Times fly

Hi everybody,

Time is really flying down here as it is already three weeks ago again that I told you about mine Canadian live. Things are still going very well and the weather is still cooperating, though we’ve seen the first snow last Friday. It’s amazing to see in how short of a period the world turns white here and what a chaos it creates on the road. Luckily Sarah was so kind to offer me a ride to work that day, so I didn’t have to cycle through 15 centimetres of fresh snow. Though the snow itself wouldn’t be the biggest problem, more the layer of ice under it that forms by cars driving over it. It “only” took us an hour to get to work due to heavy traffic; normally I cycle it within 35 minutes. Yesterday it was 15 degrees again, allowing me to walk outside without a coat in shorts, so much for climate change ;)
During the weeks since the last blog, the colours of the leaves turned even brighter, before fading and falling. Nowadays the trees are almost all bald, let alone some beautiful oak trees with bright yellow canapé’s. It won’t come as a surprise that the pictures concluding this blog will contain a lot of colourful trees.
The first part of the pictures is taken in Victoria Park near Truro, where Sarah and I went for a good afternoon hike. This park was formally private property and donated only a couple of years ago to Parks of Canada. Can you just imagine, being able to say that the park is your backyard! An attraction in the park is “Jacobs Ladder” that brings you up to a view point over the tight gorge that the park is. Further upstream there’s a series of waterfalls that are fed via a hydro power basin.
The weekend after I joined Kathryn and her mother to Shubie Park, as they went for a run there. Shubie is situated roughly in the middle of Dartmouth, just above the circumferential highway. In spite the noise of the highway, it’s a nice park to be in, with truck loads of curious but cute squirrels. The park is part of an old canal, dug by Scottisch and Irish labour man, that connected Halifax Harbour with the Bay of Fundy, at the north end of the peninsula. Though only a week after the hike in Victoria Park, trees were already much balder, due to the night frosts and strong winds. To walk around the complete park roughly takes a good hour, depending how many squirrels are crossing your path and how many chickadees’ (meesjes) are flying around. In contrast with the Dutch chickadees, the Canadian ones aren’t shy at all, they will even land on your hand to eat the food!
The weekend after Shubie it was time to investigate all about Halloween, which I did in stile, being dressed up as Mr. Sherlock Holmes. My beloved Queen of Harts took me along to Mitchel’s apartment on the Friday night, where we enjoyed a game of Cranium. At Saturday we stayed home, were Kathryn did the honours of handing out the treats to the children. Next time we might pull some scary tricks for the kids, just for the fun of it.
Last weekend Kathryn and I went up to Point Pleasant Park, one of the oldest parks near downtown Halifax. Nowadays the park looks very open and spacious and perhaps a bit dead to tourist who don’t know the story of Juan. That hurricane took 80% of the trees down at Point Pleasant, reshaping the park indefinitely. Apparently the old Second World War bunkers as well as the 18th century defence tower were still in shape enough to stand strong against the storm.
Yesterday it was Remembrance Day, the day all victims of war are mourned. Traditionally the weeks before poppies are sold to gather money for maintaining the memorial sites and the veteran societies. The day is an official bank holiday in Canada, giving Kathryn and myself a pleasant day together. We first headed to Crystal Crescent, a land end roughly a hour drive from the city, to do an 14 km hike along the coast and back through the woods. It turned out to be perfect hiking weather with temperatures around 12 degrees, a small breeze and a warming sun. I was glad though that I brought the boots, otherwise I most definitely had flicked my ankle, as a big bolder rolled over when I stepped on it, gravity did the rest. Thereby the path through the woods was more a swamp than a path, where the boots just could plough through ;). After the hike I took Kathryn out for diner and conclusively to a play at the Dartmouth Players, which was surprisingly good. The play was about a hilarious love story on board a trans-Atlantic cruise, with all kind of funny characters. The Dartmouth Players is an association of volunteers who just like to play for the fun of it and do that very well.
This is all for now, as I’ve to continue working tonight, as there’s only one full week of work left. The last week I intend to take of, to have a small vacation before plunging in another pile of work. Plans are currently being drawn for a Masters project, either here in Halifax, the Netherlands or perhaps London. The latter one would be awesome as Kathryn has found a substituting job there as an elementary teacher :). If more details are know, you’ll be the first to read it ;).

Bye bye,
Erik


Pictures @:
http://picasaweb.google.ca/E.A.J.Vroegrijk/UploadWeek11121314?authkey=Gv1sRgCOiY8_fp5tzWqQE#