Life in Canada from John's perspective

Thought I’d finally contribute to the blog and let you know how things are going. We have been here nearly three months now, and have seen considerable change in the landscape now that the snow has melted. Kingston is a great place to live – small enough to find your way around in, big enough to have all the facilities we need. We have settled in well and have done a lot of things so far – lots of skiing, tobogganing, skating and seeing lots of sights. We have met quite a few people and everyone has been very welcoming. The kids have got themselves well involved in their schools, and are doing lots of extra things after school – in that respect, not much has changed from home in Narooma.
Veronica is enjoying her teaching and has been well accepted by the staff – in a school of 1300 students, she has only met a small number of students and staff, but it’s all been good so far. The house we are living in is small, but it is warm and a good base for us.
As for me, work is still proving elusive – I got a little frustrated towards the end of last term but right at the moment I don’t really care. I have a job each Thursday delivering newspapers for 8 hours, so at least I’m doing something. I’ve had four days of teaching (three as a French teacher!) and two days as a Teacher’s Aide (I enjoyed that!). I’m sure the teaching work will come – I am classed as ‘unqualified’ until my accreditation comes through and can only be employed as an emergency teacher. The accreditation process is very slow and frustrating but I can’t really do anything about it. Thanks again Linda for the reference.
We have just returned from a week in New York. In Canada they have a week off in March before going through until the end of June. Veronica and I have always wanted to go to New York and we enjoyed every minute of it. The highlight was seeing ‘Mama Mia’ on stage at Broadway, a fantastic production that all the family enjoyed. We did all the touristy things you do in New York – Times Square, Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero, riding the subway, etc. We stayed in a hotel in Queens, which was an experience in itself.
Veronica has done a great job on our blog up to date, and Max provided the text of our trip to NYC.
Everyone’s now back at school with a fourteen week term until the summer break. There are lots of lakes around Kingston and many people have holiday cottages on the lake for the summer break. At the moment we intend to go the Maritimes (East coast) during the two month break, but several people have offered us their cottage locally over the break.
Emily is dancing and enjoying a more professional and competitive dance studio than Narooma, and the boys are both swimming for the Ernestown Barracudas Swimming Club. They have just signed up to play soccer with the Cataraqui Clippers Soccer Club, and will be playing over summer. I have resumed my traditional role of driving them everywhere for their sports.
I hope everyone is well back in Australia. I can’t honestly say I am missing work and school, as this experience has been very positive so far.
As the weather gets warmer, more and more Canadians emerge from their houses to enjoy the outdoors. We have met more neighbours in the last week than we did in the first two months.
Anyway, all of you back to work – it’s time for me to go to bed as tomorrow I have to deliver 700 newspapers.

NYC Highlights

My New York trip cont....By max

18TH MARCH 2009
Today I got up at eight O’clock. We headed down to have some breakfast. After we headed to the underground railway. We got out at 42nd street and walked to the pier. We were going to go on this speed boat. It went to the Statue of lLberty and around it in thirty minutes. Of course it was closed until May.
We then hailed a cab and went to the NBC studio tour were they make Friends and Seinfeld. But it was booked out. It was terrible. So we decided to go to the Radio City Music Hall. We got a tour through the auditorium and stage and learnt a lot about it. They actually wanted to demolish it a while back but they saved it.
After the tour we went to Paley’s Museum of TV and Radio. It was a bunch of rooms with old and current TV shows you could watch. We watched The Twilight Zone, The Brady Bunch and Freaks and Geeks. We then went to the Library and we got to choose two shows we could watch. I chose the wrestling and Ed, Edd and Eddy. There were lots to choose from. We watched them and then headed to Broadway!
We watched Mama Mia. It is a story about a girl who is about to be married and invites three possible fathers to her wedding. They turn up and everything gets complicated and then the girl's mum eventually is the one who gets married. It was pretty good with an interesting story line. It had all the music from ABBA. I got back to the hotel at about eleven O’clock and a quick go on Facebook and an hour later at midnight I am in bed.
19TH MARCH 2009
This morning I woke up at eight thirty. I felt exhausted. I struggled out of bed and down to the breakfast area. I had a bagel and filled up a drink bottle with apple juice. After breakfast we set off to Central Park via the subway. We stopped at the world Disney store as it started to drip down rain.
We arrived at Central Park. We went to the zoo first. By now it had started raining hard. We got to go into a rainforest place were it was hot and humid. We went back outside and into the rain and saw the polar bears and some frogs. We saw other various animals and then went to see the sea lions get fed. They did tricks for us and it was cool.
We headed back off and saw the statue of Balto. It is a dog that travelled 650 miles with his dog sled team in minus 23 degrees Fahrenheit to deliver an antitoxin. I read about this when I was in Kindergarten and have wanted to see this statue ever since.
We then went to a carousel. Apparently it is a famous one. Dad said we also had to try hot dogs in Grand Central park so we got some.
It was still pouring rain so we headed to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. I wanted to go because it had a Egyptian mummy exhibit. It was really good. For lunch I had a chocolate chip cookie and a hot chocolate. Not much of a lunch but it doesn’t matter.
afterwards, we headed to Dylan’s Candy Store and got a free ice cream using our new York Passes. Dylan's is a three floor candy store. It is huge and has so many kinds of candy. You could probably get lost in that store.
We headed on over for dinner at a pizzeria. I ate a whole large pizza to myself I was that hungry. We decided to go home for an early night. The problem was that we couldn’t get a taxi. Ironically, all the four seaters wouldn’t take is in the light as opposed to willingly taking us in the dark. We finally got a seven seater and headed home. I watched Seinfeld and then two hours of Friends and went to bed.

