Our Life in Canada

OUR LIFE IN CANADA

Upon our return to London from Florida in early June we finally had the opportunity to settle into everyday life.

London, Ontario



An aerial view of London, Ontario

As you would all know, we are living in a city called London, in the Canadian province of Ontario.  London is in the South Western part of Ontario, two hours drive away from Niagara Falls, Toronto and Detroit (in three different directions).  London is a city whose economy is driven by its main University, The University of Western Ontario, which has 30,000 students!!!  London is on a piece of land that is surrounded by three of the five great lakes of North America.  To the south it is bound by Lake Erie; to the east, Lake Ontario; and Lake Huron to the west and the north.  Consequently the summer weather, although it looks very mild on a temperature chart, is unpleasantly humid and sticky.  So, a day of 25C feels like 32C, a day of 30C feels like 42C and very sweaty!  Every few days or so, we experience quite severe thunderstorms in the late afternoon!

Our house
We are living on the grounds of The University of Western Ontario; known most commonly as “Western University”.  The University comprises a number of colleges (i.e., schools), a huge recreation centre, the “University Hospital” and, in the Southern area of the grounds, Platt’s Lane Estate, which is one of many accommodation options in the general vicinity for students and visiting staff.

We are living in Platt’s Lane Estate (you will find it on Google Maps).  It is a collection of low-rise apartments, and two and three bedroom town-houses set in the most beautiful park-like grounds.  We have a two bedroom town house, which is part of a cluster of 10 townhouses.

The college where Chris is working is known as Elborne College and is, not surprisingly, the School of Health Sciences.  His School includes Audiology, Speech Pathology, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation.  Luckily, Elborne College is in the Southern part of the University grounds and is only a 1.2 km walk from our home in Platt’s Lane.  You can also find Elborne College on Google Maps!

Our town house is pretty basic, but functional.  It has a kitchen and living room downstairs and two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs.  When we arrived we were most excited to discover that we also have a basement.  The basement is huge as it takes up the entire footprint of the house!  We call it the bat-cave!  Our backyard is beautiful and green.  If you could call it a back yard!  A lot of houses in North America do not have fences, so we essentially have one huge backyard area that is shared by our cluster of 10 town houses.  The thing we like most about our back yard (beside the fact that it is very pretty), is that we have two squirrels that visit us every day.  I have named them “Sam” and “Dean”.  We also love the fireflies that appear every night around 9pm, they are magical!

 

Chris, James and Alex out the front of our townhouse
 - 416 Platt's Lane!!

 A view of the living room from the kitchen.

The stairs down to the basement or "Bat Cave"

 Dancing in the "Bat Cave"

BBQ on our back patio.


Cooking S'mores  on the BBQ after dinner

Alex eating S'mores

The view from our back patio.

 

 

The combined "backyard" of our block of 10 townhouses

 

The playground at Platt's Lane Estate

 Our Car
The Dodge........ what can I say, other than we LOVE our Dodge!  In order to have a car while here, we simply went to Avis and hired a car.  In requesting a mid-size SUV, we were given a Dodge!  A vehicle I would never have dreamed of driving.  But it is roomy, comfortable and gets us from A to B!  We have taken to listening to the “Country and Western” music radio station while driving around (very daggy, but a little bit cool!)

 

The boys with my beloved Dodge!

As a result of listening to this radio station we have become fond of a song called “The Boys ‘Round Here”, by Blake Shelton.  James, Alex and I keep singing it all the time, not because it is a great song, but because it is played ALL the time on the radio!!!  So much so that we have decided the “The Boys ‘Round Here” has become our “mascot” song for this trip to Canada.  So ............ indulge me, humour me and have a listen to the song that we cannot get out of our heads.  Go to YouTube and type in “The Boys ‘Round Here”, by Blake Shelton or follow this link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXAgv665J14

