Our Canada trip is coming to an end. We said goodbye to Ottawa a couple of days ago. We went on several walks, had a few nice farewell dinners, Dave played a final game of tennis and we got a couple of souvenirs.
It took us 9 hours to cross the country and get to Vancouver. We stopped in Winnipeg, and inexplicably also Edmonton along the way.
Winging across the frozen wasteland that is central Canada. Flat for thousands of kilometres.
What is this green stuff? Grass you say?Haven't seen that in months!
Vancouver is a halfway point between Ottawa and Sydney in so many ways. The temperature is halfway (about +10 instead of -12 or +25), the grass is green and so are the trees, there are birds to be seen everywhere. There is a beautiful harbour which reminds us of home.
Waterbird in Stanley Park.
We walked around the entirety of Stanley Park yesterday, about 9km. It is an awesome park, somewhat like the botanical gardens in terms of proximity to city, and it is endowed with ancient tall trees, waterfalls and ferns. Really quite beautiful.
Tribal statue on the Vancouver foreshore.
The Olympic rings somewhere on the harbour foreshore in Vancouver. The winter Olympics start here in a month and they are going Olympics crazy here.
Today we're going on a little ferry trip to Granville island and then we catch our flight back home in the evening! Homeward bound after so many months.
Our very first blog entry had a picture of the gorgeous Mandy, a Canadian friend of ours who was in Australia at the time of our departure. She returned home just before Christmas, and we went to visit her for 5 days over the New Year period. This is the story of those times.
Mel and Mandy huddle together at a ski resort one lunchtime.
Wasaga Beach is about 6 hours drive west of Ottawa. In the summertime it is a bustling lake town, with its 14km of shoreline reportedly the longest freshwater beach in the world. It also lies in the snowbelt of southern Ontario, and boy did we experience a lot of snowfall on our trip there!
We got to experience many joys of Canadian winter life while we were at Wasaga Beach. The first was snow shoveling, a task made more or less enjoyable (depending on your perspective) by the amount of snow falling during the day. Although there wasn't great packing snow, we attempted a snowman.
Dave fondles snowman. Snowman feels all shivery inside.
We visited a number of ski resorts, as the area is replete with them. One beaut area we traveled to was called Blue Mountain. It had dozens of ski runs, a small village packed with shops, restaurants and bars and happy tourists and skiers. It was temperate while we were there (for Canada at this time of year that is - about minus 2), we stood for ages watching people glide down the hill. Or stack it. We were watching for the stacks of course.
On New Years Eve, we had the house to ourselves since Mandy and her family were all out working. It was atrocious weather outside, and warm and cosy inside, and tragically we both fell deeply asleep before midnight...
Mandy on the other hand hit a deer at 2am driving home (or it hit her, she didn't actually see the thing). She was all right, although her Mum's new car, and the deer, didn't make it through unscathed.
Mel and Mandy pose before the exciting vista that makes snow tubing possible.
A day of action ensued, as we visited Snow Valley ski hill for some 'snow tubing'. The pictures really explain the activity, although the visceral thrill of strapping three tubes together and whizzing at 80km/h down the slope in the freezing cold is hard to explain.
Us and our tubes.
Check out the frost on Mel's face.
We had a really great time with Mandy while we were there - good conversations, good food and good cheer.
Then it was time to go. It took us 9 hours to complete the 6 hour drive back to Ottawa, mostly due to weather conditions like below. We made it out of the region in two hours, just 30 minutes before they decided to close all the roads! We saw a number of accidents on the trip home, but luckily none of them involved us, and we made it back in one piece in time for a late dinner.
Where exactly are you meant to drive on this...road?
Mel and Dave spent the last two days learning to ski at Mont Cascades ski resort, about 45 minutes drive from Ottawa. We are both rank beginners, never having strapped on a ski before. So even putting on the ridiculous amount of gear necessary to slide down hills on snow was a challenge.
Mel travelling up the 'magic carpet', an escalator-type contraption which delivers one to the top of the bunny hill.
We had a terrific instructor for two hours a day, Danny. He brought us from total ineptitude, to being able to somewhat control our speed and direction and fluke our way down the hills.
Mel doing her thang, with our instructor Danny at her 6.
There were many funny moments: the first time Dave slid backwards and resignedly waved goodbye as he slid into the rough; Mel hurtling down the steepest part of the beginner hill right after learning to get downhill by herself; desperately trying to get into the chalet on day 2 so that our frozen fingers could thaw (it was -25*C with wind chill); Dave's ski snapping off at the bottom of the chair lift and then him having to ski one-legged down the small slope at the top of the lift.
The chair lift - 4 minutes to the top!
We ended the two days a little sore, but with the rudiments of a new skill, a great appreciation of skiers and ski gear and some sweaty thermal underwear!! It was a lot of fun.
For the first time in our lives, Dave and Mel experienced a white Christmas. Although only the tiniest few flakes deposited themselves groundwards on the day, there has been enough snow accumulation in recent weeks to make us feel as though we are in a postcard of some sort. It was all very pretty.
Dave looking completely natural and at ease in the white stuff.
We had a delicious and genial late lunch with Ric and Jan on Christmas Day, enjoying a crackling log fire (on the TV).
'Stoke the fire hon.' 'Where's the damn remote?'
Mel has now finished her job at the Goodlife gym; 3 months of 4:45am starts and constant beat-heavy music. You mean I don't need to get up before anything sane is conscious? I'll raise my mug to that!
