Road trip part 2

Having been "there and back again" (huge Tolkien fan, I just had to say that), I am now prepared to offer my opinions and observations on the joys, or lack thereof, of road tripping by bus in Canada.

Aside from the whole experience of being on the road, there is also the fact that this trip culminated in my first ever face-to-face meeting with my in-laws.  Although my husband and I had a very 21st century romance, meeting online as we did, I did not meet my in-laws until this trip and I felt not a little unlike an arranged bride, or mail-order bride.

I was warmly accepted, however, and whatever nerves I may have been prone to as the very first woman my husband took home to meet his mother soon dissipated under their unreserved welcome.   At a summer party held the day following our arrival, I was introduced to everyone as "G's wife, newly-arrived from Jamaica" and everyone was likewise polite and welcoming.  I was able to tell the story of our meeting and marriage once or twice, and told how it all sounded very fairy-tale like!

That I was the only non-Caucasian present did not make me feel the least out of place, and as the party-goers were all likewise in their 30's and 40's (save for my nephews by marriage), I was able to relate to the topics they found to speak on and mingled freely, much to G's delight.  He even teased me later that I was quite the social butterfly and did very well in putting aside my natural reserve on meeting new people.

Back to the road trip, though.  Given the fact that we had some 565km (351 miles) to cover, by necessity our trip started early.  I was already packed from the night before, G chose to do his the morning of travel.  By 6:55 a.m. we were quite ready to leave, and found ourselves on the porch staring out at the rain misting down.  My breath began to frost on the air!  Naturally that put paid to our plans to walk into town with our backpacks, so we ended up calling a taxi to take us to the bus depot.

The depot in town is an office just off the highway.  The Greyhound office is small, but was wonderfully warm to be in considering the wind, drizzle, and temperatures outside and the fact that under my hoodie I wore only a t-shirt over my underthings.  I had neglected to add a second layer on top (to make three in total) and I was feeling it.   Naturally I had a good laugh at the idea that I was feeling this way on an August morning!  First and second travel tips: dress for the weather, and make note of the minimum pre-boarding arrival time requirement.  Greyhound's is at least an hour prior, especially if you are purchasing/collecting your tickets the same day as travel will occur.

The bus to begin our journey turned out to be one of those smaller yellow school buses.  Again cause for much hilarity, as I would for the first time ride "the short bus".  However, as more people began to arrive, it became apparent that the short bus would not do at all, so with only twenty-five minutes to go before our 9:00 a.m. departure time, the driver departed with the short bus and returned with a standard sized school bus in the recognizable yellow.  Yes, I have pictures:

Greyhound Office, Elliot Lake

The short bus!

Standard sized bus

With everyone ensconced aboard the second bus, we departed down Highway 108 and drove the nearly 30km that took us to the junction with Highway 17, otherwise known as the Trans-Canada Highway, because it runs across the country.  At the junction we actually turned west and headed in the direction of Sault Ste. Marie, but only going as far as Spragge, the next town (not sure, it might be best described as a village or a hamlet, it's that small) on the highway.  In Spragge, we off-loaded and waited for the Greyhound bus coming from out west.  Yes, the bus we took was coming from other cities and towns all the way from British Columbia through the prairie provinces and on into Ontario!  Here it is:

Spragge layover

Greyhound bus to Toronto

From Spragge, we departed east for Sudbury around 9:30 a.m., the next major stop and the major Greyhound depot in the region.   The trip lasted some two hours and a little bit.  It was an overcast and cool morning throughout, rain dogged our miles from town to town.  Before we got to Sudbury, however, we would make stops in Spanish and Espanola.  The Spanish stop was a drive-by, basically, as no-one was waiting for the bus and the ticket office is located in a building fronting the highway.  In Espanola we did a quick loop around their city hall and paused long enough to collect a few more passengers.  The rain was coming down in a steady drizzle at that time.  Here is Espanola's city hall:

From Espanola we then headed for Sudbury with no more stops.  At around 11:40 a.m., we pulled into the Greyhound depot in Sudbury and were advised our layover would last until 1:00 p.m.   We had time to get lunch, stretch our legs and acquaint ourselves with the rest rooms at the stop.  Most persons chose a conveniently nearby McDonald's for lunch, some made use of the vending machine fare offered inside the depot, most selections being priced around $2.00 (a toonie).  There was also a coffee/tea/sandwich shop, where I managed to get a cup of hot chocolate for $1.75.  It was a Keurig machine, but the shortage of milk left a little something to be desired, to my taste anyways.  

