We drove to Guelph on Saturday morning to pick up the car that Bruce had purchased. He didn’t put a lot of thought into it (cars have never been of that much interest to him). We are now the proud owners of a 2004 Chevi Nova, a little hoon car with a big spoiler on the back which has only done 40000 kms. We haven’t decided yet whether we will need two cars or not and while we are thinking about it, this car will be economical and easy to drive around.
We needed the car pretty quickly since we already had two invitations out to dinner for the weekend and had to give back our hire car Saturday morning (at $400 a week, it wasn’t worth keeping it too much longer while looking for a bargain car).
So on Saturday night we drove our little car over to Ron and Lisa’s house, which is not that far away and met their lovely children Davis and Rhys. Lisa went to a lot of effort to cook something that Liam (and Rosie) would eat, which was much appreciated. Ron keeps saying that he was slim before Lisa started cooking for him and we can now understand this, the meal was excellent. Bruce went to the LCBO store to buy some wine and found some Mad Fish ($15) which he bought just so that everyone had the opportuntiy to try to pronounce Cowaramup. We are starting to drink a few of the wines from the Niagara Wine district and they are quite good.
During our first week, John and Sandy, who went on exchange a couple of years ago, rang us and invited us around for dinner and the Superbowl. This was very much appreciated since Bruce wanted to watch the Superbowl with some people who might appreciate it. There was also the enticement of Liam being able to go tobanning for the first time with John’s sons Shaun (13) and Connor (11). We drove the boys to a little park area just around the corner and left them to their own devices. The aim of the activity is to start at the top of the hill and try to stay on till the bottom where stopping becomes problematic. You then walk back up the hill and repeat the process. All in all, a really good workout for all involved.
As can be seen in the photos, Liam had a lot of fun and the boys gave him every opportunity to learn to toboggan properly. Obviously he had a few crashes but that is all part of the fun.
They all walked back when they were finished and sat down to eat. Liam didn’t eat much, but then he never does.
While the boys were toboganning, we went back to the house and tried out a few beers before the game. Bruce has noticed that beer drinking has changed since he was last in Canada. Just like in Australia, everyone seems to be now drinking the more boutique beers and tend to look down on the basic Molsen’s and Labatt’s. Bruce on the other hand was looking forward to a Labatt’s, so will have to quietly drink them at home.
Again, the meal was great and the conversation about Australia and our individual experiences was very enjoyable. At around 7pm we settled in for the game, but it was a bit disappointing initially as Pittsburgh took complete control, as expected. We were all supporting Arizona since they had Ben Graham as their punter. In the fourth quarter Arizona made an unexpected comeback and with only 2 minutes to go, hit the front. Pitsburgh then put on an extremely good offensive play, where Arizona didn’t get to put any pressure on the quarterback. In the last 30 seconds they made an amazing touchdown to win the game. A much better game than we first thought.
A nice drive home in the snow followed but no real problems.
Bruce had to drive to school himself on Tuesday, since Ron was staying late and what a wonderful day to do this. In the morning visibility was very poor and snow was falling. He took it slowly and got to school safely, even though he had a little slide in the car outside the school, where the road wasn’t cleared as much as the highway. When Bruce got back to the car in the afternoon, there had been 15cm of snow and he had to spend 5 minutes clearing it off the car and scraping off the ice before being able to drive home. Again a safe journey.
Tuesday was also Bruce’s first day of teaching, so nerves set in a little as they always do at this time of the year.
Bruce couldn’t get over the number of students in the school when he arrived. There are 1600 students at Centenial and they are all in the corridors before school. It was like Christmas shopping in Myers. The day started off with the National Anthem and everyone must stop wherever they are and not move again until after announcements. It was quite stunning to see kids in the corridor standing still because they hadn’t made it to class yet, we noticed the same thing in Liam’s school on the first day.
Bruce’s classes have all started out quite well with the kids showing a lot of interest in the accent and all enjoying the novelty of having an Australian talking to them. The lessons are a bit long, but Bruce will get used to this and only having three preparations makes it easier.
The temperatures have been quite varied, Liam started on his first day with -18°C, it has stayed negative most days with a classic -22°C on Thursday. Bruce had to walk out to the portable in this, which wasn’t too bad, but then the kids all walked in over the space of about 5 minutes, meaning the door stayed open and a freezing draft filled the room. Once the door stayed closed the heating kicked in and all was fine.
After a hard week of teaching, Bruce went to the pub as usual, but there wasn’t much of a crowd there, hopefully this will improve on other occasions.
On Saturday we finally finished doing our shopping for essential clothing and had the chance to take a drive about. We went down to Lake Ontario, mainly to see where it was and what it looked like. We were expecting it to be iced over but there was no ice, just snow right up to the water line. Rosie kept saying that they must have shipped in all the rocks, she couldn’t believe that this was natural. The temperature was a very pleasant 7°C, so people were out walking there dogs and you might notice the couple in the background of the photo on the right having a BBQ in the middle of the snow field. You can see by all the chairs and tables that this must be a very popular spot when the snow melts and the sun is out.
On Valentine’s Day we took a drive to Niagara Falls (it was the Family Day long weekend, so this was the main reason for going). We got a bit lost, due mainly to poor directions from Google, but eventually we got there. Bruce saw a great parking spot between about thirty cars parked on the side of the road and we took a stroll to look at the falls. They were much more impressive than when Bruce last saw them at this time of the year, the weather conditions were excellent, though extremely crisp. The amount of water cascading over the falls was amazing and this is the slow time, due to the ice. The Maid of the Mist boat wasn’t running since the base of the falls were still a sheet of ice, but the mist from the falls plumed into the air.