20TH MARCH 2009
Today was our last day. We got a cab to the airport and waited for the plane. It was late so we took off an hour late. We were waiting on the plane longer than it was in the air. We landed at Syracuse and picked up our car and travelled home. Nick and I wanted to get home quickly. We got home at twenty to eight. We turned the TV on for the 500th episode of smack down, but it was moved to tomorrow morning for basketball. We had an early night and we were so tired after our week.

New York at Night

Exploring the Big Apple by Max carter

14TH MARCH 2009
Today after staying the night in Syracuse we got up early and headed to the airport. On the way we got a bit lost and our car lights stopped working. You could say mum and dad were more than a little stressed. We finally got there and parked our car. It was about ten past six in the morning. We went inside and went to the security check. Mum was wearing a bulky coat and got frisked. They thought she had a bomb or a gun or something dangerous. We got on the plane. It was the smallest plane I had ever been on. It was rocky and bumpy and my ears were popped. The flight made our voices go spacey. I started singing and this person looked at me. I was just thinking; "mind your own business". We landed in New York and took a cab to the hotel. It is called Days Inn.

The first thing we did was take an hour walk to Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. On the way there was a three story candy shop that made the Tilba Lolly shop look tiny. We each got a big lolly pop. It was called Dylan’s Candy Store. At the waxworks works there was George Bush and dad took a picture of me pretending to throw a shoe at him.

There were nine floors of wax works like the hulk, The Rock, Ghandi, The pope, Barrack Obama, John Travolta, Pele, Wayne Gretzky and so many, many more. They were so life like you could turn around and look at them and take a while to figure out if it was a waxwork or a real person. After that we went on a tour bus. It went for hours and we got off at the Rockefeller Centre. We were going to on the NBC tour. It was at the NBC studio were they made Friends and Seinfeld. But it was over. We rode the rock to the top and saw the Empire State building. After that we went to the world Nintendo store. It was three stories high. We then went for dinner at Planet Hollywood. It was really nice. They had lots of movie props there. We walked out on Broadway and looked around afterwards. It was amazing. It was all lighted up and cool. We hailed a cab and went to the hotel. I watched TV to ten O’clock and then went to bed after a long and tiring day!

15TH MARCH 2009
Today I was awakened by our heater, It is really loud. I got up and watched Tom and Jerry. After, we went down to breakfast. For breakfast I had some muffins and bagels. After that, we headed to the underground subway. We got off at the wrong station and went back on. We got off at the World Trade Centre, the site of nine eleven. I got my picture taken with some fire fighters. We went to the bull. It is the symbol of the financial success. You kiss its arse and it is supposed to make you rich. It showed it’s testicles, so I got a picture kicking them. It was funny. After we went to the sports museum of America. I was looking forward to it but it was closed. So we headed to the docks and went to Liberty Island. It had the Statue of Liberty on it. We walked around and looked at it. We went to the gift shop and bought a statue of liberty hat. We then went to Ellis island. That was where the immigrants used to come. We went back on the ferry to NYC.

We then went to a bodies exhibition. It had all these dead bodies on display and explaining how the human body works. There were dead people and the men still had the penis intact. It was disgusting. Also the scrotum had rotted away so the testicles hung to the side. It was gross. They also chopped up the bodies and showed the different parts. Yuck. Nick was a bit scared. At the end you wrote a comment and Nick wrote “Yuck!”

After this tour, we caught a bus to the Empire State Building. There we rode to the top and looked over NYC. We also had a virtual tour. Our seats rocked and shook and everything. It was pretty cool. It was like being at the movies. After we went to dinner at this Italian buffet place. It cost seven dollars per pound. I had two pounds of food. I got to the table and Nick knocked my drink over all my food and mum. I had to eat my dinner soaked in lemonade. YUCK!!! We headed home in a taxi. We had to squeeze dad in the front and the four of us in the back. It was really tight. We got back and went to bed at ten O’clock. Everyone was tired and we went to sleep pretty quickly.

16TH MARCH 2009
Today I was woken up by dad at eight O’clock to the sound of Nick watching Pokémon. We went down to breakfast. I had some Danishes and muffins and bagels. After we headed to the underground subway. They smell like the sewer. We jumped and went to 41st street. We saw this guy being arrested for drugs or something. We went through a shopping mall and out into NYC.

