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Published: January 3rd 2010
Pam with Santa
Santa came to visit us on Christmas eve. Pam was sitting on his knee trying to convince him she'd been good this year!17 December 2009, the beginning of our big adventure. Nervous - check, excited - check, ducks in a row - negative, feel like riding a bicycle in the fast lane of a highway - check.
By way of a brief into...It has been a crazy 3 months since we made the decision to pack it all in and move to Toronto, Canada. It was a very scary decision but one we both believe is the right one, tough as it might have been. So since then we've had to resign from our jobs, try and say goodbye to all our friends and family (24 hours in a day is just not enough!), say farewell to our lovely little home in Wimbledon, arrange for shipping, pack up all our belongings into one of 3 destination categories, namely shipping, to go to Canada for Christmas, and to stay in London for us to pickup on our way from Ottawa to Bangkok, where I can only imagine that the doorways are rather narrow given the old Chinese proverb about not walking through doors sideways.
So it all began on 17 December 2009. It started well, I was up before the alarm went
Pam and I in front of the Canadian Parliament buildings in down town Ottawa.
We'd just had Beaver Tails with Shannon and Marc before this so the cold didn't worry us too much. off and got Pam out of bed a bit earlier too. We had a nice breakfast and then lugged our 4 big bags down to Parsons Green tube station only to find that anyone, let alone 2 people with 2 bags each were not going to fit onto a tube going to the city center when they only came every 8 minutes during the beginnings of rush hour. So, exit tube station stage left and hunt down a cab which we got with relative ease although this escapade had cost us nearly 30 minutes. Anyway, black cab it was and off we went. Half way to the airport Pam said something about passports and marriage certificates....%&$@....I had left the marriage certificate at home as Pam had had her new passport for some time and it seemed unneccessary to take with us...except it had been about 8 months since I booked the tickets and at that time it had been booked under Ashton. Not a good start! After some deep breathing and reassurances from Pam (she has the woman's tear touch and is good at getting around these little issues) we got to the airport 90 minutes before scheduled departure where
Deer on the Old Quarry Trail
Deer spotted on our walk along the Old Quarry Trail in -18C temperatures. They don't seem too bothered by the cold. we lined up and waited to check in. 80 minutes pre-departure they called for any travellers going to New York so we obliged and were directed to check-in where they promptly told us the flight was closed. Well this was a surprise. I've heard of governement employees closing early and tube and train drivers just not turning up for work but a flight closing 80 minutes before departure was a big surprise. So off we were taken to another queue at the Continental Airlines ticket counter where a rather mean, but soon to become friendly, lady had us wait along with about 15-20 other passengers, for about 20 minutes before helping us. She checked our tickets and informed us we'd been bumped off anyway (life had seriously overtaken us at this point) onto the direct Air Canada flight to Ottawa (at last we're back in the slow lane on our bicycles). So havng "missed" our original flight we were now flying 2 hours later on a direct flight and getting in 2 hours earlier. All we had to do now was overcome the small issue of the ticket and passport being in different names - enter Pam stage right and
New Year's eve
Pam and the girls warming up for the night ahead. a very understanding Air Canada official and we were all checked in and good to go but not without being told several times we need to travel with our marriage certificate (I kept syaing you're preaching to the converted in my head followed by why don't you just call me a forgetful numpty, which would be far more accurate). Anyway, 3 movies, 1 meal, 1 snack, and a couple of ginger ale's later we touched down in a very chilly Ottawa. And to round off what had started off as a good day, gone rapidly downhill, only to turn just as rapidly uphill, continued on that trajectory as we sailed through immigration (avoiding what I have just called "the small room" where I have had to go on 2 previous occassions for seemingly pointless paperwork).
