Anything But Ordinary

10 Random Facts about Canada:

1. They drive on the Right Hand Side of the road (okay so I already knew that!)

2. The water sits higher in the toilet - this is actually true, I thought I'd blocked it the first night!

3. Their 5c coin is bigger than the 10c coin.

4. Canada doesn't have a 2c, 20c or 50c coin.

5. A 1 dollar coin is called a loonie and a 2 dollar coin is called a toonie. (Excuse the spelling, it's probably wrong!)

6. They don't have signs for elderly people crossing.

7. 'Eh' means 'isn't it?' or 'don't you?' or 'aren't we?'.

8. Their roads are unbelievably straight.

9. Canada is a surprisingly multicultural society - foods introduced to me as typical had their roots in many different countries.

10. Many parts of northern Manitoba (don't forget this isn't even as far north as the Yukon, Northern Territories or Nunavut) cannot be reached by road.

Tuesday

Yesterday I omitted to mention the wildlife which I saw, so I can now add to my list a chipmunk, gopher and a monarch butterfly & dragonfly (at the ruins) to my list. Today we travelled north of Winnipeg. It was the first time I had been out of the city properly and I got very excited about grain fields, prairie grass, flattened houses and GRAIN ELEVATORS (Rebecca - "Yay - ANOTHER grain elevator!")!! The first place we visited was the Lower Fort Garry heritage park. This was a fascinating opportunity to see life as it was for the early settlers in the times of the Hudson Bay Trading Company. A first for both Rebecca and me was trying a Buffalo Burger - I was proud of myself for trying it, and very impressed with the flavour which was similar to beef.

Next stop, further north, was Winnipeg Beach, a small town at the lower edge of Lake Winnipeg. I really liked this town - it felt like we were on a beach near Florida! We spent some time lazing by the water, and then Rebecca introduced me to Slurpees (like Slush Puppies). A very interesting thing to note about Canadian roads (especially in the prairies) is that they are very, very straight - in fact so straight that every bend has to be marked in case you miss it! I think we hit a maximum of 5 curves on our travels today! Travelling further northwards again we saw a storm brewing ahead. I was quite excited at the prospect of seeing a tornado, but I guess it was a good thing I didn't! We didn't stay very long in the next town of Gimli because of the storm (by this stage there was lightning, wind and a bit of rain) but I was fascinated by its Icelandic culture. The storm didn't come to much, or else we beat it driving down south again.
At night I had the unique opportunity to participate in some Metis square dancing, something Rebecca is learning. Metis culture is a mix of Aboriginal and European. We also drove throught the North End (dodgy area) to get there!

[PS Apparently I was quite good at the dancing!]

Monday

Today we moved out of the city limits a little. We started off the day by having lunch in the Prairie Ink cafe in McNally Robinson, a bookshop which is a Winnipeg institution. The bookshop was lovely and the children's section upstairs was dubbed the '100 Aker Wood' and had various references to Winnie the Pooh including a forest where they could read books.
You may or may not know that Winnie the Pooh was inspired by a real bear called Winnie the Bear, from Winnipeg! I visited the zoo in Assiniboine Park solely to take a picture of the statue. On our way out to visit the St Norbert ruins, we passed a heritage park and decided to go in for 15 mins. It reminded me of the Ulster American Folk Park and there were lots of interesting things to see inside the houses, although it must be mentioned that we ended up just chatting to the French Canadian tour guide as he was very cute! The St Norbert Ruins were also lovely and it was here that I had my first glimpse of prairie grass.
Tonight we met Rebecca's Grandmere for dinnner and then coffee. She is a lovely woman of 92, who acts and looks like a 65-year-old! She heard I hadn't had tea all week so she made me some back at her house, and then we made a funny video about the uses of tea and the proper way to make it! I still can't get over how youthful she is, she is also really trendy (probably due to her being an artist long ago!)

Sunday

This morning Rebecca and I went for brunch in a revolving restaurant which was pretty awesome, to use a Canadian term! We were able to get a 360 degree view over the city and make out some of the important landmarks like the Provincial Building, the Golden Boy (yep, that's actually the official name for the statue on the top), the Forks (meeting of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers) and the St Boniface Cathedral. It's a pity I can't put video up on this thing because we had a very interesting commentary from Rebecca on the sights below! I did however take some pictures, here is one that shows the Golden Boy...

After eating, we crossed the esplanade (spiky bridge) to St Boniface (the Francophone area of the city) and visited the Basilica Cathedral and Louis Reil's grave. Louis Reil is famous for something, but I can't exactly remember what. Back at 'The Forks' we toured the markets which sold all kinds of everything and got our portraits taken by this crazy-looking guy who only asked for donations. Rebecca said he had been doing that for as long as she could remember. It must be about 35 degrees. I am currently sitting in the shade of a polar bear (sculpture) and sunbathing ... After the sunbathing we went to get our pictures taken with some of the bears.Tonight I experienced the Winnipeg edition of Maud's - the BDI - and had a very delicious ice-cream. There is a funny video of me asking for a flake in my ice-cream and the girl looking a little confused. We crossed another bridge into a very quiet neighbourhood and sat for ages on the swings talking about life, love and music. On the way back over the bridge we encountered some racoons, but only from a distance. Apparently they bite. These creatures were very stereotypically rummaging in the garbage!

Saturday

My first experience of flying over the Atlantic ... an endless expanse of water, as far as the eye could see. When i got bored of everything else on the plane, I just stared out of the window, mesmerised by the vast scale of nothingness.

9.15 (Toronto): The thing I have found most hard to get used to in Canada is how weird my accent sounds. You never notice it so much, say in France, because everybody else is speaking another language most of the time, and it is very obvious that English is their second language. But when everybody is speaking English and you're speaking it differently, that's when being from Northern Ireland really sticks out. It's not always a bad thing though, guys in the airport were flirting with me because of my cool (cute?) accent!

I am really pleased that even though I didn't get into Toronto, i saw the CNN tower from the plane, and I like to think i flew over the Niagra falls, but I didn't actually see them. Canada is a big, big country.

Twentysomething

I haven't been around for the last wee while hence the lack of blogging! So let me update you...

A week ago on Friday was my graduation from Stranmillis. I am officially no longer a student (my student discount even expired on 1st June) - I felt pretty identityless until I realised that I now belong to a new group - the twentysomethings! I even bought a Christian book aimed at the age group to start off this new era of my life. Graduation itself was lovely, it rained in the morning, but the hair was saved and it cleared up well for the afternoon tea party. Here are a few of the photos:

Me and Jo

Me and the Girlies

Me and Jen

After graduation I went off to CCSM for a week and then Coleraine Camp. I had a great time and made loads of new friends. Here are some of my new friends. I also acquired a few friends for my fridge door thanks to Kyler (Miffy rocks!)

The Explorers

Mark, Tanya, Ali, Elaine, George and Laura K

Jo P painting a Bee for the Bee-Attitudes!

Me and Laura K!

Sarah, Jo W and Someone Who Doesn't Want To Be Seen!

Superman

Wow! You da man! Impressive! Miaw

If you haven't got a clue what I'm talking about listen to the Scott Mills show.

All That Jazz!

Tonight I went with the girls to see Chicago at the opera house! It was very entertaining, all big band stuff and showbiz dancing. We inadvertantly got front-row seats which was a good surprise! At the end they were throwing out flowers and I got one [see below for how I used it!]

Before the show, we went out for dinner in Bourbon. I took some photos while we were waiting on our dinner:

Dessert took so long that we had to cancel it and go to the show, but we got a bit bored waiting on it and so I took some 'interesting' through-a-glass pictures (sorry for stealing your idea Elia).