We arrived in the nation’s capital - Ottawa for the undereducated - which is very much like Canberra in a way. Half way between the two major capitals (Montreal and Toronto instead of Sydney and Melbourne) and filled with government employees.
Since my arrival I have:
- Bought a car
- Slipped on ice
- Eaten a “funnel cake”
- Shovelled the driveway
- Driven a snowmobile
- Sampled local produce
- Been to a hockey game
- Drank with locals (and yokels)
- Experienced a white Christmas
- Watched Team Canada win the juniors
- Discovered the wonders of vodka martinis
Why am I here?
Well, my good partner happens to be Canadian and I wanted to see what all the fuzz was about. She was good enough to follow me to the most isolated capital city in the world, which I once called home, so I thought I might follow her to the third coldest capital city in the world, where her family is from. Strangely ironic since I don’t really like being isolated and she doesn’t like being cold.
Also, after living in foreign parts for such a long time, we thought it might be interesting to live somewhere you can chat to your cab driver. The irony is, we can’t afford to take cabs here and I’m told most cab drivers here have a pretty low level of English.
I’m always interested in visiting new parts of this small blue-green orb. You really don’t know nothing about nowhere until you been; and so there are a few questions I’ll seek to answer:
What’s with the orgy of flag waving nationalism? Is it really compulsory to stitch those little flags to your pack when travelling? Or is it a service offered at airports to prevent being killed as suspected Americans?
Why do they seem unconcerned about having a queen as their head of state while Australians jump up and down and have referendums?
How has their world-dominating southern neighbours affected the national psyche?
What really is the difference between Canadian, American or Australian culture? Is that a contradiction in terms? Or is it a bit like the difference between baseball and cricket?
How does this completely public healthcare system work?
Why is there a section of France (three times larger than the original) in the middle of the country?
Why is it on the American Odyssey web-blog?
To tell you the truth, I can’t be bothered starting a new one; so this will be a blog for the continent.
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