So having said our hello's and settled in we spent the next few days popping in to visit friends who we hadn't seen for quite some time. We then headed down to Toronto for a few days to have a look around and get a feel for the lay of the land so to speak before we head over that way in the middle of 2010. Thankfully it was several degrees warmer than Ottawa (doesn't matter that it was -10C in Ottawa increasing to 0C in Toronto, it's still 10 degrees warmer!) which brought some relief to the extremities. We had great city tour guides in Brett and Kendra and Jackie and also got to know the inside of the Eaton centre particularly well as we rounded off, or could that be started, our Christmas shopping in what can only be likened to a mad house at that time of year. Toronto on the whole went down well and we both enjoyed it and managed to find our way around without too much trouble. Trying to work out where to stay is still proving tricky though and with house prices pretty exorbitant in Toronto trying to find an affordable but nice area is going to require some hard work. On the whole we have found Canada, and Toronto in particular, just as expensive as London (UK). Gas/petrol would be the one exception.
It was then back to Ottawa as Santa was coming and time, and reindeer, wait for nobody. We had a lovely Christmas in Ottawa and although it didn't snow much there was plenty of snow around to make the trees and surrounding areas all white and pretty.
Boxing day did not bring good weather as an ice storm rolled in. Had it been a new brand of men's deodarant it might not have been too bad but being a proper storm it caused some havoc. It is a bit of a foreign concept to those of us from South Africa, and even England for that matter, and althugh it can look quite pretty it can be particularly dangerous. Everything was covered in a layer of ice a couple of millimetres thick. When the wind blew you could hear the ice cracking on the trees and wires as they bent with the wind. As the branches loosened up so the wind made the trees sound like chandaliers which was rather nice. I did, however, avoid standing under the trees or long dangling ice stalagtites as I'd seen enough of them falling down and lancing the ground to know that I didn't fancy and ice injection in the top of my head.
We went for a walk along the Old Quarry trail one sunny afternoon but boy was it "crisp". At minus 18C it was rather chilly but whilst walking it wasn't too bad. Of course, as the face numbed, being the only exposed part of the body, speech became more difficult and it was nigh on impossible to establish whether one was drooling or had a double barrelled snail trail from the nose, but all ths was put right by some very nice warm apple cider afterwards! (See accompanying picture of deer)
On rolled New Years but not before we were able to take in an ice-hockey game. Apart from a few soft goals let in by the Ottawa goalie it was a good game and they nearly managed to stage a great comeback to beat the Colorado Avalanche. Unfortunately, it was not to be and the game ended a rather exciting 3 - 4 defeat for Ottawa. New Year's eve was greated with quite a snowfall as the forecast 1-2cm soon turned in to something in the low double-digits. It was a great evening that started off with plenty of hockey (Ottawa beat the Islanders and Canada Juniors beat the US juniors) and was followed by beer pong which can best be described as a cross between marbles, pool, ping pong, and well, drinking. Great fun was had by all and although it ended up being a very late night the aftereffects will little more than tired eyes for most which was made 1 January a much easier day to get through.
Well this is a very late addition but I thought it worth mentioning. The first is to do with our return flight. You'll be happy to know we made it to the airport on time although I had established earlier in the morning that our flight to Newark had been cancelled due to bad weather. Thankfully though, we were quickly booked onto the Air Canada flight via Toronto so by hook and by crook we managed to not fly a single leg on Continental Airlines depsite them being our ticketed carrier.
And finally, I am developing a bit of a speach complex. On phoning the Continental call centre earlier in the day to establish the POA given our cancelled flight, not only did I not get to speak to someone (automated answers only please!), I was only understood by the machines when I spoke in a North American accent (boy does Great Britain have something to learn on that one!). But there is one word that gets me every time....Coke! Can you believe it? I mean, how many ways can one pronounce this word in English? Have you tried? I have, and I can only ever come up with one, but were it not for Pam, I'd have gone thirsty on more than one occassion in Canada! It doesn't bode well for post sporting event hydration! You'll be very relieved to know though that beer is widely understood!!
I'll end off this first entry on that note as we pack our one and only little bag for our return flight to London, unfortunately via the US, from where we'll be heading off in a few days' time to Bangkok to kick off the "flexi", i.e. rather ad hoc and unplanned, part of our trip. So happy new year to you all. We wish you all a fantastic 2010 and look forward to being able to share some of our experiences with you as we embark on our big journey over the next 6 months. Very best wishes. Keith and Pam.
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Davida
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Safe travels
Hey guys, thanks for the update and please travel safe. You need some limited edition olympic mittens to keep your fingers warm in that cool Toronto weather. :) BRRRR