Halloween preparation

One of the fun things that Canadians celebrate is Halloween. It is just over a week away, and so we have been getting ready to participate in this for the first time. The stores are filled with lots of decorations and there seem to be costumes for sale everywhere you go. One of the coolest traditions is carving pumpkins and making jack-o-lanterns. Dave tried his hand at it with a little pumpkin he bought, and the result is in the pictures above and below. A pretty good effort for a first go! We burned a candle in him until the wax started to ooze out of his mouth. Icky, but somehow appropriate.

Dave-o-lantern.

Our landlords were kind enough to take us to a costume store that specialises in Halloween. The store was amazing - rows and rows of costumes, make up and accessories. You can buy almost anything in there to make you look scary. One of Mel's favourites was a latex stick-on patch for your arm, that made it look as though a pencil had gone through it. Would have been great for a "dead school teacher"costume!

A mask display at Audrey's Costume Store.

Ric, our landlord, loves to dress up, and will do so for almost any occasion. So you can imagine how excited he is at Halloween. He doesn't celebrate it just one day - he has a week's worth of costumes! In honour of our first Halloween and the trip to the costume store, he decided to dress up in one of his outfits and freak out the customers. At 6"7', he is a sight to be seen!

Mel and Ric (he's the one in the costume...)

We are still putting the final touches on our costumes, but you'll have to wait until after Halloween to see the results...

One of the displays from the costume store.

Fall

6 degrees C, rainy and a great day for a bicycle ride

The seasons change fast here in Canada. In just two weeks the temperature has dropped drastically and many of the trees have started losing their leaves and changing colour, revealing vibrant oranges and reds.
We trek up to the farmers market each weekend for bags-worth of fresh vegetables. We even found a purple cauliflower and decided to give it a go.




Nice haircut on that freaky cauli.









Dave got a few days work delivering new recycling bins around Ottawa. These are large compost/ food waste bins and a really neat idea for reducing the residential waste stream by 45%.

The bad stuff

Travel blogs tend to be quite rosy, and we've had a very wonderful time on our trip. Reading this blog and looking at the photos would incite most people into thinking that it's been 'all good' everywhere we've been. In fact, the world can be a miserable place, and this post is an attempt to moderate our effusiveness.
Thailand is a tropical paradise to be sure, but not everything there is pristine. Nearly every beach we walked on was tarnished by rubbish, lots of rubbish. Obviously swept onto the beaches by the tides, and mostly consisting of plastic, this trash was unfortunately ubiquitous. Some of it came from the poor waste systems in place there, but we're sure that a lot is swept in from other countries and waste simply dumped in the oceans. A lot of it was very small and had clearly been in the sea for a while. This just another example of the curse of plastic on our natural environment and damn ugly too.
Big cities can be desperate and sad places. Vancouver had more homeless people than is to be expected in a city of that size, it was really tragic. At the least Canada has 'container deposit legislation' meaning that there is a dollar value placed on used cans and bottles, and these can be collected and redeemed. The bums were doing a roaring trade, the same can be said of Ottawa in some places. This is not a solution to the problem in any way, and doesn't replace housing, job support and other welfare. Paris is a 'romantic' city for most. But travel anywhere and you will see desperate and poor people, and the graffiti is rife and to be seen to be believed. Don't go there if you want to be uplifted about the human condition. Although New York was better than we expected in terms of visible poverty ('was there an Olympic event coming up there?' we thought) there was a fair bit of begging on the metro and one situation where an old woman was laughed at by some commuters and then was asking everyone for help in the most pitiable manner possible.
Canada is rife with large vehicles. For those in Australia, our 4 wheel drives don't even compare with the monstrosities they have over here. With all the concern with air pollution, congestion and greenhouse pollution, it seems like they are going in the wrong direction here. And that is not saying anything about the exploitation of tar sands in Alberta which is an environmental disaster. [Note: we drove a 3 tonne motorhome over 13,000 km so our consciences are hardly clear on this point].
When we were at the Calgary Stampede we wandered into the agricultural tents, as you do. After a few minutes we couldn't stand it and left. It was farm propaganda at it's worst. They even had an adult pig displayed in it's typical enclosure, i.e. trapped in metal bars with no room to move - and people were standing around admiring the situation! We could go on for a long time about animal exploitation (Canadians love their BBQs and industrial animal farming as much as Australians) but we won't.

Scenes from Ottawa

Ottawa is a very bike and pedestrian-friendly city, which is good for us considering we don't have a vehicle anymore!
Dave went on a 30km cycle around the city, along the Rideau Canal, through the Experimental Farm (a large area where they do agricultural testing not far from the city centre), and along the Ottawa River. The rock statues seen below were displayed along the river.The next photo is a statue near downtown which celebrates the contribution aboriginal people have made in the Canadian armed forces.
This massive spider is an artwork which stands outside the National Art Gallery. The next photo is a statue of a Canadian hero, Terry Fox. He was a young man who got cancer in the 1980s, and instead of giving in to it decided he would run across the country.