We opted to get lunch at the Greek eatery across the street from the depot.  The pork savlaki (a kind of wrap) with tsatziki sauce was worth every penny.  Ask them for extra sauce, they will add it.  They also do chicken variations, if you are not fond of pork.  I took these shots of the Sudbury Greyhound Depot and Herc's Eatery:

Herc's Eatery

Sudbury Greyhound Depot

Traveling tip number 3: Carry a selection of coins on you for purchasing items from vending machines and cash-only vendors.  Unlike Jamaica, loonies (one dollar Canadian coin) and toonies (two dollars Canadian coins) and the smaller fractions, quarters (25 cents), nickels (5 cents, the larger) and dimes (10 cents, smaller than the nickel!) are actually useful for making purchases.

1:00 p.m. arrived with no sign of our bus, which had departed for servicing after decanting us at the depot.  We were advised to leave our bags on board if we so preferred and also to mark our seats, as persons who had previously been on the bus would be boarded in priority to persons starting their journey in Sudbury.   A number of other buses arrived, picked up passengers for Ottawa, Montreal and other points, still with no sign of our bus.  Some forty-five minutes after we were supposed to have departed it finally showed up, delayed by a traffic accident, the driver said.  This meant that we departed Sudbury fully one hour later than originally scheduled.  

It was at this point in our journey that I began to feel apprehensive.  We had barely an hour between our last stop in Toronto and the departure of the train which would take us out to where my in-laws actually resided. As it was the last train of the day and our tickets were economy, non-refundable and non transferable, we would be severely inconvenienced if we did not get to Union Station in time to catch the Via Rail train.  With an hour lost to the stopover in Sudbury, I worried we might be left stranded in Toronto overnight.  G was not happy, and determined that if we did miss our train, Greyhound would surely hear about it.

We continued south through more of the Georgian Bay area, what is commonly called "cottage country", where many southern Ontarians own weekend/summer cottages where they spend warmer days in outdoor pursuits.  It is a very picturesque area, but as we were mostly on the highway, I saw little more than glimpses.  We had one very short stop in Parry Sound, where I was able to take these pictures:

Highway

Travel Centre at rest stop

Boat on display outside Parry Sound travel centre

Further south, we entered what was obviously farmland.  Large tracts of land covered in corn began to roll past, with farm houses and barns being typical features.  We were by now in Simcoe county, and G said that if we made it to the city of Barrie around 5:30 p.m., there was still a chance we could make the train.  We began rolling past Barrie around 5:40 p.m. and he said it was good enough.

Signs began appearing welcoming us to Toronto, and it was soon obvious we were on a major artery leading into the city.  One sign proclaimed the population of Toronto as 2,500,000, which is essentially the same as the entire population of Jamaica, give or take a a hundred thousand or two!  We made it to a highway leading to the Yorkdale Mall, and observed planes overhead going to Lester Pearson International Airport, where I had landed about 10 weeks earlier.  There was a brief stop at the Yorkdale Mall, and then it was on to our final destination downtown.  Another fifteen minutes served to bring us to the last stop at the Toronto Metro Coach Terminal, on Bay Street.

Plane on the way to LPIA

Yorkdale Mall

Yorkdale Bus Terminal (inside)

Yorkdale Bus Terminal (outside)

Unfortunately, at this stage of our travel I had little time to take photos and did not manage a photo of the Metro terminal.  Immediately we disembarked from the bus, we were headed down a flight of stairs and hurrying through Atrium on Bay, a set of shops below buildings on Bay Street that also had a subway station.   I had to stay hard on G's heels as he moved quickly through the crowds.  We paid for our subway tickets at 6:36 p.m. and were on the platform for barely a minute when the subway pulled up.  Two stops later, we were inside Union Station.  It was 6:46 p.m., our train was leaving at 7:05 p.m.

