Thursday, April 30, 2009

Monday, April 20, 2009

Saturday, April 18, 2009

The Carters visit Montreal

Since last weekend was a four day holiday, we decided to spend part of it visiting the city of Montreal, about 3 hours drive from Kingston. Making our way there early on Sunday morning, we quickly located our hotel before setting off to explore Old Montreal. This city is quite historic, having been settled by the French not long after Jacques Cartier sailed up the St Lawrence River to visit the area in 1535. The city saw its first permanent Europeans in 1642 and quickly established itself as a fur trading centre. Consequently, the old City of Montreal is very historic, and, like Quebec City, has a distinctly 17th century European feel to it. Having said this however, we found a unique blend of modern archtectural styles within the downtown area.
We walked around old Montreal for several hours on Sunday afternoon. Despite the frigid conditions, we enjoyed a fiesty performance by a fire juggler. The kids enjoyed this immensely and Nick was given a balloon poodle. After this, we explored the many souvineer shops found in the area. I finally succombed and pourchased my very own Canadian Toque. Mind you, this was a very handy way of helping to defeat the cold.
Mass for Easter Sunday was at the Notre Dame Basilica at 5.00pm. We made our way into the cathedral grateful for the warmth it provided. The interior of this vast building is amazingly gothic in its space and style! We enjoyed the service - totally in French - even if we didn't really completely understand what was being said.
We followed this vist with dinner at at three hundred year old pub before going back to our hotel. Unfortunately, the toilet in our bathroom flooded and water spilled over onto the carpet in the room. After frantically calling room service we were evacuated and resettled into a new room. This caused no end of amusement amongst the children.
The next day, we drove up to the Mont Royal Park lookout to take in some vistas of the city before visiting the site of the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games. Whilst here, we took the kids to the Biodome. This is a dome shaped construction housing a variety of ecosystems. We were able to walk through this and observe the various ecosystems at work. Nick really enjoyed the penguins and I've got to admit, they were pretty entertaining.
We enjoyed our visit to this city and really, in two days, only acquired a small taste. Bring on the summer so that we have time to explore at our leisure!

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Friday, April 10, 2009

March Madness



Finally, here are my calendar pages for the month of March. I have been a little busy marking end of term assessments and have been sidetracked from my real pursuits! As I look back over the past month, I realise how incedibly busy it was. We seemed to go from one major tourist event to another in quite rapid succession. No wonder we hit April absolutley exhausted!
Happy Easter to you all. We are going to go to Montreal for some of the Easter weekend. Stay tuned for lots of photos.
By the way, John finally received his Ontario College of Teacher's accreditation yesterday. He can now officially teach as a qualified substitute teacher within the Province of Ontario! Yipee.......


Tuesday, April 7, 2009

April Snow in Kingston


I took this photo of our back yard about five minutes ago. As you can see, it's covered in snow. It started snowing sometime early this morning and has continued throughout the day. I am now beginning to wonder whether or not Spring actually arrives in Canada! Last Saturday the temperature did manage to make it up to about 16 degrees and believe me, this felt positivvely tropical.
Winter is back I suspect, taking its fleetingly final gasps before (we hope) Spring hits us with a vengeance.
The weather is a huge topic of conversation around the staff room tables in Canadian schools! I have been asked about the weather many a time and how winters here compared to those at home. Really, there's no comparison but that's what we're here for. We have expereinced what it is like to live in snow, shovel snow, scrape freezing rain off the windscreens of our car, drive in raging blizzards at 90km per hour whilst barely flinching, jog in the snow and of course, play in the snow.
I have also been educated in the fine art of recognising the many and varied forms of snow.
In fact, did you know that:
-A blizzard is a long lasting snow storm with intense snowfall and unusually high winds?
-Freezing rain is rain which freezes on impact? This effectively coats all exposed surfaces with a layer of clear, shiny ice. A beautiful phenomena except if you need to scrape the windows of your car.
-Hoar frost refers to white crystals deposited on the ground and form when the air is moist and the surface is cold? This effectively makes every blade of grass, branch and leaf look almost like a fairy wonderland.
-Lake effect snow is produced when cold winds move across long expanses of warmer lake water, picking up water vapour which then freezes and is deposited on the lake shore?
-Blowing snow is snow on the ground being moved around by the wind?
-Corn snow is coarse, granular wet snow. This is the snow most commonly used by skiers when describing ideal spring skiing conditions. The corn is the result of the diurnal cycle of melting and refreezing.
-Packing snow is snow that is at or near melting point? This snow can be easily packed into snowballs and snow men and snow forts. The possibilities are endless.
-Powder is freshly fallen uncompacted snow? The density and moisture content of this type of snow can vary but skiers and snowboards seriously covet it.
-Slush is snow which partially melts upon reaching the ground to the point that it accumulates in puddles of partially frozen water? This effect can be rather unpleasant if you are jogging and accidently step the wrong way!
These are some of the types of snow I have learnt about since my arrival in Canada. Apparantly, the Inuit people have many more words to describe a multitude of variances.
It's been an experience so far and we have enjoyed experiencing a total climactic contrast.
Having said that, it's time to ditch the snow boots, toques and gloves and don shorts and t-shirts. Vale to Winter and bring on the Spring!