He made it from the East coast all the way to Thunder Bay, a run of 5,300km, doing a marathon a day! All of this with a prosthetic leg. He then got too sick from his illness and had to stop running, dying a year later. He has been a rallying-point for cancer research ever since, and a national hero. We saw several statues, a mountain named after him, roads named after him and plenty of exposure of his legacy on our trip.


Finally here is a snap of one of the Canadian Parliament buildings during a gathering of fire fighters who were commemorating 9/11.

Settling in Ottawa

We are now residents of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada!

Our apartment building in Ottawa

We had a really tough time coming into the city. The campervan was playing up, we were sleeping in a carpark, we encountered a maniacally Kafkaesque situation with our car insurance and we were going through the tribulations typical of trying to find a place in a new city - apartments, jobs, banks, institutions of government and so on. We went hard, and with the help of some really generous and lovely Ottawans, have found our feet.

The view from our apartment.

Mel enjoying our new abode.

We have a great apartment just 15 minutes walk from the centre of the city / the parliament buildings, the campervan is fixed and for sale at a dealership just out of town, and Mel already has a job (working front desk at a city gym called Goodlife - starting at the heinous hour of 5:15am). We've rented a bed, set up the internet, found the local - and everything's fallen into place which is just great.
The city is a vibrant place with two Universities. There are heaps of places to eat and drink and socialise, with 2 large going-out districts. The city is split in two by the Ottawa river, and on the other side is french-speaking Quebec. We haven't ventured there yet. It is very clean, and since it is not too big a city, people have not been overwhelmed by the tide of humanity and are still friendly. The famous Rideau Canal rings the city and it a great place to walk along. We were shown an outdoor 'cat house' near the parliament building where they feed and shelter stray cats. When Dave was there he met an inquisitive racoon.

Now bring on the winter!

End of the Campervan Travels

The main falls at Niagara

Our final few days of travelling in the campervan have been full of excitement. After leaving New York we made a beeline for the Canadian border and Niagara Falls. The falls themselves were beautiful and amazingly scenic. We indulged ourselves with a trip on the 'Maid of the Mist', which heads right into the spray and turbulent water of the main falls. They even give you ponchos to wear - and you need them! It is loud and soaking there, and after a few minutes we turned away and coasted on the current back to dock.

Soaked

Our next stop was to visit the lovely Laura in Guelph (nearish to Toronto). We had a top afternoon and evening dining in a fabulous completely vegetarian establishment before heading to the corner pub to watch some US Open. Mel was devastated to see Roddick get knocked out, but her disappointment was easily tempered by the great conversation and laughs in good company.
Sunday was a visit to Canada's Wonderland, a huge theme park centered mostly around rollercoasters and water slides. (Why did they close the Oz Wonderland, even though it didn't compare to this one?). Mel went crazy, riding the Behem0th, The Bat and other craaazzee rides. Dave woosed out, riding only the tame Mountain Thunder, and drugging out on travel calming tablets before even entering the park! The waterslides were fabulous, including the Black Hole (guess what that is). A good day.
We drove on to Toronto, getting stuck there for a few days with some vehicle troubles. Alas. We made it to Ottawa today, our final destination in Canada in terms of the road trip.
We've had a productive day; finding a place to park the beastly van, viewing apartments, opening bank accounts, Mel had a job interview. We are at the end of this exhausting day, but feeling as if we've accomplished quite a lot.


Our final campground.

New York, New York (part II)

Our few days in New York seem to have passed all too rapidly (well, for Mel at least). We made the most of our time here, seeing as much as we could and catching up with old friends.

On Sunday we met up with a school friend of Mel's who she hasn't seen in about eight years. Jess has been living in the States for seven years now, so she was the perfect guide to show us around the upper West Side. We walked through Central Park and took in some classic views of the skyline, before eating a yummy lunch at a great cafe. Our afternoon was spent down by the Hudson River, right by where that plane pilot landed his jet in the water. Thanks for being a great tour guide, Jess!

Mel and Jess in Central Park.

We have seen two Broadway shows - 'Avenue Q' and 'The 39 Steps'. Mel and Dave both had a really great time with these two comedies - plenty of laughs and some great physical comedy in both shows. There are so many options with things to see in NY, it seems that Mel is already planning a return trip to take in some more theatre. There just isn't enough time to see and do everything in only five days!

Billboards on Broadway.

Our last two days have been spent at the US Open - a long anticipated event for us. We had tickets to the Arthur Ashe stadium (the main stadium), and were lucky enough to see Kim Clijsters, the great Roger Federer and Serena Williams all on the first day! No upsets for them, in the first round at any rate. Day 2 arrived and we ended up seeing some other great players, including the world number 1 women's player, Dinara Safina. She was playing an Aussie wildcard and of all the games we saw this was the best. The Aussie took the first set from her and almost won the match at the end. The crowd was right into it and the standard was great.

Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Note from Mel: I love NY!