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Canada is Cold!

/ Claire Joan Elizabeth

“What good is the warmth of summer without the cold of winter to give it sweetness?”

~ John Steinbeck ~

 

Before I embarked on my journey abroad, there was one aspect of my exchange that potentially scared me as much as it excited me, and that was the prospect of winter. It is well-known that Canada is cold, and I got my first hint of just how much so by the fact that my university here has only two terms: a Fall one and a Winter one. There is no spring. Saying that, don’t be fooled into thinking that Canadians spend all their time bundled up indoors – when I first arrived in Montréal at the end of summer, the average temperature was around 30˚C! Unfortunately, that didn’t last long. By the end of November, there was enough snow on the ground to have warranted a week off school and work had we been in the UK. But this is Montréal, and everyone here is somewhat more resilient in the face of a few snowflakes.

However, since coming back from Christmas, ready for the fresh start of a new semester, I’ve realised that there is a lot more to winter in Canada than just snow and ice. People don’t hide from the cold or the wet here, they embrace it. Right now, there is so much going on in Montréal – possibly more than there was during the summer! Winter fairs, festivals, ice rinks, cross-country skiing… the list is endless and as I reach the halfway point of my exchange, I want to experience as much as possible. And so, the other week, a friend and I decided to head over to Lac Aux Castors (or Beaver Lake for all you Anglophones) on the other side of Mont Royal, which has been transformed into a mystical winter wonderland for the season. Every Friday night, skaters can have the pleasure of gliding along beneath a canopy of coloured lights whilst fittingly seasonal music is played in the background, turning the whole lake into a scene straight out of a Hallmark Christmas film.

The first stage of our escapade, however, revolved around just getting there. Beaver Lake is roughly a half hour walk away if you choose to go around the mountain, possibly less if you feel athletic enough to go over it. However, that estimate usually refers to the journey being made when the route taken is not covered in about a foot of snow that has, over the Christmas holidays, frozen literally into solid ice. I kid you not: at one point, my friend and I were forced to pretty much climb up at steep slope of solid ice (hiding under which there were allegedly some stairs), using the handrail as leverage and making sure we wedged our feet against the ice to stop us from sliding back down. And all of this in the pitch black because, it being winter, the sun sets at 4pm and neither of us could spare a hand to use our phones as torches. Frodo’s journey into Mordor probably required less effort, and by the time we made it to the top both of us were laughing too hard to feel too cold.

Eventually, we made it to the lake and, after having to slide down the hill on our backpacks because it too was frozen over, we were ready to (literally) get our skates on. I think the last time I went skating was possibly about five years ago, and even then I’ve only been twice in my whole life. Amazingly, however, I managed somehow not to fall over, apart from the first time I tried to stand up of course (tip: it helps if you remember to straighten your legs instead of just sliding straight from the bench to the ground… at least I did it gracefully). Skating beneath the stars, in -10˚C temperatures whilst the ‘Hall of the Mountain King’ played in the background (no song has ever epitomised my skating style more) is definitely something I have never experienced before, and in short, it was amazing. It’s moments like this one that characterise study abroad, making it something you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

It’s crazy to think that this time last year, I was only just starting to fill out my application for McGill, and at times hardly daring to believe that I had been lucky enough to get assigned my first choice of destination. Sometimes I find myself wondering how things might have turned out if I had either stayed at Lancaster for my second year, or perhaps gone somewhere else, such as Australia or Hong Kong. Needless to say, however, I am grateful that I was given the opportunity to come to Montréal, as there are things I’ve experienced here I wouldn’t have got the chance to anywhere else – such as clambering over enormous snow drifts that have frozen solid. With only half of the year left before I return to the UK, I’m excited to see what Canada has in store for me next…

Don’t Forget to Smell the Roses

/ Claire Joan Elizabeth

“Not all those who wander are lost.”

~ J.R.R. Tolkien

 

Study Abroad is an experience – that much at least should be clear by now. Well, actually it’s more like a collection of little experiences that will all eventually come together to make up the bigger picture, just like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. That’s why no two people will ever go on the same exchange, even if they go to the same university, in the same country, even at the same time. Moreover, the experience – how it unfolds, what you take from it etc. – that part is all up to you. I think it was Albus Dumbledore who once said our choices define us much more than our actions and, you know what? He had a point!

I think one of the biggest choices I made (in terms of how it’s affected my Study Abroad experience so far) was my decision to not get a new plan for my mobile phone. There were several practical reasons for this, most of them to do with money (I’d have had to pay to break my contract, phone plans here are much more expensive… the list goes on and on), but finances aside, the more I thought it over, the more I decided to give it a go. I’ve been the proud owner of my own mobile phone since I was eleven-years-old, and I got my first smart phone when I was sixteen. In other words, for the past four or five years, if ever I’ve needed to know something – be it the local bus timetable, the name of the last five Prime Ministers, or even detailed instructions on how to mop a kitchen floor (don’t judge me, but I genuinely did once Google that) – it’s only taken me a few moments to find it out. We really do live with the wealth of humanity’s knowledge at our fingertips, and the prospect of taking that away was more than just a little daunting for me. Which of course only made me more determined to do it.

