Home sweet home.

Excuse my lateness, but in case you hadn't realised, we are safely home from Canada. We got home two weeks ago today, and life has been pretty busy, hence my delay. We spent a few days in Suffolk (REUNION IN SUFFOLK!), unpacking and then repacking, before moving into our new flat in Canterbury. The girls came to visit (REUNION IN CANTERBURY!), I registered at my new uni, then Seamus flew to Ireland (REUNION IN IRELAND!) and I went to London to see Kyra (REUNION IN LONDON!) before I flew to Germany (REUNION IN GERMANY!) to see Meike, Hanna and Vanessa, and last night, returned home to Suffolk (RE-REUNION IN SUFFOLK!). I think the reunions are all over now, and I have a couple of weeks to relax and hang out with my family (and new puppy and kitten!) before I move to Canterbury properly and start uni. So, I've really been too busy to miss Canada, or even contemplate missing Canada. It WAS good times, though.

I worked out we were there for 297 days, during which we visited fifteen cities, nine provinces (and two US states), and an awful lot of national and provincial parks. Waterton was so the most beautiful place we went to, although Newfoundland came pretty close, and BC would definitely be the province I'd move to. I liked everywhere we went, minus Lethbridge and Calgary (yes, even Toronto!) and my favourite thing about Canada is the diversity across the country. Diversity in every way...landscapes, climates, ethnicity, language, food, people, attitudes, industry, rates of GST...who needs to travel the world when you can just go to Canada? I will never forget the mountains, or the coastlines, or the people who shared their Canada with us (Erik the tour guide, Moose Travel, our two lots of farm hosts, our two lots of Couchsurfing hosts, the Algonquin crew, and our Waterton friends, especially Sue and Zen, Claudia, Al and Alex, Irina and Mayor Al, who I think about and miss every day). I am so happy to have met these people, seen these sights, done these outdoor activities, and drank all those beers.

I was thinking about making a new blog (our Canterbury adventures?), not that my life is that exciting these days (if it ever was), but social work/social issue-based. There is a lot I've wanted to talk about in terms of current events, my future studies etc, so I'll put a link here if I end up doing that in the next few days. I'm sad to sign out from my blogging career for too long, I'm pretty self-obsessed, so telling the internet world the ins and outs of my daily life has been fun. Until next time...

Skylines.

1.Montreal on a cloudy day.
2.Montreal on a less cloudy day.
3.Ottawa.

Lobsters.

Lobster traps, Gros Morne.

Making friends.

Marche Maisonette, Montreal.

Photos from Ottawa.

Ottawa was nice, we had a lot of fun there. We stayed in the jail hostel, which was a prison until 1972, and hasn't changed much since. It's meant to be one of the most haunted buildings in Ottawa (a place apparently known for its ghosts) but we didn't notice anything. It was a cool place to stay, anyway.

Apart from the aforementioned rafting adventure, we did some exploring, went to a great art gallery, drank a caesar, and did some shopping. Now we're back in Montreal; today we went to the Biodome, which has four different habitats and climates, and lots of animals, and actually changes temperature depending on which part you're in. It was cool. Then we visited a lot of markets....man, Quebec is good for markets. Tomorrow we're going on a bike tour! And then Friday is our last full day...

My scariest day.

We're back from rafting. Such a scary day. Very fun though. There was one rapid; Bus-eater, where I had a near-death experience. We all did. We all knew it was going to be the biggest rapid of the day, with the highest chance of the raft flipping. I remember approaching the rapid. I remember flying off my seat. Then I remember surfacing and coughing up water, and I was surrounded by boats and people and paddles and everyone was screaming. And all I could think was:
1)I need to save the paddles!
2)I need to save Seamus!

Then a boat came up beside me and they were screaming at me to grab hold of them and come aboad. But in my panic, I didn't recognise them as the rescue team, and thought they were pirates trying to steal me. But then I could see Seamus on the boat too, and he had snot all round his face, so I thought I should go with the pirates, to clean Seamus' face if nothing else.

And Natasha smashed her leg on a rock, and got hit in the face with a paddle, but she was safely on board our own raft, and soon Seamus and I were there too, clean faces and everything.

But then I was a bit shaky for a while. I wasn't scared or nervous beforehand, but I guess you never know how you're going to react in emergency situations. Turns out, I don't react well.

And then at the end, we jumped off the raft and swam in the river, and I was wearing a wetsuit and I pretended to be a dolphin.

So maybe I banged my head a little when I went underwater.

Ottawa and whitewater rafting.

We're in Ottawa, which is an underrated city I think, and today we're going rafting! And yesterday, we had our first, and last, caesars (the disgusting Canadian cocktail that I made a thousand of when I was working at the Kilmorey). Home on Sunday!!!