 Socialising

It has taken a little while, but we have started of late, to receive invitations to people’s homes.  This has been a wonderful thing, because we have all been feeling a little lonely and we have all been particularly missing our friends back home!!  Chris has a work colleague called Susan, she and her husband Murray have boys of similar age to James and Alex.  Matheson is 7 years old and he and James hit it off as soon as they met!  Likewise Ben, who is just 5, has been absolutely gorgeous to Alex!  We have been to their house numerous times for BBQ dinners and swimming.  They have an indoor swimming pool!!!!!  A few weekends ago (29 June to 1 July) was a long weekend to celebrate “Canada Day” – very much like Australia Day except with Canadian flags!!!  We celebrated by cooking an Aussie BBQ for Susan, Murray, Matheson, Ben and Bill (Susan’s dad who was staying for the weekend).

 

Ben and Alex hanging out.

 

Susan and Murray

 

Chris and Murray cooking Australian BBQ on Canada Day!

 

Ben, Alex, Matheson and James enjoying BBQ.



The "grown ups" table.

Susan and Jacqui

Alex and Matheson swimming in Ben and Matheson's indoor pool!

 

Chris and I have also had a couple of fun nights out with two of Chris’ work colleagues – Angie and Jack.  Angie is a Speech Pathologist originally from Tennessee and Jack is an Audiologist who hails from Texas.  The first night we caught up with Jack and Angie, they put on a great spread for us!  Tex Mex and margaritas for dinner, then we finished off the evening with genuine Tennessee bourbon!!  Needless to say, we caught a taxi home that night!  Another night we went out to a fabulous Italian Restaurant.

Tex Mex and margaritas at Jack and Angie's house!

Base Ball (T-ball)

While we have been here, James has joined a T-ball team.  T-ball is the kids’ version of baseball.  The two games are exactly the same except for one difference.  Instead of someone pitching the ball to you, you hit the ball with a baseball bat from a tee.  Then you run around the diamond and field exactly the same as baseball.  James has matches at 6pm every Monday and Wednesday evening and he loves it!  The delightful thing is that our friend Murray is the coach and James’ friend Matheson plays in the team with him.  Sometimes Alex comes to a match and plays with his friend Ben (Matheson’s brother).

James with his T-ball team (James and Matheson are in the back row)

A silly shot!

 

Batter up!

Fielding

James playing "back-catcher" and being coached by Murray

 

James as "back-catcher" setting up the ball on the tee.

James, Matheson and Alex

The Food

Not surprisingly, the food is heavily influenced by the fast-food madness of the US!  I have never seen so many fast-food outlets per square km!  Thankfully, London prides itself on fresh, local produce and has several farmers markets and the “Covent Garden Market”, which is like a smaller version of our Central Market.  There are some great restaurants around that use fresh, local produce and we have discovered a fabulous Japanese restaurant that the boys love.  Another favourite is a Mexican restaurant called “Under the Volcano” which is very busy, very fun, kid friendly, with authentic food.

As for national dishes, Canada’s only real claim to fame is a dish called poutine.  It originates from Quebec (hence the French-sounding name) and involves a plate of chips (French fries) covered in beef gravy and cheese curds.  It looks disgusting but is quite delicious.  We have only had it once and it has taken me a long time bring myself to try it.  A couple of weeks ago we went for a drive to a really cute nearby town called Stratford, had lunch at a pub and this is where we tried poutine!!!!

Chris, James and Alex eating Poutine!

Chris at Work
Chris at his public lecture being introduced by JB Orange
(the Professor of Audiology and Speech Pathology).
Chris’ work is going really well with his work.  He has set up a number of research projects with his Canadian colleagues, which will continue on once we return home.  He has done several presentations to staff and students that went brilliantly!  His biggest presentation happened 2 weeks ago about his research, with all staff across the entire University being invited!  Very nerve wracking but he did well.  In fact, he did brilliantly!!!  I know this because I had the kids babysat and I was therefore able to attend the lecture and take these photos!!!

Chris giving his public lecture!