On Boxing Day we had the pleasure of experiencing the phenomena of 'freezing rain'. This is when it rains, but once the rain makes landfall it turns immediately into ice. After a night and a morning of this, most everything was covered with 1-2 cms of ice. Trees retain the ice on their branches, cars get iced shut, footpaths turn into mini skating rinks and icicles become commonplace.
The following day has turned out quite mild (0*C) and so a lot of this ice has turned into water or slush. Icicles fall off buildings and power lines with crashes. Stepping through snowbanks creates delicious sounding crunches.
To make up for the inability to walk anywhere without sliding around like an uncoordinated penguin, we cooked a fully vegan 'Tofurkey feast' and it was delicious.
The street outside Jess's apartment on the Upper West Side.
One visit to the city of New York wasn't enough for Mel, so last weekend she went back for a few days. Kindly hosted by Jess, Mel was able to stay on the Upper West Side again (ahhhhh), and take in not one, but THREE Broadway shows.
Christmas trees for sale on Central Park West.
Christmas is in the air in NYC and the city goes all out with its decorations. There are people selling real Christmas trees on the side of the road and it makes the streets smell beautiful. Mel even saw someone get off a bus dragging a six-foot tree. True Christmas commitment.
Decorations outside a city office.
During her walks around the city, Mel went to 30 Rockefeller Plaza and Radio City. Now that both Mel and Dave are fans of the tv show '30 Rock', this meant that a visit to the NBC Experience Store and an NBC tour were simply a given. Unfortunately, Kenneth the Page did not show her around the building.
Radio City Music Hall - home of the Rockettes.An entrance into 30 Rock and the NBC studios.
There are a few areas with huge decorated outdoor Christmas trees and ice-skating ponds, and Mel found two to have a look at. The first was at 30 Rock, which was beautiful. The crowds were enormous though. The second was in Bryant Park, where there is also a Christmas market. There are lots of little self-contained stores selling everything from hats to candles to hand-decorated Christmas ornaments.
The tree and skating pond outside 30 Rockefeller Centre.
One of the market stores in Bryant Park.
Broadway was a hit once again on this trip. Mel saw James Spader in 'Race', the new Tony Award winning musical 'Next to Normal', as well as Carrie Fisher's one woman show 'Wishful Drinking'. Not only did Mel see Carrie on stage, she also managed to meet her outside and have her program signed.
Mel meets Carrie Fisher.
Other highlights of the trip included New York bagels, a ride in a yellow taxi (it may be touristy but it was cool), Christmas lights at Columbus Circle, a chilly morning walk in Central Park, and not being killed by the shuttle driver on the way to Jess's apartment.
Columbus Circle.
New York - once was not enough, twice only whets the appetite. Some day, visit three will occur.
It is cold here now. Today it is -20*C, topping at -16*C. With wind chill it is -30*C. This is about a 50*C difference between Ottawa and Sydney!!
Zoom in on this one to see the ice formations on the tree!
Apparently Ottawa can reach 40*C in summertime, making it the capital city with the largest yearly temperature variation in the world (according to Ottawans anyway, who take a perverse pride in saying 'You haven't seen anything yet' when talking to us about the weather). We've pretty much topped out on the clothing we brought with us, but it's serving us adequately. The trick is to avoid being outside for long lengths of time. Some people here barely spend any time outside in the winter, moving from house to car to workplace to pub with as little time in the elements as possible. Then there are those that go jogging in snowstorms, or ride their bicycles on days like today.
You need a much better camera than ours to capture the intricate little frost formations that are currently gracing our windowpanes.
Last night we went out to the Senators ice hockey match. They had a 2-0 win and it was a fun match to be at. We went with our landlords, and Ric is the unofficial mascot for the team. It is an interesting experience to wander around the stadium with a huge red shaggy 'Sens-quatch'.
It has been a quiet time for us in Blogland. We've both been toiling at our decidedly un-intellectual jobs, so there has not been terribly much to report. Mel's still getting up before 5am the poor chook. Canada has a constantly changing landscape. It's starting to average -4*C here (dropping to minus 15 at times). Brutal, but according to locals we've 'not seen anything yet'. 'Just wait until it gets really cold you wimps' they subtext. 'We're only here for one winter, hahaha', we think back.
We'd had a couple of light dustings of snow in recent weeks, but on Wednesday there was a full on snowstorm in Ontario. It never reached whiteout conditions, but there was a steady fall for the entire day - 30 centimetres worth. It was awesome! And in a 24 hour period the city looks completely different. Naturally we got out in it and engaged in a little bit of horseplay. People stopped in the street to watch us having snowball fights, riding woolly mammoths, etc.
The snow looks quite beautiful when it falls under the street lamps. It is also quite the muffling / insulating substance when it builds up. The city gets much quieter as the veil of snow descends. Then it gets much noisier as all the snowplows come out to clear the roads and sidewalks.
The view from Castille Dave and Mel during the storm
Dave has decided to assist Tourism Ottawa with some of their slogans.
Come to Ottawa: Experience an arctic adventure every time you step outside the door! Ontario; Land of Sunshine (Tourism Ottawa can't guarantee more than 5 hours a day)
Experience Ottawa's excellent biking conditions!
Canadian travel warning: wear 3 layers if you want to stand on the balcony.
Relax in comfort and take a load off as you explore the city!
Needless to say we're enjoying the novelty of this winter wonderland.
Dave, Mel, Sarah and Freud in Ottawa.
It took us 9 hours to cross the country and get to Vancouver. We stopped in Winnipeg, and inexplicably also Edmonton along the way.
Waterbird in Stanley Park.
The Olympic rings somewhere on the harbour foreshore in Vancouver. The winter Olympics start here in a month and they are going Olympics crazy here.
