The Windy City

From Toronto I went on to visit the Niagara Falls.

The town was like something out of a movie. I felt like I was in the United States even though I was still in Canada.


From the Niagara Falls I went across the border for a night on the bus.



My first US stop was Chicago. I have been so impressed by the amount of greenery in North American cities, and Chicago was no exception.

Freya arrived a day later than I, so before she did I visited the zoo. My favourite part was the bears. First the polar bear


And second the sun bear


I liked the ostrich too, our names start with the same letter which isn't too common.


The leopards, kangaroos and camels were pretty cool, I liked seeing animals we don’t have in the Auckland Zoo.


I have a lot of photos I want to share from Chicago, so will break the stay into two posts.

Ontario

I really liked Ottawa.

I went for a lovely walk down the canal to the parliament buildings.



Here there were five statues of women, out of which these two were my favourite. One was holding a newspaper which said "Women are Persons". This group of five successfully protested that women should not be excluded from the Senate, because women are "persons" and therefore fit the Senate's requirement.

From Ottawa I went on to Toronto. Toronto is huge! On Sunday morning I went for a walk before catching the double decker GO train to Oakville where I visited Scott's church. Scott worked at Totara Springs for several years with Uncle Chris and Auntie Sue. It was a great service and I was very glad I made it. After church Scott kindly took me out for lunch, and then down to see Lake Ontario. You can't see the other side!!!! It's so big!



From there we visited Jamie Bay. Unfortunately I forgot to get a picture, but I've borrowed one from Scott's facebook and I'm sure he won't mind. Use your imagination to merge these pictures together.


From there I headed back downtown and had a look around. I really liked this building, with the stairs coming out of the side.

Here is CN Tower.


This is the flat iron building.


These guys were outside the hockey museum.


This is part of Kensington Market.


On Monday morning, before my bus, I went down to the waterfront to check out the Toronto International Circus Festival. It had a good atmosphere. On the way down I saw a significant number of people marching with Israeli flags.

Fredericton Fun

It was been a wonderful few days!

To expand on the bus situation... The sole bus line for the Maritimes has had a lock out since December last year, which has made getting around tricky for us. It was said that they would probably start operating again on the 24th of May. We were scheduled to leave Charlottetown on the 15th, but when I looked up the bus lines website the evening of the 14th, having prayed very earnestly for an easy way to Fredericton, it announced that the buses would start operating again on the 16th. We postponed our departure a day and had a very enjoyable ride to Fredericton. In exchange for the inconvenience the buses are free for one week.

When we arrived in Fredericton we found out that the couple I had arranged for us to stay with were Christian, and that they were going to a potluck and prayer meeting an hour later. We joined them and had a lovely time. Ian and Katie are a young couple who do relief teaching because of the lack of full time positions available. Katie had no work the next day so she took us downtown to have a look around.

Here is me being a soldier.



This is the old railway bridge that was converted into a pedestrian bridge and connects the north of the city to the south.


Here is a man – we have no idea what he was doing there, there was no plaque.


For lunch Katie took us to Relish, a burger bar with delicious burgers.



After Katie picked Ian up from school they took us to this second hand book shop. It was incredible!!! There were so many little rooms off the hall way, and it had two levels. The owner estimated at least 50,000 books, and I would not be at all surprised if that was the case. It took a lot of self-control to just look, but we are very weary of adding any weight to our luggage.


This evening Freya and I parted, she’s off to Quebec and a few other places while I am off to Ottawa, Toronto and Chicago before we meet up again in Washington DC with Jenny.

I forgot to fill you in on my grades. It was either my best semester so far, or equal to my best, which I was very pleased with. McGill was much more challenging than back home and I put in a lot of effort. My McGill grades do not matter to Auckland University though, I came knowing that upon returning Auckland will translate each of my marks into a "pass" or "fail" for my transcript.

Prince Edward Island

After the Cabot Trail we stayed a night in Baddeck, and then went on to Truro to see the Tidal Bore (look it up, very cool).


Here’s where we waited in the middle of nowhere for the Tidal Bore, fending off the wind.


In Truro we also went to the local market and for a long walk.



From there we made our way to Prince Edward Island, and yesterday we spent the day cycling a scenic route to Green Gables.



Today we went for two 30 second swims in the ocean - it was very cold! In the afternoon we walked around Charlottetown. Tomorrow we head to Fredericton, we were going to go today but the Arcadian buses stop striking tomorrow - which is a miracle - so we decided to wait.

The Wonderful Maritimes

The Alexander Graham Bell Museum, in Baddeck, taught us that in addition to the telephone, Bell was involved with building an airplane (unbeknownst to him shortly after the Wright brothers), and a boat that held the fastest water speed record for 10 years. The boat was the first to use hydrofoil, which is still used today.

This is a picture of Freya and I with our buddy Carman, the owner of Bear on the Lake (a hostel near Aberdeen). He’s making a silly face.


This was on the way round the Cabot Trail for the second time, the mountains in the picture are hidden by the fog.


Thankfully the weather was better than the last time I went round though.



In the afternoon we walked the Skyline Trail, with walking sticks to fend off coyotes (a woman was killed by coyotes on that track a few years back).


We stayed in Pleasant Bay, on the northeastern side of the Cabot Trail. It has a general store, a laundromat and a few houses.



In the evening we took Lucas (from Germany) on a successful moose hunt.