We raced through Union Station to find the kiosks where we could scan our online confirmation barcodes and receive our tickets.  When we found them, we quickly scanned the pages and received our tickets, two pieces printed for each traveler.  We were then directed to a distressingly long line as being the one going to our train, and joined it somewhere in the middle as it snaked its way onto our train's platform.  Our car was the sixth and last, and barely had we made it onto the train and sat down, before the bell was being rung and the train signalling it was pulling away.  We had made it, after all!

On the platform

Safely on board the train

Traveling tips number 4 and 5: Pre-book your tickets for the bus and train whenever possible.  Travel light, you never know when you might need to make a run for it!

An hour and three stops later, we had arrived at the suburban city my in-laws call home.  We were greeted outside the train station by G's mother and sister, then driven the short distance to their home.

In Road Trip part 3: Toronto!

Road trip! Part 1

We are off to visit with the in-laws.  I find it odd to remind myself that we haven't actually met in person!  Having become accustomed, even after arriving in Canada, to talking to them via video messaging, the idea of going to actually visit in their home is quite exciting.

The big deal about this trip, of course, is the distance.  9.5 hours on the bus, including layover time, to cover three stages.  At the end of that, a dash across town to catch the train for the hour-long ride to the city where my in-laws make their home.  In Jamaica, a trip that long would suffice to see me across the island.  In Canada, I am covering a small part of what is not even the largest province.

The sheer size of country I'll be traveling through does not bother me.  Nor does the idea of traveling for that amount of time.  In general, I am a happy traveler.  On the road, in the air, no matter how, as long as I am going I find the journey itself interesting, and take pleasure in watching changing scenery and people.  

I make sure that by whatever means I am traveling I am comfortable, which for me means as little luggage as possible (only a backpack), a camera close to hand and snack items suitable to my comfort.  In Jamaica I am plagued by car sickness and make it a habit to not eat during trips, except for granola bars or candy bars or some such once the part of the journey most likely to set me off is past.  In Canada I do not expect to be as uncomfortable, given they are not prone to the Jamaican propensity for building roads with hairpin curves at every turn.  However, I am still restricting food items to a bag of trail mix, a granola bar, a Snickers chocolate bar (loaded with peanuts, very good for suppressing hunger for hours) and a bottle of water.  During the layovers I do not wish to be preoccupied with finding food or a bathroom, hence the one bottle of water over 10 hours of travel.

My camera is charged and ready, so is my iPod.  My travel comfort depends on having music at hand, in the event I do not wish to engage in conversation.  Since I will be traveling with G, conversation will be inevitable in this particular trip.  However, my iPod is also my comfort for sleeping, I listen to audiobooks and it soothes me to sleep.  Sleeping in strange beds gives me Strange Bed Syndrome as I label that curious discomfort that arises from a new bed, and having a comfort of home will help to ease that.  I hope not to finish 10 hours of traveling only to find myself unable to sleep because my body refuses to relax into unfamiliar surroundings!

I am already suffering some separation anxiety, oddly enough.  I have settled into E.L., I am happy here, I know my surroundings now.  Only a couple days ago I took one of the dogs for a walk and was able to simply wander from street to street with him and orient myself back to home with barely a conscious thought and no debate about whether the way I was going was indeed correct.  Going back to the "big city" of Toronto now throws it back into stark relief that Canada is still very much a stranger to me.  I will be dependent on G's direction and knowledge, and my recently found independence will become irrelevant.

I am looking forward to traveling about in Canada, however.  I will be seeing a bit more of it close up on the ground, I will be seeing more of the city that is the heartbeat of the country (no, Ottawa is the capital, but Toronto is where everything happens) and I will be seeing my in-laws.  I will get an idea of how ground transportation works in Canada, and taking the train for the first time here.  I rode the subway in NY and didn't like it much, but I hope to find a new pleasure in this experience.

