Hello, it's me again. I'm sorry this took so long, but I have been busy with work. Not that you'd know it from what's below, but bear in mind that that is several weeks worth of activities.

Monday 8^th was Thanksgiving here in Canada (Columbus Day in the US) and the International Students' Club held a meal on the preceding Thursday. This was $5 a head (not much money, really, so the fact that over a hundred people took up the offer is not surprising) and effectively all-you-can-eat. Yours truly managed to severely deplete our table's supply of turkey, mashed spud and cranberries. Despite involving much the same foodstuffs as the Yankee version, apparently this has nothing to do with Pocahontas and pretending we're not going to steal people's land and is more of a Harvest celebration.

The fun bit of the evening was after this, when various people of different nationalities were forced up to the front to sing to us. Fortunately the British were never called and had we been I'm not sure what songs everyone would know the words to apart from rude ones (subjecting all present to a rendition of 'Charlie had a Pigeon' probably wouldn't have been a good idea, the Lumberjack Song was tempting, though).

After all this was done and tables and chairs were put away, a large group of us went to a nearby pub (in the usual chaotic fashion involving splitting into several groups, phoning each other up and eventually meeting again) called the Snooty Fox. Yep, it's an English theme place¹, with hunting prints and flock wallpaper. Refusing to yield to temptation and go for Boddies, I tried a local brew, which wasn't very nice, before I realised others were sharing four-pint jugs of a more palatable drink called Keith's. We'd shared quite a few by the end and then had to attempt to divine how the bill should be divided.

I did mention in a conversation about one of Ormondroyd's articles that there has been a certain amount of anti-Islamic feeling in Hamilton; it is, after all, not a great distance from New York. Anyway, to recap, as well as threats and insults being shouted and petty vandalism to mosques, a Hindu temple was burnt down in what the police seem pretty sure was arson. The fact that Hinduism and Islam are confused by the attackers rather indicates their mentality and intelligence.

In response to this, many dollars are pouring in to a rebuilding fund and the city council is allowing the damaged statues to be put into Lake Ontario to fulfil obligations of the religion. This is pretty much what I would have expected, but it goes further: On the suggestion of a local Rabbi, a poster has been produced picturing the planet Earth surrounded by the symbols of over a dozen different faiths with the words ' An attack on one is an attack on us all', which was printed as a full page advert in a local paper and is also availiable at churches and (presumably) other places of worship.

Obviously, I thought this was a good idea, though I wondered what the faiths represented were, assuming Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, but not sure about the rest. Then one Sunday, I was at St. Paul's Anglican Church and they had one hanging in front of the pulpit and I was surprised to see, sitting above the cross a pentagram. It turns out that I wasn't the only one to find this incongruous, as the sermon was partly based on this. The pentagram was representing Wicca and the vicar made it clear that Christians have often been far too intolerant of this even over and above other religions. He also made some point about how appropriate it was for the cross to be in the position of humility, but that was too philosophical for me.

I've now been to the Great Outdoors³. The plan was for twelve of the Outdoor club to go on a ' tree canopy hike' using platforms and rope bridges erected twenty foot above the ground. Unfortunately I was phoned the day of the trip to say that it had been overbooked and I would not be able to go up the trees. I still turned up, though, because there would be other stuff to do.

The trip out

On Friday the 26^th, we all set off, in three cars, for the home of Mary, one of the members, at which we would have bed and board. We left at around 5.30pm on a 150 mile journey, which was wonderfully timed to hit Toronto during the rush hour. This did, at least, mean that we caught Mary's car up, via a possibly road-rage inducing manœuvre of nipping round the car in front using the left-hand shoulder of the highway⁴. After taking well over an hour to cross Toronto, we headed north on Highway 35, almost overshooting the off-ramp (Brits read 'slip-road'). That is the first car almost overshot, so you can imagine the fun we, in the second car, had as our driver thrust us across a lane whilst braking. Fortunately we survived this and many overtaking manœuvres that would probably have been perfectly safe if only one car were attempting them.

As we approached our destination, it transpired that Mary didn't know where she lived (the excuse she gave later was that her parents had moved while she was at university, however the same happened to me and I still manage to visit both of them with no trouble⁵), so many U-turns ensued before we showed up a mere hour or so after the first car, which had taken a toll road through Toronto and presumably had a navigator blessed with the gift of navigation.

After a good meal, a fall down the stairs (just me, not the others), a tai chi session (which I sat out of, but at least I didn't get a fit of giggles in the middle like someone else) and a night's rest, we set off again with unfortunately the same navigation system. Predictably several u-turns and one and a half hours later, two cars finished the 45 minute journey to find the third car already there and waiting. This time, however, our tardiness had the unfortunate effect that there was not enough time to do the tree canopy trip, which didn't matter to me because I wouldn't have been going anyway. Tee hee.

