In the quest to find the fundamental differences between Australian and Canadian culture, our first stop goes no further than the garage. Here are the top five things you are unlikely to see in an Australian Garage....
At number 5: you might find shovels in an Australian garage but "snow shovels" would be very unlikely.
Number four: you might find pool salt in Oz but "ice salt" is way less common.
Number three: A Canadian flag wedged under a set of "snow tires" is possible but highly unlikely.
Number two: BB guns. If the police saw you with these down under, they would shoot you on sight.
And at number One, the most unlikely thing to see in and Australian garage is... Critter Ridder: Repels dogs, cats, racoons, skunks and groundhogs
The Australian version might read: Repels dogs, cats, possums, cane toads and dugites
I have never been a great fan of rolling or gliding across hard surfaces. Roller-blading and skateboarding are not sports indented for lanky people with bad knees. At least with surfing, you’re pretty much guaranteed to land on something soft.
Ottawa however has a “Canal Culture”. It’s the thing to do in the winter: skate down the Rideau Canal, eat Beavertails (registered trademark) and sip hot chocolate. When in Rome, I’m all about togas, so I gave it a go.
We hired skates from a bike shop near the Pretoria Bridge and gingerly climbed down the steps to the ice. I have enough trouble walking on an icy “side walk”, so I felt vaguely uneasy about putting blades under my feet to make me slide more.
I strapped them on and moved my feet on the ice beneath the bench and thought, “This is a pretty unlikely form of transport.”
Unfortunately, my instructor hadn’t skated for over seven years and had little advice on the theory of how it was done, “I don’t know, you kind of move your feet in an “s”, like you’re doing the twist.”
As with anything that you learnt to do from a young age, it’s hard to explain. Could you tell someone how to ride a bike?
I moved forward about three metres and made a controlled fall. I lay on the ice and looked up at the sky, “This is a lot more agreeable. You go ahead, remember how it’s done, then come back and tell me.”
I sat and watched. There were scores of people: couples elegantly gliding up and down the ice hand in hand, teenagers with hockey sticks and grannies reliving their youth. Kids were being dragged behind parents on sleds or learning to skate with plastic stands – a sort of Zimmer frame for skating. Others wore helmets. One I saw had a full goalie’s mask. Dental care isn’t covered by the national health. That’s the time to learn to skate - while your bones are still malleable. Thirty-year-old Australians I decided, had no business learning to skate.
I was very disturbed by the number of skating paramedics around. One of them pushed a sort of stretcher sled. Were there that many spinal injuries out here? This didn’t make me feel any safer.
Eventually Jay came along. He had taught people to skate before. It was too late though, my confidence had been shot, “Put one skate behind the other like a T and push”
“yaaarrar”
“Ok, if you don’t want to take your skates off the ice, try moving your skates in a C-shape,”
That was a bit more manageable, and with aides holding either arm, I made it shakily across to the other bank of the canal, “Where are we heading?”
“Just past that corner and then another 200m”
I looked back at the fifty metres I had just travelled, “You must be kidding! In the words of a great man ‘Fook that!’ I’ll see you at the pub, thanks anyway though.” They skated off with the ease and confidence that I knew would never come to me.
That’s fine with me. I’ll be happy to watch from the side-lines, sip the hot chocolate and warm up it with a dash of whiskey. My ice hockey career - over before it began.
...or “Canada” as they like to call it these days,
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.
At this stage, I am back in Australia with sun shining and crickets chirping; however, I did want to make some final comments about the world's only superpower:
1. What is with the imperial measurements? What is a quart, gallon or fluid ounce? I think they are just being obtuse to hang onto these antiquated ways when the rest of the world has moved onto kilos and liters.
2. Who is in charge of the beer production? Surely when beers were being handed out, the Americans must have been in the "john". It tastes alright but they seem to have forgotten to put any booze in. I think the average is about 2.4%. 3. What's with the 110v power? Is this the only country in the world that uses 110v power? - I needed converters for everything that didn't have dual voltage transformers.