To bed shortly, and early to rise to set out.  Part 2 when I return!

Challenges

This isn't easy to do, you know.  It's a huge undertaking, to move your entire life to a new country and settle somewhere completely different from what you've known all your life until then.  However, it's obvious from looking at human history that immigration is do-able, and not only have people endured it for millennia, they have thrived on it, too.

I still find time for the immigration forum.  At first I was sure that once arrived in Canada I would have no time for it, but the truth is that the subject interests me, quite apart from my own personal experience.  I follow it avidly in the news: whatever changes Canada makes to its immigration regulations may impact us one way or another, or someone I know.  I want to stay informed, and I want to pass on to others what I know so they can navigate these waters too.

What I see sometimes on the forum from others who have completed their processing is that their period of adjustment is harder than they expected, and the couples must work really hard to overcome the challenges arising from being together all the time.  Some of these couples never spent any appreciable time living together in Jamaica, and others have.  Some have even lived together in Canada before.  Still, there is a period of adjustment after the immigration process is complete that calls on them to remember their commitment to each other and why they made this choice in the first place.

Our challenge comes in the form of G's health.  He is used to navigating the Canadian health system, I am not.  It is routine to him to endure monthly, weekly or random treatments as necessary for his health condition.  He knows the nurses, the doctors, the hospitals.  I do not.  So, of course, I have to ask him questions that might seem redundant or perhaps ridiculous, and I have to observe closely everything that happens to him to understand what is going on.

Given that he hates the treatments, although he has endured them for the better part of a decade now, and given that he will need them for the rest of his natural life unless some miracle cure is found for his body's persistent rejection of the iron necessary to form his lifeblood, I expected he would be more resigned, so to speak to his treatments.  Instead, he resents each one as if it is the first, as if the "weakness" that results is a fresh, unforeseen betrayal of what he expects from himself and he does not understand why things are the way they are.

Perhaps it is the Jamaican in me that fatalistically expects struggle and believes one should simply forge ahead once hard times are encountered , grim-faced and with gritted teeth perhaps, but always accepting that things are as they are quickly and moving to with dealing with them.  Or perhaps it is some other part of my heritage manifesting itself.  Whatever it is, something in me becomes exasperated at his railing at his body and his illness, and simply wants to press on and deal with it as best as possible.  

Then I think to myself about how I felt about my asthma when it was worse, and I rein in my feelings and try to walk more in his shoes.  I hated the occasional betrayal of my body that was every attack, no matter how mild.  Yet I had lived with asthma since I was nine years old, surely I should have been used to it!  I acknowledge then that I need to empathise more, to see more of his reactions in myself, and it makes me ashamed of my impatience with his reactions and I allow that he has full as much reason as I ever did, and quite likely more, to feel as he does.

It is this empathy that I will need to cultivate and draw on more if we are to deal successfully with all the challenges that will come in this settling in period.  I may be the one who did the moving, but we are both adjusting and sometimes I have to consciously remind myself of this and use it to examine his actions and my reactions and vice versa.

Challenges are a part of any marriage.  No matter how well-suited and how compatible they might be, every couple is two very different halves working to be one whole, happy unit.  Add the stresses of life and the choices we make such as immigration, and the mettle of any relationship can be tested and pushed beyond anything the couple themselves might have expected.  With this in mind, I remind myself, daily if need be, that when all is said and done, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else but by his side, so I will always work at gaining all the skills and qualities I need to meet him in his own efforts to secure the strength and happiness of our union.

Loss, and my first Canada Day

When you live in or are from a small town, you get used to no-one except the people living there or from there having much to say about the place.  Your focus narrows to the daily doings of your small town, and you expect that the world at large will mostly ignore you and these daily doings, as they are neither earth-shaking nor very important, to the way of most people's thinking.

