Does anyone else think learning Inuktitut might be a little bit ambitious? Especially as the Inuit language is the one I'll most likely never need to speak in my entire life!
I don't intend to start learning any of the indigenous languages of Canada (just yet anyway!) I have enough to do with the 4 I've already committed myself to learning, but after seeing several fascinating museum exhibits about Amerindian culture in Ottawa, I got very interested and wanted to know more. So what did I do? As usual, I bought far too many books and I’m now ploughing my way through them all. I love books!
Anyway - the school trip to Ottawa. This was the first year the school had organised the trip, for the ELA group, and it all went amazingly well, everyone (and especially me) had a lot of fun and it was generally a great couple of days. I think the kids may have even learnt something! We set off bright and early on Thursday morning, before the sun had even risen, all piling into the yellow school bus that was to take us the 6 hour journey from Beaupré in Quebec to Ottawa in Ontario. Most of the kids slept on the journey, I however had no such luck. School buses are not built for comfort and long journeys - this one had hard seats and zero-suspension. And, this being Canada, the roads aren't always great. The only thing I can liken it to is spending 6 hours on a galloping horse. All my muscles now ache, I certainly took a beating! Still, we made it to Ottawa relatively unscathed and made it to the hostel to dump our stuff before heading out. The reaction when the kids saw where we were going to be staying was absolutely priceless. The hostel in Ottawa was in the old Jail-house building, and when they were designing the hostel they obviously took the jail theme and ran with it! Either that, or they didn't have the money to renovate properly! All of the rooms were the old cells, complete with bars instead of walls, and hardly enough room to swing a cat. Limited privacy too, and the noise at night from rooms without walls unbelievable. Luckily I’m a deep sleeper! It was definitely a fun experience, and one I would recommend, but if you are planning on staying in Ottawa for more than a couple of days, I suggest forking out for a real hotel!
On Thursday afternoon we went to the Musée des Beaux-Arts and then shopping in the Rideau Centre, followed by a dinner of Vietnamese soup. Then we set off for the Senators Hockey game. The hockey was great fun, there were about 17, 000 people in the stadium which made for a really good atmosphere. There was a lot of fighting on the ice (which we all know is the real purpose of hockey) as well, which was very exciting! Fighting aside, it was a really good match, with 2 goals disallowed and the winning goal scored in the last 30 seconds of overtime. A good proportion of the spectators were from the Canadian armed forces, as it was the annual forces appreciation game, to coincide with the 11th November Memorial Day. They had activities on the ice for some of the soldiers and their kids during the intervals and a lot of money was donated to veterans’ charities, from ticket sales and the sponsors of the arena itself. The way it was done was a bit "American" for lack of a better description – it was made into a big event, very gushing and perhaps somewhat overly emotional, but then again that is a cultural difference between the UK and North America - we are a lot more reserved. However, the sentiment, the recognition and appreciation of the work done by the armed forces was heartfelt, and something that I think we lack in Britain these days. Regardless of whether you agree with the politics, the forces do a very hard and worthwhile job in many places around the world, and this often gets overlooked and deserves more recognition than we give it nowadays.
On Friday we went to the Canadian Parliament, the highlight of the trip for me. We had a guided tour of the building and we were allowed into the House of Commons to hear a debate. The debate itself was interesting enough, but the thing that struck me most was that one of the MPs would stand up and make a point in English, only for someone else in the room to then get up and counter that point in fluent French. There appeared to be no translation going on, everyone was completely bilingual and everything was happening almost simultaneously in 2 languages. After the House of Commons, we climbed to the top of the Peace tower in the Parliament, the highest point in Ottawa. The views were impressive. As we were walking back from Parliament to the bus, I saw the thing I had been waiting to see since I arrived in Canada – Mounties! There were RCMP officers in cars outside the building. I had a huge grin on my face for the rest of the day!
In the afternoon we went to the Nature museum and to the cinema. A Serious Man is possibly one of the weirdest films I have seen in a while – it was very interesting but the kids did not understand it at all and they were so tired from the noise in the hostel most of them fell asleep! After the cinema we went to the pool, and while the kids all played in the wave pool, I sat on the side and read a book. Being almost drowned by huge fake waves didn’t appeal to me!
After another sleepless night in the jail, we went to one final museum, and in my opinion one of the best I have ever been to, the Civilisations Museum, then everyone piled back onto the bus and we drove back to Beaupré. I started to watch a film and promptly fell asleep 5 minutes in! It had been a long but amazing couple of days!
In other news, I have decided to keep track of the weird things I have eaten over here. So far, the list looks something like this:
Ostrich
Kangaroo
Moose
Caribou
But I intend to add many more bizarre foods to the list! I might as well have culinary adventures as well as the more “mundane” kind!
A bientôt!
No comments:
Post a Comment