Like everyone that goes away, I didn’t know what to expect. I had a vague idea Canada was cold, which it was. In fact, my definition of cold was redefined at least once a week. I mean, really, I’ll never be cold at home ever again. Basically, if it’s above zero, it’s T-Shirt weather, and unless it gets anywhere near -47 I won’t ever say it’s cold out.
But with all this coldness there is an upside, being a whole bunch of snow, which especially falls up on those mountains they have there, which, incidentally, being steep as they are, provide a pretty decent place to go snowboarding (or skiing, if you’re in to that) of a weekend. In fact, sometimes you just had to go up to the mountains all week. I mean, the courses I was able to do at U of C were great, and they had a really decent archaeology department, but really, if I wasn’t sliding down a hill at great speed, I wasn’t content.
Actually, that’s not true. Water is a funny thing, and when it’s not falling out of the sky in little white chunks, it sometimes gets frozen in a big clear chunk on the ground. Sometimes lakes and stuff do this, too. Anyway, if you happen to have a couple of kitchen knives strapped to your boots you can go slide around on it. In fact, they’ve gone and made a sport of it over there. It’s kind of like cricket, but with big sticks, and on ice.
Anyway, I learnt a lot of things, particularly to do with frozen water, and had an amazing time and met some super friends. It’ll change your life, if you let it.