I was born in a small town, for even though it is the parish capital of Westmoreland and a town of venerable age (established by the Spaniards prior to the English conquest in 1655, hence the name of the town, which means "grassland by the sea"), and in spite of its recent building boom in the last decade or so, Savanna-la-Mar remains very much a small town.  I received all my primary and secondary education in this small town, so I am very much a small town girl.  In spite of almost six and a half years in Kingston, I still identify with small town people, small town ways and small town thinking.

As a consequence of my upbringing, or perhaps as an advantage of it, I am very much at home in E.L.  I don't mind that there's only one mall, that selections and options are limited so far as restaurants, activities or entertainment, I grew up with that.  I am very good at amusing myself, as a consequence, and have a high tolerance for what most people would describe as boredom.  More to the point, all the "necessary" modern conveniences are here, especially the internet, so I feel like I lack nothing.

What I have not built up a tolerance for, is loss.  And loss came to E.L. with a vengeance 8 days ago, and took with it some of the security, and a great deal of the anonymity, that is treasured in small towns.  You don't wake up and expect that by the end of the day your small city, barely a dot on the map to most, will be all over the national news because a building fell apart and took with it some of your fellow townspeople.  Yet, that is exactly what happened on Saturday, June 22nd, to E.L.

Now, just over a week later, there are families grieving their loved ones, as two lives were lost, and the mall itself is now lost to the community, taking with it the employment of almost three hundred people.  For awhile, as the questions linger, our anonymity is lost, as news crews try to get opinions, as government officials search for answers, and both publish these to the wider community.  

As a consequence of the mall tragedy, there is a pall over my first Canada Day.  Or perhaps, not so much a pall, as a solemnity is cast over the day that is not associated with such celebrations of nationhood.  The sense of patriotism and national pride usually felt on these days is dampened by the knowledge that there are families among us mourning, feeling the loss of loved ones not present to share in yet another memorable day.  Events in town have been cancelled, rightly so to my mind, and persons are left to their own devices insofar as how they will mark the occasion.

In time, the questions will be answered, and E.L. will go back to being a small city, and of not much notice to anyone who doesn't live here or isn't from the town so as to be familiar with its ways and doings.  Until then, a sad something lingers in the air, and a day of national joy comes with tears.

Longer days and my sleep rhythm

A feature of being in the temperate zones is that you actually have changing seasons, as opposed to merely rainy and not-so-rainy in the tropical zones.  With the arrival of spring came an event I have not observed in more than a decade and a half - the moving of the clocks forward for daylight saving time (DST).

I actually love DST, when I am somewhere it makes sense.  I remember as a very young child when Jamaica still observed it, that I would be awoken at an unconscionably dark hour of morning, assured it was 6:00 a.m. and told I needed to get ready for school.  Where the diurnal difference in sunrise and sunset varies only about 1.5 - 2 hours at most during the year, DST was doing no-one in Jamaica any favours.  As it is, we did away with it sometime during my primary school years, and I was none the poorer for it.

Here in the northern climes, though, DST makes all the sense in the world.  The diurnal difference in sunrise and sunset can get up to as much as 22 hours (in the extreme north, or Arctic regions), but here in northern ON it is about 5 hours (by my inexpert reckoning).  And it is wonderful!  I wake at 5:30 a.m. most days, and don't go to bed until say 11:00 p.m. usually, and here in Canada, that means it's only been dark for about an hour by the time I am crawling between the sheets.

Of course, all this daylight has caused a shift in my sleep rhythms.  My mother has often referred to me as her  "chicken" child, because with the coming of sunset I am ready to find a nest and roost.  At this time of year, with sunset in Jamaica sometime around 7:00 p.m., I am yawning my head off by 8:00 p.m. and ready to settle in by 9:00 p.m. at the latest.  It makes it hard to stay current with any TV programmes that come on at primetime, because by then I am falling asleep.  If I force myself to stay awake, I usually crash by the end of the show and miss the best part, when all is revealed in the last ten minutes.