Forthcoming trips
So, at present, we are hanging around London, enjoying being settled, going for short day trips, and socialising.  At this stage, we are looking forward to more socialising in the coming weeks, plus trips to Niagara Falls, Toronto and a farm up north!  More about that and other fun things in the next posting.

 

Our Expedition to Florida!

OUR EXPEDITION TO FLORIDA

Having just settled into our home in London, we headed down to Florida for a week.  This trip was from Saturday 18^th May to Saturday 25^th May.  Chris was attending the “International Adult Aural Rehabilitation Conference” – this is a biennial conference that he has attended for the last 10 years!  There are very few direct flights you can take in North America, as the routes centre around a few major hubs such as Chicago, LA, Dallas, New York, and Toronto.  So a flight that could have potentially taken 3 hours, took the whole day!  We flew from London to Chicago, with a four-hour stop-over, then onto Tampa in Florida.  Apparently, O’Hare Airport (Chicago) is the busiest airport in the world!  I would believe that, the place is HUGE!!!

Waiting in O'Hare for our flight to Tampa

Riding a train between terminals
 at O'Hare Airport

  
 

Flying to Tampa

Sirata Beach Resort, St Pete’s Beach, Florida

Chris’ conference was held at the Sirata Beach Resort, which was a half-hour drive south-west of Tampa airport.  Oh boy!  What a delight to arrive to such gorgeous, warm, balmy weather and to find ourselves staying at a resort located RIGHT on the beach!  We had a gorgeous family suit with two separate bedrooms, a living/dining room and a kitchenette.  James and Alex’s room had bunk beds and a porthole in the door!  As soon as we arrived, we threw our bathers on and went down to the pool.  This was my favourite part because the pool was 2 metres from the beach and “Harry’s Bar” made great Piña Coladas!!!  Needless to say, we spent a fair bit of time by the pool!!!

The view of our resort from our room

 



 

 The boys on the balcony of our room 

Alex pretending to be George of the Jungle!

 Fun in the pool and poolside!!

While Chris was attending the conference, Alex, James and I spent time either at the pool or doing day trips to Legoland and Busch Gardens.  I decided that Disney World was not a goer on this trip with two-hour line-ups for rides!!  Not feasible with a 3 year-old!

 

Legoland

On the Tuesday of our week in Florida, Alex, James and I embarked on a 90 minute drive to Legoland.  This was a huge theme park aimed at 2 to 12 year-olds.  We went on a number of fun rides, based around the various themes of Lego (e.g., Kingdoms, Pharaoh Quest etc).  Line-ups were only 5-15 minutes, which we could all handle!  Another highlight for us was the “miniature” display of famous landmarks, cities, and tourist attractions as well as a huge display of Star Wars scenes made out of Lego.  James and Alex went to driving school and got their “Legoland” drivers licences.  We saw about half of the park in a day, which was enough for me!  Unfortunately, our drive home took three hours due to massive thunderstorms, floods on the roads and road closures!  A tad scary, but, the important thing was we returned safely, the boys were terrific and I made it home just in time to go to the conference dinner with Chris! 

 

The entrance to Lego Land
 

Riding in the Island in the Sky - a huge platform

that gave us a view over the entire park!

 

Duplo Land 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Riding on Merlin's Challenge at Lego Kingdoms

 

A huge Pharaoh made out of Lego at Lego Pharaoh Quest 

 

 

A Lego Merry-go-round

 

 

Famous places made out of Lego........

 

The Kennedy Space Centre

 

Las Vegas

 

Home Alone - Lost in New York!!!!!!