We went to the museum of natural history. We had limited time so we only spent about two hours there. You may think that is a long time but this place was huge!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was four stories high and really long; at least over three hundred metres. There were dinosaurs and animals of all sorts. There were exhibits of how people used to live. It was pretty interesting! We had morning tea, then got back on the bus and then went to the Guggenheim museum. It was a museum of art. Some of the art was pretty crap. One was a stack of paper and another was a black sheet of paper. It was pretty weird. We then went to the cafe and got a smoothie and cookie. After we went and had dinner at an Irish restaurant. I had barbecued ribs. They were delicious. Then we went to Broadway and caught a bus for the night time tour of New York and Brooklyn. We saw the Brooklyn Bridge and all the New York sites. It was pretty good. We got home and went to bed at about ten thirty.

17TH MARCH 2009
Today I got up at 20 to eight. I watched some cartoons, got dressed and went downstairs for breakfast. First we were going to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was closed till Thursday so we will go then. After we walked around the shops. Mum bought an illegal handbag from a lady in a secret room in her shop. Then we walked around the corner and Emily and Mum had to get into the back of a boarded up van. Dad, Nick and I had to wait at the corner about twenty feet away. Dad wasn’t very happy about it and was a bit worried. Emily and mum eventually got out with Em carrying a Coach handbag. It turns out it probably was stolen and was possibly a genuine one. So that was a bit dodgy.

We got the bus on Broadway and went to the police museum. It was really good and interesting. It had all information on past prisoners including Al “Scarface” Capone. They had a siren you could press and it was really loud. There were also video’s of nine eleven when the plane crashed. It was pretty sad.

After that, we took a bus to the seaport. We then looked around the seaport and took a few pictures and hopped back on the bus until we got to the docks. We were going to go on a speed boat but it was closed so we are going to go on it later. So we headed to the Intrepid museum. It was an old air craft carrier that was commissioned in nineteen forty three. There was a helicopter pilot simulator and it was cool. After we headed to a place called Mars 2112. It was a restaurant. You went into a lift which was a space ship simulator, then went into a room that was like mars. There were people dressed up as aliens. I got a 17 dollar meal which also got you a five dollar card at the arcade. I played some air hockey, lost my money on a pick up thing and played a motor bike racing game. After we went to Broadway and bought tickets to Mama Mia for tomorrow at eight O’clock we hailed a cab and went to the hotel. We went to bed at about ten thirty.

Exploring the Sugar Bush

Last Sunday, we drove up to Maberley to visit Bill & Jeannette Avery, a couple who spent last year on exchange in Australia. We met them at a party in Bateman's Bay and maintained contact. The Averys live about 95km fom Kingston and we arranged the visit a few weeks ago. Bill took us out to brunch at Wheeler's Maple Syrup Farm. This family run establishment is world famous and apparantly becomes very busy as March progresses and the maple syrup really starts to flow. We feasted on home made pancakes, maple sausages and lashings of maple syrup before exploring the farm. The Wheeler family have established a private museum on their property and here we looked at the old maple syrup making tools and learnt about how the local Aboriginal people tapped the syrup 600 years ago.

Emily and the boys enjoyed a romp in the playgound area and despite the mud, (melting snow is really VERY messy) braved the flying fox. We got to see maple trees up close with tubes attached to draw out the sap. The Wheelers make the syrup on their property and there are several large vats to boil down the sap. Apparantly it takes 40 litres of sap to make 1 litre of syrup.

The day was sunny and we even saw deer with their babies as the Averys took us on a tour of the local area. Their property backs onto a lake and they have their own cottage. This will be great in summer when we intend to return for another visit.

All in all, it was a pretty uniquely Canadian experience. We all love maple syrup!

Curling - That Great Canadian Tradition

Last Friday night, some of the Holy Cross staff organised a night of Curling. Having never even been inside a curling rink before, John and I decided to take advantage of the social opportunity. Luckily, Max was at a party that night so it was only Emily and Nick at home. This almost guarantees us an evening of peace. Some of the teachers, Pat and his wife Dianne, picked us up and we enjoyed their company on the way down town. The curling rink was at the Garrison and we were interested to see how it all worked. The best description is that it is a little like lawn bowls on ice. We were soon acquainted with the appropriate technique and began whizzing the rocks down to the other end like real professionals. John and I enjoyed our night out. Not only was the curling a unique Canadian experience but it was a great opportunity to socialise with some of the staff from Holy Cross.

Skiing At Calabogie

Here are some photos of our ski trip to Calabogie, a ski resort about two hours drive from Kingston. The day could not have been more perfect with clear blue skies and mild (comparatively anyway) temperatures. The boys got the opportunity to hone their snowboarding skills and Em and I had quite a few exhilerating runs. John even got in on the act with a few runs. We had a great time and want to return at least once more before the end of the season.

A Little Taste of Home

Thanks to Rita & Dom, we are enjoying a taste of good old Aussie vegemite. We love it!