On the contrary, here in Canada I find myself staying up as late as midnight before I feel sufficiently sleepy enough to get into bed.  This is brought on by the fact that the days seem to go by quickly, and it is still light out at "late" times of night, so much so that I feel little to no tiredness, and feel distinctly odd to think of going to bed before it is dark out.

This change in my sleep rhythms has me quite interested to see what it will be like in the wintertime.  I recall that in NY I suffered perhaps a mild form of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and hated being indoors during the winter.  This time around I am preparing myself to be more outgoing, to enjoy winter rather than endure it, to revel as much in the early sunsets as I do now in the late ones.

Let's talk about...the weather

No discussion about moving to Canada from Jamaica would be complete without questions on the weather.  Of all the contrasts between the two countries, perhaps that would be the most immediate and uppermost in minds.  I have been here just under a week now, so it's about time to have that discussion.

Officially, it is spring, and the northern hemisphere's summer starts in just 9 days.  From Canadians, including G, I keep hearing how "hot" it is, and inwardly I smile.  Yes, I suppose for people used to temperatures in the minus twenties (degrees Celsius), it may seem hot now, with the sun shining and the humidity hovering around 50%.  For someone used to temperatures hovering near 34 degrees with 80% or more humidity, the weather now is simply pleasantly warm.

On my first day, it was windy and cool, say around 22 degrees, so I wore a long-sleeved workout top and yoga pants and was comfortable.  I plan to acquire some more long-sleeved shirts, knit or jersey, as I was very happy to have that single shirt (the only long-sleeved shirt I own) on Thursday.  Saturday morning was another morning to be happy for long-sleeved shirts, as it dawned cool, foggy and wet, and stayed that way until late afternoon.  On Saturday, with my long-sleeved shirt in the wash, I had to resort to a hooded sweatshirt over my t-shirt to remain appropriately warm.  Surprisingly enough, the temperature rose, the rain and fog cleared off and the evening was very fine.

People you meet in stores and on the street will comment on how "hot" it is, and try to forecast the summer's heat.  Having experienced a northern summer before, I know something of what is to come, and I am interested to see if this time it is the same or worse.  I cannot expect it to be better, although perhaps the fact that I am in the rural part of the province, as opposed to being in a city, as I was then, will make a difference.  It remains to be seen.

Today it is windy, and somewhat cloudy, which over-shadows the warmth and heat that arose earlier in the day.  It is cool, in the mid-twenties, low humidity, altogether an agreeable and tolerable temperate day.  As time goes on, of course there will be more to say on the weather, but for now?  It's quite nice.

Landed!

I spent a very hectic week and a half in Westmoreland with my mother and was able to see my brothers and Grandmother as well.  It was worth all the running about just to say I was there and able to see them.

Yesterday was the all-important day, the day I landed in Canada as a permanent resident.  After a harrowing landing from what had started as a routine international flight, followed by an involuntary 2-hour confinement on the tarmac in the plane while the airport recovered from the thunderstorms that so terrified me during the landing, I was finally able to enter the airport and process through the various final steps to becoming a permanent resident (PR).

First, the Canadian Border Services Agency examined my declaration card that I was required to fill out on the flight, and directed me to Immigration.  Immigration went as expected, and perhaps even more smoothly than it would normally, as I was already so familiar with the requirements of the Act that the officer was relieved of the need to make any explanations, needing only to certify my various documents and then send me on to the next stage.

Stage 3 was declaring my accompanying and to-follow goods and property, and again, preparation made that a smooth process.  I had already prepared the necessary forms, so all the Customs officer needed to do was certify them after double-checking they were correctly and completely prepared.

Stage 4 was running to catch my next flight, which was delayed and delayed again until the two hours spent sitting on the tarmac were fully lost and never made up.  I arrived in Sudbury at 2:30 a.m. when it should have been midnight, and we were home in Elliot Lake two hours later.

Today has been about settling into the house, getting used to the location of things and re-establishing routines we used to have, such as my doing the dishes after meals because G is the cook.  The comfort of these routines  will ease me into accepting my new surroundings, and I look forward to each as they come back to us.