 

I should point out here that I haven’t gone completely cold turkey. I keep my phone on aeroplane mode most of the time, but I can still access Wi-Fi and, living in a city such as Montréal, I’m rarely without a good connection. But this has made the process of getting from A to B a whole lot more interesting – especially when I don’t have the foggiest idea where B is. Which is most of the time seeing how my sense of direction is determinedly backwards even on a good day.

I have no idea where I am going.

You would be surprised at how many people react with horror upon hearing that I don’t have a Canadian phone number, meaning I don’t have access to 3G which leaves me permanently stranded between Wi-Fi hotspots. I frequently get asked questions such as ‘how do you manage?’ or ‘don’t you think you should just get one?’, which to me only further reiterates how dependent we have become on the Internet to solve all our problems for us. The point is, we as a species managed perfectly well before Tim Berners-Lee came along and though I shall be eternally grateful to him for doing so (that floor wasn’t going to mop itself), it is more than possible to exist without being permanently connected to the World-Wide Web.

In fact, I would argue that it makes life (and certainly my Study Abroad experience) a lot more interesting. Not being able to rely on my phone to tell me where to go forces me to look up for a change, meaning I see so much more of what’s around me. Montréal is one of the most beautiful cities out there, but sometimes you have to go looking for the best bits, and I can tell you now that you won’t find them on a screen. Things like watching the sun set over the Olympic Stadium, seeing Downtown all lit up at night from the other end of Rue Sherbrooke or catching sight of the tip of a racoon’s stripy tail as it dives for cover behind a wheelie bin (sorry, trash can). Moments like those are fleeting; if you blink, then you can miss them just like that and if you’re too busy scowling at your phone screen because Google doesn’t have a clue where you are either, then you won’t even realise they were there in the first place.

The Plateau by Night

It’s true that not all those who wander are lost, but sometimes getting lost is half the fun of wandering. Don’t get me wrong, having 3G can be a lifesaver – especially when you’re stuck outside your friend’s apartment having to resort to throwing stones at their window Romeo-style because their buzzer isn’t working and you don’t have the Wi-Fi password to message them – but you don’t need it to survive. So, the next time you’re somewhere new, take the road less travelled by and remember to look up from your phone screen every now and then. Because you never know what you might see hiding just around the corner.

Given how big it is, the stadium was surprisingly hard to find.

 

Missing Home

/ Claire Joan Elizabeth

“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”

~ Maya Angelou ~

What makes home, home? That feeling of belonging – the inherent knowledge that we are where we should be, like a book put back on the shelf in its correct spot: where does it come from? What makes it?

I never really got homesick during my first year at Lancaster. Of course, I missed my family (once the dust from Freshers had settled and I was left facing a looming stack of laundry, the reality of having to buy my own food and the dilemma of fighting off about three colds at once) but in terms of my ‘home’ – the town where I am from – I didn’t really miss it. I have no family ties to my hometown; it just happened to be where we lived. So when I moved away the first time, I found it was the people (my friends and my family) I missed the most, and not the place itself. Therefore, upon arriving in Canada, I didn’t quite know what to expect. I knew there would be aspects of the UK that I would miss, but as to what extent I honestly had no idea.

Tentatively, I spent my first few weeks in Montréal waiting for the nostalgia to kick in. I joked to my new friends about the lack of ‘proper tea’ (only Yorkshire will do, thank you); I dutifully complained about how the weather here in the city can reach 30˚C in the summer, but will then drop to -30˚C in winter compared to England’s average range of 2-16˚C. But though these were undoubtedly things that I found took some time and effort to get used to, I didn’t experience true homesickness and almost began to wonder if I ever would. My doubts, however, were soon put to rest at the start of this week.

UK universities go back much later than on this side of the Atlantic, and for some reason, Lancaster always goes back a week or two after everyone else even then. For the past couple of months, I’ve been the odd one out, and started to look forward to the point when my friends would no longer be able to tease me about having schoolwork whilst they were still enjoying their last few weeks of freedom. But as more and more posts started to pop up on social media about ‘Freshers 2016’, I suddenly found myself yearning to be back. At first, it was easy to dismiss the feeling as simple first-year nostalgia; after all, who wouldn’t want to go back to that time of blissful ignorance during which you remained stubbornly convinced you won’t leave every deadline to the last minute, truly believe you’ll keep your new room perfectly tidy and are still to discover the nightmare that is Circuit Laundry. But as the week went on, I realised: I miss Lancaster.

Maybe it’s the ducks, but there is something about Lancaster that makes it part of my home. I miss being surrounded by the rolling hills, with the Bay of Morecambe just visible in the distance when you take the 2A through Bowerham (a.k.a Narnia): I miss trying and always failing to be the first in the never-ending queue for Greggs on a Monday morning; I even miss – and you can call me insane here if you want – the abhorrent Lancastrian weather that was the main reason why none of us realised Storm Desmond had struck, because in our minds there was nothing unusual about the amount of wind and rain we got hammered with that weekend. These are the things I couldn’t bring with me to Montréal, as trying to smuggle ducks across the Canadian border tends to be frowned upon.

