunks of ice float slowly along in the gentle current as the horrendously cold temperatures freeze the surface water and then strong tides shatter it again. Behind the Old Town lies the Plains of Abraham, a huge park protected from roads and development and is filled with cross-country skiers.

 

Quebec City is a place in love with winter. It hosts the largest winter festival in the world. This celebration includes and incredible month of events from ice skating to dog slaying and outdoor concerts. The most prominent of these events is the ‘Ice Bash’ competition. This is a three mile long downhill extreme skating rink that winds it was downhill through Old Town, over jumps, ramps, steps and hairpin bends to end up at the gates of New Town. The best of Canada’s extreme ice skaters gather here to hurl themselves down this ramp at speeds reaching close to 40 miles per hour as they race each other for the title as champion.

 

The city is sprinkled with Christmas lights which remain on display until the end of February. Adding to the decorations are the ice and snow sculptures scattered through out the city which sometimes even creating elaborate restaurant fronts or outdoor bars. The most elaborate of these lies a short distance from the city and is the world famous Ice Hotel. This building is carved entirely out of snow and ice in the month of December and remains open until the spring melt. Everything in the hotel is made of ice, the beds, the tables, the chairs, the nightclub, and the glasses for your drinks even the pen you sign the visitor’s book with. The walls are covered in elaborate and beautiful carvings which make this a fantastic place to visit but I imagine an uncomfortable place to stay.

 

My weekend in Quebec City was exciting as it is an amazing place to celebrate the winter although the temperature was regularly bellow -25oC. So despite this being a winter wonderland I think next time I will visit in the summer.