 

 

Alex and R2D2 

 

The boys with Darth Maul 

 

Learning to drive at Lego Land 

 

 

Busch Gardens

On the Wednesday of our Florida trip we drove 40 minutes to the north of Tampa to visit a theme park called the Busch Gardens.  This was probably one of the most fascinating theme parks I have EVER encountered!!  The park had an African theme with different areas depicting different regions of Africa.  Each region had theme-based rides and dotted throughout the park were animal enclosures.  So it was a zoo/theme park combination.  There were four main highlights for us.  I loved the train-ride through a “Serengeti Plain” filled with rhinos, giraffes, zebras etc.  Alex enjoyed a theatre show called “Operation Vacation” featuring the characters from the animated film, “Madagascar”.  James adored the Egypt section, particularly an exact replica of King Tutankhamen’s tomb while it was being excavated by Howard Carter in the 1920s!!!!  And we all loved the sky-ride (that gave you a birds’-eye view across the park) so much that we went on it twice.  Thankfully no dramas were encountered on the drive home!

The Sky Ride

 

A view from the Sky Ride

 

 

The Egypt section of Busch Gardens

 

James pretending to be Howard Carter and Alex ........climbing!

 

Inside King Tut's tomb.

 

The crew from "Madagascar" in "Operation Vacation"

 

Having fun on the rides at Busch Gardens!

 

Riding the train through the Serengeti Plain

 - we saw rhinos, giraffes and zebras





 

 

 

James and Alex on safari in the wild

 

There was NO WAY I was gonna touch that snake,

 I left it to James and Alex!

 

Kennedy Space Centre (KSC)

Thursday was the first day Chris had free to spend with us.  We spent the day driving across the entire width of the Florida peninsula (3 hours!!!) to visit the Kennedy Space Centre – just to keep me happy!!!!!!!  This was an interesting experience, but tinged with a little bit of disappointment, mostly because it was not a suitable place for 3 year-olds!!!  The centre contained two interesting museums: the history of space exploration and the future of space exploration.  James and Alex loved the “Angry Bird Experience”, I loved the IMAX presentation about the story of the International Space Station.  Poor Chris spent most of his time managing Alex’s expression of his boredom and madness.  We did not get a chance to do the tour of the NASA command centre/vehicle assembly building/launch pad.  We will save that for next time as that is the thing I wanted to do the most!

At the entrance to KSC

 

The robot from "Lost in Space"

 

A 1960s command centre

 

The suit Neil Armstrong wore

when he first walked on the moon!

 

The Rocket Garden

 

The Angry Bird Experience

 The Salvador Dali Museum

One of my favourite artists in the WHOLE world is a Spanish guy by the name of Salvador Dali.  His work ranges from the 1920s to the late 1980s, when he died.  Of ALL places in the world, there is a Salvador Dali Museum in Florida, featuring 96 of his works.  Lucky me, it was only 20 minutes drive from where we were staying!

On Friday we spent a relaxing day by the pool with Chris and I snuck out in the afternoon to commune with Salvador!  What a treat!  The museum itself is a stunning work of art – see the photos of the huge window structure and the staircase.  Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos to show you of the artwork as photography in the galleries was forbidden.

The works ranged through the full span of his career.  When Salvador first started painting, he was influenced by the Realists and Post Impressionists.  So there were a lot of beautiful landscapes and still-life that looked very Monet-ish or Cezanne-ish.  He was, of course very soon influenced by the Surrealists and these were my favourite paintings – dreams, nightmares and the subconscious – influenced by the writings of Sigmund Freud (Freud was gaining recognition and respect at the time).  The museum also had some works from the third phase – can’t remember what it was called, but Dali was focussed on spirituality and the merging of science and religion.  They had several of his “masterworks” from this period (canvasses that were about 4m x 7m.......stunning!!!!!).  This period was influenced by the atomic age of the 50s and 60s.

 

The front of the Dali Museum

 

 

Inside the Museum

Back to London

Not surprisingly, our flight back to London on Saturday was a day-long journey.  We flew from Tampa to Chicago and then onto London.  There were a number of delays at various points that resulted in a 12-hour journey – somewhat tedious!!!!

Anyway, our week in Florida was fun and relaxing!  I would go back to the Sirata Beach Resort any day (and KSC of course)!!!  After over a month of travelling and setting up our house, we were finally looking forward to a more settled life in London.  More about everyday London life in my next posting!