Oh golly, Canada aye? It’s aboot time they gave us some of deir recognition aye. Thanks for stopping by Canada, may we interest you in some of our famous Maple Syrup? Or how aboot some Poutine?”
Now I kind of feel bad about making fun of the Canadians. Oh well!
______________________________________________________________________________
In my 19 years of life, I have only left the good ol’ U S of A once. And it wasn’t to some cool country like France or Italy, it was Canada: a slightly better version of the United States. Our younger sister up north (yeah, Canada is a girl, I said it).
I was 17 years old and it was the middle of the summer. My mother had this seminar she was teaching all the way out in Edmonton, Canada. In addition to helping out manufacturing companies, my mom also goes to different businesses and teaches them about leadership.
She travels to different sites in the U.S. and Canada all the time (not much recently, with the Coronavirus hitting us hard). Usually it's just another solo business trip for her. But since it was the summer and she loves taking the family on adventures, she offered to take us on a vacation to Canada.
Unfortunately, I’m the only one that wanted to go. Not knocking on the rest of my family, I just have a better sense of adventure than them. Especially my brother. Every time we are on a family outing, there’s a constant battle between us on whether we leave or stay a little longer. So my mom decided to just take me and spare everyone of my brothers constant whining.
Before we left, I had to get my passport since it was my first time leaving the country. We went to the post office one day to register for a passport and get my picture taken. I don’t remember how much the passport cost, but I do know they only accept cash for it.
That totally starstruck me and my mom, who was planning on paying through credit card. She didn’t have enough money within her wallet, so I had to empty MY wallet while she dug through her purse to scrape together all the money we could. Luckily we managed to find just enough cash.
The lady then took me over to get my mugshot, I mean picture, for the passport. I actually think I like my passport picture more than my license. I didn’t know I was allowed to smile for my drivers license photo, so now I have this picture that makes me look like some sorta drug dealer.
I’m not sure what time we got up and left for the airport. It was definitely earlier than I am used to. Probably around 5 or 6 in the morning give or take. This wasn’t my first time flying on a commercial airline, but it was my first time taking multiple planes to my destination. It was a very long day of flying from Philadelphia to Minnesota to Edmonton. I don’t remember that much about my pit stop in Minnesota except for this shirt that said “I root for two teams, the Vikings and whoever is playing the Packers.”
When we got to Edmonton, I immediately noticed a lot of the ways Canada is different from the U.S.A. First off, a lot of signs in Canada are written in both English and French. Apparently French is supposed to be their second language. I don’t think I met anyone that spoke French in Canada though so I’m not entirely sure of that.
The second thing I noticed about Canada was the roads. Since Canada hasn’t abandoned the metric system (yet), everything is in kilometres. And the speed limit signs don’t say “Speed Limit 55,” they say, “Maximum 110.” Why does Canada have to be so different ?
The third thing I noticed was the day and night cycles. We went to Canada in the middle of summer, when they experience the most daylight all year round. The sun set at 10 PM and rose at 4 AM. So it was pretty weird going to bed while the sun was still out that first night.
My mom rented a car from the airport and, after struggling a little, managed to get us to our hotel. It was a nice place, they had a little place that served breakfast in the morning. We didn’t have a great view though. Either that or there's not much to Edmonton’s appearance.
The next day, my mom had the leadership conference she was presenting for. You know, the reason why we were in Canada in the first place? We got up early and went to the company she was presenting to. The guy she was working with was very nice to me and greeted me with a firm handshake.
My mom’s presentation was… somewhat interesting. It took the entire day and all I could do was just sit there and listen. I couldn’t participate in a lot of the activities because it was for the people that worked there. And, well, I didn’t work there. But I got some valuable information about leadership out of it.
There was one part of the day that was a little embarrassing. At lunch time, we took a short bathroom break before going back up for lunch. When I went back upstairs, I was talking to the different workers. There was one person in particular I was talking to that ended with him saying, “Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret.” Because that’s something you want to hear from someone you just met, right?
Apparently when I went to the bathroom, I actually went into the WOMEN'S bathroom and he noticed me doing. For some reason I didn’t notice that I was in a bathroom with no urinals and only women. I was too hung up thinking about why the Canadians called bathrooms, “washrooms.” Why do they have to be so different?
It’s even worse when someone you don’t know notices you doing stuff like that and calls you out on it. Luckily, this guy didn’t get the impression that I was weirdo from that. We even had dinner
with him and his wife that night. He didn’t bring it up that night (good).
The next day, me and my mom decided to get a better look of Edmonton and explore. We found this local business that did Segway tours of the city. You know, I always thought Segways were easy vehicles to ride and were just lazy forms of transportation. I was very wrong.
Segways are very dangerous vehicles to operate, harder than cars. They make you watch a whole safety video on how to ride it and be careful on it. You have to get on it one step at a time, otherwise it goes flying ten feet in front of you.
We got the hang of it eventually. Edmonton was actually a pretty beautiful city. Here is a picture I took during the tour. Isn’t it exactly what you thought it would be?:
We also went on our own adventure exploring the city. Some of the highlights of things we found included a sand sculpture contest (displayed below) and a box of noodles that was shaped like a man’s private parts. I’m not going to display that because this is a family friendly blog.
On our last day in Edmonton, we visited the local mall. And I have to say, it is the most impressive mall I have ever stepped foot into. It became quickly apparent that this was no ordinary mall when I saw a hockey rink right when I walked in. But there was so much more than that. There was an amusement park, a water park, it literally had something for everyone.
After our mall escapades, me and my mom got in the car and left… for Jasper National Park! Yup, that wasn’t the end of my Canada adventures. We were just exploring a different part. Unfortunately, this is the end of this post about Canada. Until part two, stay Mattastical!
Комментарии