So, what do I do about it? I’m able to compensate for not being with my friends and family by talking to them regularly over Skype and FaceTime, and my room is littered with pictures and other mementos to remind me of all the different elements which come together to form what is, for me, my ‘home’. Having my family send Yorkshire Tea to me is also a huge help, but I can hardly expect them to send the rest of England out by Canada Post. For the most part, I need to go out and explore, and find new things that will help me make my home here in Montréal. In Lancaster I used to love going for random walks around campus and getting lost in the rambling countryside; here, I have the whole of Mont Royal to amble up (and consequently stagger down). One of the reasons I came abroad was to experience a new culture, and sometimes that means you have to let go of one or two aspects of your own. So, whereas I may not be able to get a decent cup of tea, I can substitute it with Poutine instead, and that is pretty much the next best thing.

poutine is love; poutine is life

Poutine is love; poutine is life

Carpe Diem

/ Claire Joan Elizabeth

“The world is big, and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.”

~ John Muir ~

Midterms are not fun.

I remember once being asked by a LUSU volunteer if I thought Lancaster should implement January exams, and replying that I couldn’t really say, having never had to take them. Well, here at McGill (and pretty much every other university this side of the Atlantic), you don’t just get January exams; you get October ones, November ones and of course, December finals. And I can tell you now, it’s a big step up. The workload here can get rather intense, and these past few days as I holed myself up my favourite corner of Second Cup (the Montréal equivalent to Costa), I found myself yearning to get out of the city for a bit. And so, that’s just what I did.

During my Orientation Week, I connected with a handful of other exchange students all hailing from various corners of the globe, and a group of us (five including myself) decided to take a weekend trip down to the States. It being the middle of autumn, New England was on all our bucket lists, so we hashed together a rough plan to drive down on a Friday afternoon after class, spend the weekend hiking in the White Mountains and then hit the road again on Sunday and be back in the city in time for tea (or, in my case, my final midterm on the Monday). To me, my brain ready to melt from constantly revising Marxist Critical Theory and Nuclear Deterrence, it seemed like the perfect respite.

They say even the best laid plans go awry, and we definitely encountered more than our fair share of bumps in the road (and I’m not just talking about Québec’s pothole epidemic). A misunderstanding with the car rental caused a three-hour delay into our four-hour journey, but nonetheless we eventually made it and, after yet another slight hitch (which involved flagging down a kindly local at 12am on a deserted road in the middle of the woods to borrow her phone so we could email the owner of our Airbnb and get the code to unlock the door) I was ready for a fun but chilled-out weekend during which the only thing I needed to worry about was not falling down the side of a mountain, something I seem extraordinarily prone to doing. And I have to say, New Hampshire in the fall is truly spectacular.

One does not simply walk into Mordor

One does not simply walk into Mordor

In the week leading up to the trip, I had begun to wonder if I was making the right choice in going. With my final midterm looming ominously on the horizon, I couldn’t help but worry if perhaps I should stay behind and study for it just like everyone else seemed to be doing. But I found that the more I considered dropping out, the more I felt like I needed to go. After all, I didn’t come all this way just to see the inside of a library. I’ve wanted to go on exchange ever since I knew it was possible to do so – even before I had chosen to come to Lancaster! It’s part of my whole reasoning for studying Politics and International Relations as a degree; when I graduate, I want a career that’ll take me around the world and give me the opportunity to explore its many wonders. Of course, I know I’ll never see everything our planet has to offer, but for me that’s the beauty of it. I can see and experience a thousand different places, and there will still be a thousand more.

Hella Atmospheric

Hella Atmospheric

And now, I can tick another place off my ever-growing list. And though I’ve already said it, New Hampshire was breath-taking. I know now why some of the treks are known as the Fire Trails; I have never seen such a magnificent, blazing ensemble of colour in all my life. And, despite a slight delay that was primarily due to me being incapable of making it down a mountain without falling over at least a dozen times (plus one or two issues with directions that were most definitely not my fault), we still made it back before midnight on the Sunday, in time for me to get a good night’s sleep ready to nail my midterm. In fact, looking back this evening, I think I might even have done better in the exam than had I spent the weekend cramming. Getting out into the woods refreshed my perspective on things, and standing on top of Mount Lafayette surrounded by clouds and listening to the wind roaring in the valley below, you remember that there really is more to life than one exam that, in hindsight, is only worth 20%. The world might be full of amazing opportunities, but if you’re not paying attention you can blink and miss them just like that. So even though it’s important to take your academic (and other) responsibilities seriously, there’s nothing wrong with cutting loose for a weekend and getting lost in New England with some new friends (plus the occasional chipmunk).

Autumn Colours

Autumn Colours

 

Making it down without falling

Making it down without falling