As you can see, it was extremely cold and there was ice and snow everywhere.
When we walked back to the car we noticed that there were no cars parked there anymore and lots of signs saying that you will be towed away. Liam was very upset that we had lost everything, including his DVD player. We had to go back to the falls shop to find out where our car might have ended up and then got the opportunity to see the seedier parts of Niagara Falls as our taxi driver (who was very good really) searched for the towing company. Eventually we found it only to be asked why we didn’t pick up the car back at the falls where they were hiding it. I think the concept of hiding escaped them, how were we expected to find it. A pleasant $100 later and we were on our way home a lot wiser than before.
On Sunday we went back to Glen Eden to go for our first ski expedition. It is only 30 minutes away and open until 9pm, so we didn’t have to rush up there which suited Liam and Rosie a lot. It took longer in the rental queue than it took to drive there. The conditions were fantastic and a relatively small crowd given its proximity. The slopes are very short and relatively easy which again suited Rosie and Liam, but we were more interested in keeping everything simple and trying to get Liam more engaged in the skiing. Liam had a great day and didn’t complain once so you would have to say that the day achieved its purpose. We were able to get Liam a Grade 5 ski pass which gives him free skiing at nearly all the ski resorts in Ontario and Quebec.
We will now try to visit as many as we can to make the most use of this. Next week we will have to look at purchasing skis second hand since it could get expensive otherwise.
On the weekend of February 21st, we took the drive to Camp Wanakita, with a name like that, how could you not go. We took our directions from Google Maps, which have been very reliable in the past. We set out on a snowy, windy Friday evening for the 4 hour drive, taking Kaye with us as our navigator. We missed a couple of turns, but eventually we got to within a few kilometres of the camp and then started to have a few problems. The first was that they changed a street name on us and then just as we thought all was well, we suddenly ran out of graded road. While contemplating out next move, a car came back from the ungraded section, so we asked for directions. Hearing the reply with an Australian accent didn’t fill us with confidence, Steve was also lost, but he had the advantage of a GPS in his car so we followed him and found our way there on an alternative route. Google doesn’t always take the best route, just the shortest. Surely they know whether the snow plough has cleared the roads!!!
Once we settled in and had a cup of coffee and a few sticky buns (traditional in Canada), We found ourselves sharing a room with a group of Canadians who had been on exchange before. We had Bruce, Casey, Declan, Rosie, Kerry, Ikira, Cinde, Liam and Ned.
All up we made a great group, with a reasonable amount of drinking but also a lot of enthusiasm for the outdoor pursuits. The idea of these weekends is to get exchange people together to talk about their experiences and reminisce about their own exchange. We also get the chance to experience some real Canadian activities. Kaye, an exchange teacher from Brisbane, doesn’t have a car yet so we gave her a lift there, it was good to be able to discuss our experiences so far and to discuss future holiday plans.
On the Saturday morning we all set out for our first activity, snow shoeing. We were given a short history of snow shoes and then given our choice of the old style (look good but very hard to use) or the new modern style. We then went for a back country walk over the frozen beaver ponds and through the bush. It was beautiful.
In the afternoon we all tried cross country skiing. This requires a lot of energy and is quite difficult to start with, but after a few lessons Liam and Bruce were having races. By the time we finished we had built up quite a sweat and Bruce was just wearing a T-Shirt, not bad for -2°C.
Next was broom ball, which was like field hockey on ice, wearing our shoes. Fortunately we all had helmets on since there were many spills and crashes. Both Rosie and Bruce ended up very bruised and were surprised they could still move the next day. Liam loved it.
That evening we had a choice as to whether we wanted to snow shoe across to the other side of the lake or to cross country ski. We intended skiing but were so sore after all the activity that a nice stroll in snow shoes was more to our style. The wind was blowing and the snow was coming down but we were rewarded on the other side with a big fire and a cup of hot chocolate. As we walked back afterwards we couldn’t help but reflect on how many of our friends had ever snow shoed across a frozen lake in a blizzard.
Camp Wanakita is run by the YMCA and we were very impressed by the overall setup. The cost was reasonable and included use of all the gear along with instructors to help you learn to use the equipment. The meals were great and the overall atmosphere was so uplifiting, helpful and educational. In summer they run all the usual kids camps that you see on the movies and we can now see why the kids like the camps so much.
Sunday morning we chose the easy option of tobogganing and had a thoroughly enjoyable time. Who would think that a simple concept of walking up a hill and then sliding down on something flat could be so much fun. Liam and Bruce had a lot of fun coming down together and the extra weight gave them the momentum to just keep going at the bottom.
We were joined on the slope by Brian and Peta, who had twin 3 yr olds zooming down the hill with us. We all found the mattress to be a bit of fun since you could fit the whole family onto it, you then gently went down the slope. It reminded me a bit of Julie Andrews mattress surfing in “The Princess Diaries”.
After lunch we packed up and had a much easier drive home. We followed Cinde till we knew where we were going and the route was much more direct. We will have to remember this for our return journey in the fall when we will go canoeing and hiking. While driving home, Bruce reached down for the drink bottle that was left in the car during our stay and found it to be frozen solid, lucky there was some expansion room in the bottle or it would have burst. It stayed solid for the whole trip home.
Overall, this was a very memorable and unexpected experience and reinforced our idea that we must say yes to every activity and think afterwards whether they were good or not.
