On Thursday, 22nd January, we finally left the US to travel to Canada. We flew out on Air Canada, which surprised us a lot. We were expecting a Qantas and got a Virgin Blue. As you can see from the photo, Las Vegas wants you to get to the casinos quickly, I am sure some of the hangers back straight onto a casino. The four big casinos you can see are the ones around where we stayed.
It took forever to get through immigration in Canada but everything was in order so we had no problems. By the time we finished in immigration our bags were waiting for us and we just walked out of the airport, no customs checks. Greg and our sponsor Ron came and picked us up, taking us to our hotel. It was a bit late when we arrived (Toronto time) but we hadn’t eaten so we went for a short walk to the nearest restaurant. Unfortunately we arrived exactly at 10pm when they closed. We then had to go for a longer walk until we got to McDonalds which was still open. Fortunately it was only about -7°C so we survived.
The next day we picked up our hire car and took a drive to Liam’s school and enrolled him. They were very helpful and everything went smoothly. We then took a drive around the area before going to the house to pick up the key and to meet Judy for the first time. Greg and Judy were both flat out getting organised for their own trip but we had a good talk and a bit of a look around.
On Saturday we went to an orientation event where they went over a bit of information. They put on a very good child minding centre, which Liam enjoyed, and it was good to meet a few of the other teachers and hear about the upcoming events. We will try to get to as many as we can.
After this we did a bit of shopping (something that was to become the bane of our lives over the next few days) hoping to find Liam some suitable outer wear for going to school. Finally we set out for the house so that we could settle in and unpack our bags for the year.
It was nice to be able to finally start to settle down and it was nice that Greg and Judy left us a few little gifts to make us feel welcome (they are obviously more thoughtful than we are, Bruce just left lots of wine). Liam investigated the whole house and then happily set up his bedroom. By late Saturday night we were nearly settled in.
First thing Sunday morning Bruce had to go out and clear the ice from all the windows (he has had to do this each morning this week). We then went off looking for clothing again but everything in Liam’s size was sold out because of the really cold snap.
On Australia Day, we all walked off to school in -18°C with Liam dressed in four shirts and two jumpers. The principal met us at the door, took one look at Liam and suggested that he might have to stay inside during the breaks since he didn’t have a warm jacket (he was allowed out since it was only -10°C). That day we got him a good jacket. After school we went to pick him up and by the time he finally came out, Bruce had lost all sense of feeling in one of his fingers – next day Bruce wore a really good pair of gloves.
On Tuesday it was only -14°C when we walked to school. That afternoon, Liam became impatient and tried to walk home without us (we weren’t late, he just left early). This meant another long wait outside looking for him, with the help of his teacher Mr Lucas and the secretaries. We found him when he came back, he went down the wrong street. During the day we got Liam some ski pants so he was now all set to go outside and play, he was ecstatic and immediately got dressed in everything and went out into the backyard to make snow angels.
The forecast for Wednesday was a massive front to come in and dump 20-30cm of snow. We got Liam all dressed up, as can be seen on the left, and again walked off the school. It was a pleasant -2°C, and everything was covered in snow.
When Rosie and Bruce got home, Rosie was very keen to get her first chance to shovel snow so we went out and cleared the driveway and path. The exercise was great and there was a real sense of achievement for a couple of minutes when you looked at the job we had done.
Unfortunately it was forcast to snow all day, so a few minutes after we finished you couldn’t see the driveway anymore and by this evening it will be hard to see the difference between ours and those who hadn’t bothered.
The good side to the snow is that Bruce’s school was closed, putting the exam schedule back a day. This means that the PD day will be on Monday and he won’t have to start teaching until Tuesday.
Our next major concern is getting a car, we were going to look today but the snow stopped that so it will have to be Thursday.