What we did instead

We had a nice tour around a pond, which we reached in the minibus owned by our guides, who had something to do with the running of the place. The pond seemed to be a bit full, meaning the wooden walkways were barely above the water's surface. Many people were being overly cautious and stepping gingerly everywhere whilst holding on with both hands so, of course, I had to casually saunter along with my hands in my pockets. I got my come-uppance about three-quarters of the way round when I refused help going down a board that was on quite a slope, only to find it got more slippery near the bottom, when I had to be grabbed so that I didn't fall onto my bum.

After this, we were driven to the wolf centre, which was great. They had quite a pack of wolves (fifteen, I think they said) and we watched them through some one-way glass. There was several acres in the enclosure but, apparently, they often hung out by the centre because it was where they were fed and it protected them from the wind. Although the wolves couldn't see us, they often heard us, and so those with cameras⁷ got some good photos when the wolves stared straight towards them with their ears pricked up. That is if they didn't have the flash on, which many did.

So that was a good weekend and I ensured it ended on time by navigating on the way back. I suppose it could be said that the return journey was easier, since it merely involved heading south until we met the 401 and then turning right, but I am proud of my record of approximately eight fewer wrong turnings than Mary.

I don't know how many people will have heard about this, but Mike Harris is a politician and a member of the oxymoronic Progressive Conservative party. A couple of weeks back, he resigned (on the Wednesday, I think) from his position as Premier of Ontario. This must have really upset a certain bunch of students - those who were planning a walkout on the Friday and had all their placards ready with things like, 'Harris must go!', 'Harris out!', 'We hate Harris!' and 'Harris is a big smelly piece of poop!' stencilled on them. All in all, his resignation rather took the wind out of their sales and we must hope that in future politicians are more considerate and wait until the campaign to oust them has had its main event before going. I don't think anyone missed either of the tutorials I took on the Friday, but then there was a short test which counted towards their final grade. Oh how priorities have changed since the seventies.

Some things here took a bit of getting used to:

Wildlife

Did you know there are black squirrels as well as grey and red? I didn't. I'm now also capable of recognising chipmunks. As well as these I've seen quite a few deer and various birds. Also the aforementioned wolves of course, but I wrote this bit before that had happened.

Coins

I've pretty much got the hang of these, in that I no-longer have to scrutinise each piece in order to ascertain its value. There are 6 denominations of coin in circulation in Canada each of which has a nickname. All coins bear a picture of Queen Elizabeth on the obverse, generally with the text 'ELIZABETH II D.G. REGINA' (she doesn't defend the faith here):

1. 1¢ (penny): A copper coin, 3/4" across with a picture of a maple twig on the back.
2. 5¢ (nickel): A silver coin, which unlike higher denominations doesn't have a milled edge. The nickel is about 7/8" in diameter and the reverse shows a beaver sitting on his dam.
3. 10¢ (dime): This is silver and slightly smaller than the penny (the fact the 10 is smaller than the 5, but the same colour still confuses me). On the back is a yacht.
4. 25¢ (quarter): A silver coin with a moose's head on the back, approaching an inch across. Most supermarket trolleys take quarters, which seems cheap to me and makes stealing them to avoid carrying my shopping all the way home quite tempting (I haven't, though).
5. $1 (loonie): As I have noted before, this is a sort of gold colour with 11 sides. The reverse shows a swimming bird known as a loon (hence 'loonie').
6. $2 (twoonie): Over an inch across, the twoonie has a ring of silver around a copper centre and bears a picture of a polar bear.

Roads

Now this isn't just the clichéd old 'they drive on the wrong side of the road' comment, although I do keep looking right when I start to cross. Thing is, the Canadians do other weird things:

1. At a light-controlled crossroads, you generally get pedestrian lights as well, but the green man will come on at the same time as the green light in the same direction, which means that cars turning left or right will drive over the crossing. Pedestians have priority, apparently, but I'm not quite sure about trusting cars to stick to the rules.
2. Even if the cars do have a red light, they're allowed to go through it to turn right.
3. Junctions on minor roads are often 'stop all way', which means that all cars have a 'stop' sign.
4. Speaking of which, it seems that 'stop' signs are used at all non-lights junctions, so there's no equivalent to a 'give way' sign.⁸
5. The buses here are $2 (about 90p) no matter how far you travel, which explains the odd looks I got from drivers during the first week, when I always asked the price.
6. They're exact change as well and you have to put your coin into a slot thingy instead of giving it to the driver (who doesn't carry money, so says the sign)

Bagpuss

08.11.01. Front Page

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