4. Why make all your money look the same? You can't tell a one from a hundred, a Washington from a Franklin - it's bloody annoying. It's also one of the only countries I have been to that still has a one dollar bill.
5. Who died and left all these guys the cheap fuel? $2.20 a gallon (four liters) or something like that. Istanbul is was over $2 a litre and Turkey is right next to all the oil. I am pretty sure they even pump it across the border and refine the the stuff.
The USA can send it across the world and still have it cheaper at the pump than milk.
That shits me. You take this rare commodity from deep within the ground, run it through a highly sophisticated refining process, ship it around the world and sell it at a pump. You get a cow, milk it and boil the crap out of it; and it is still more expensive than oil.
Anyway, that is a few things that have been on my mind about the USA.
In conclusion, it is a vast country with an unusual culture which intrigues me. I would like to go back one day to visit my family and all those places that have been made famous... next time.
At the height of the Cold War, the chaps at the (poorly named) Department of Defence thought it would be a cracking good idea to their air defence complex inside a mountain.
After checking out a few places they decided on Colorado Springs. Excavation began by private contractors and then the navy came in to fit it out welded steel rooms.
The idea being that they place could keep running after the first wave of Russian missiles to make sure the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) agreement could be maintained.
This of course seems highly adolescent these days and you could never do it again - you would never get the environmental permission, it infringes on the Native Title of too many people and, in today's money, it would cost around 20 billion big ones.
Regardless today it is still running and could withstand a fair amount of nuclear, biological and chemical battering. There is enough supplies to keep those inside safe from harm for about a month.
Since September 11th their brief has been expanded to include monitoring all domestic and international flights within all North American Airspace.
You drive up to the car park and get into a bus that take you the rest of the way up the hill. From there you get a briefing all about the history and workings of station. Then you head around to security where men with guns put you through metal detectors and make sure you are not carrying anything nasty including cameras and mobile phones (they seem a bit shy).
From there you get in another bus which drives you into a hole in the side of the mountain. This takes you about 3/4 of a mile down a tunnel where you get out and go through the huge blast doors.
Beyond those, is not a giant "Bat Cave" as you might imagine but a series of huge tunnels with about fifteen buildings on springs to prevent the place being shaken up by a possible blast.
There is a whole self contained community below with gym, fire trucks, hospital, water supply, generators and canteen.
We were even more fortunate to see the central command room - something out of "Dr. Stranglove": lots of computers, wood panelling and giant screens. I was shocked to see them watching Fox News.
It is definitely a high stress job for these guys. Anything that flies over North America has to be identified, tracked, its source found and a decision has to be made on whether it is going to go off bang.
I first visited North America in 2006/07 but only got Florida and Colorado. Fate brought me back to the huge, crazy continent; this time to Ottawa, Canada.
Canadians please note: Yes, I know that Canada is not the United States of America, but it is right at the top of the continent of called "America"; and as such, my thoughts are going onto the American Odyssey blog.
Until I get my own website, you'll have to live with it.
At number 5: you might find shovels in an Australian garage but "snow shovels" would be very unlikely.
Number four: you might find pool salt in Oz but "ice salt" is way less common.
Number three: A Canadian flag wedged under a set of "snow tires" is possible but highly unlikely.
And at number One, the most unlikely thing to see in and Australian garage is... Critter Ridder: Repels dogs, cats, racoons, skunks and groundhogs
At number 5: you might find shovels in an Australian garage but "snow shovels" would be very unlikely.
Number four: you might find pool salt in Oz but "ice salt" is way less common.
Number three: A Canadian flag wedged under a set of "snow tires" is possible but highly unlikely.
And at number One, the most unlikely thing to see in and Australian garage is... Critter Ridder: Repels dogs, cats, racoons, skunks and groundhogs
