The Real Canada

My fear of the cold has almost gone since I arrived here. In Canada, coldness is just a wolf skin that a lamb wears. In most of the cases, you cannot even feel it although it is minus 40 degrees out there. After people come out of the house, they sit in their cars or jump onto the buses, which have hot air. As a matter of fact, hot air is everywhere in every building all over the city. What I feel is that in winter it is much better to stay here rather than in my home city, which sounds ridiculous but true.

In my city, cold means cold.  The lowest temperature will be minus 5, that is already the extreme situation. But, imagine that, if you are always in minus 5, you will soon find your hands are freezing, clothes are not warm enough, cooking in the kitchen is much better than being a couch potato.

So, to have a taste of Canada weather, I would suggest “go walking in a blizzard”.  I think people in this world, except for those living in countries like Russia, Iceland, far north Europe and Japan, will not have a clue about what a blizzard is and feels like.

 I was kind of lucky because this morning I chose to walk to campus as usual, even though I knew the blizzard was there. A few steps away from my apartment I felt OK, wearing layers of warm clothes even made me sweat when I was inside. When the wind started blowing snow on my face, I realized it was not going to be fun walking. The sky was dim despite that it was already 8:20 in the morning. My vision was totally a blur and I could not see though vehicles were crawling in comparison to the usual, and I could hardly see people on the sidewalk. I continued going towards campus.

Half way to the road, I kind of regretted walking. The sidewalk was covered with snow completely. I was wearing snow boots, but the snow was piled up to about half my leg high, in some places it was almost up to my waist!! Mr. Canada, How are you? Please let me through. However, there were no backup plans so I had to keep walking. If there was videotape, police would think I was drunk, with my body swaying left and right, back and front. It was hard to walk. Suddenly, a running creature jumped past me from my back, like a rabbit. That was the most brilliant idea, since your feet wouldn’t get as deep as when you were walking. Then I started to run as well and it worked out very well. By the time I got to the campus, there were not many students I can see. Where were they? I heard from the CBC radio that half of the cars on some highway were stuck in the ditches. That also reminded me of the day when some friends and I went to Holiday Mountain, my friend’s car was stuck, as well. Thanks to a kind man with a truck, he pulled us out. So, I was looking forward to the news tonight. Hope they can get out there finally.

In my German class, Teresa said everyone was supposed to stay home. She was somehow right, I think. Since three quarters of the students were absent. Viele Glück!! Mr. Canada, I finally see you. The real Mr. Canada is with the snow.

P.S. Something was funny. I listened to the radio after the blizzard around a week later. I remember the CBC news said there were about 4,000 teachers asked for sick leave on that blizzard day, while the average number was about 800. I didn’t remember what area it was and what teachers they were. The radio hosts were saying how irresponsible the teachers were. Even the students made it, how come they couldn’t make it.  My opinion of that is just not to pay them that day.