The Holidays

When I first came to Canada, I had been warned: there are much less hol­i­days on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, and no pub­lic strike will change labor laws. Look­ing back, I can say the sys­tem is dif­fer­ent but not in a bad way.

The Great Melt

After the great freeze, we woke up to the great melt. The weather was a bit warmer and all the ice accu­mu­lated had started to melt.

Trees were lit­er­ally shed­ding ice. Every blast of wind shook the tree limbs, coated in ice — it sounded like a wind chime. We were lucky: no power line snapped in our neighborhood.

Freezing Rain

We got a bad win­ter sur­prise today when we woke up to heavy freez­ing rain this morn­ing. Yuck.

Freez­ing rain is pretty unique to very cold coun­tries. When sur­face tem­per­a­tures are below freez­ing, rain­drops freeze upon impact with any object they encounter. The result­ing ice accu­mu­lates to a thick­ness of sev­eral cen­time­ters and it coats just about anything.

Holidays Lights

Merry Christ­mas!
Joyeux Noël !
¡Feliz Navi­dad!
圣诞快乐！

Château Laurier

The Château Lau­rier was con­structed between 1909 and 1912 and named after Sir Wil­frid Lau­rier, then the Prime Min­is­ter of Canada. Over the years, it met with his­tory. For instance, the hotel was to be opened on April 26, 1912, but chair­man Charles Melville Hays, who had com­mis­sioned the hotel and was return­ing to Canada fo its open­ing, per­ished aboard the Titanic when it sank on April 15.

Guide To Clothes Shopping In Canada

Granted, I’m no the most styl­ish woman on earth — I know, shock­ing for a French, but should I remind you I don’t drink wine either?
Clothes shop­ping in Canada isn’t that dif­fer­ent from shop­ping in Europe at first glance. Yet, there are some tricks and local trends. So I wrote a lit­tle “guide to clothes shop­ping in Canada”.

10 Things You Must Eat (Or Drink) In Canada

Let’s not do like Stephen Harper and Gov­er­nor Gen­eral Michaelle Jean vis­it­ing Nunavut: raw seal heart is not for every­one. But I know there are some Cana­dian spe­cial­ties you are dying to try!

(No) Bitching Allowed

How much can you com­plain about your host coun­try after you immigrate?

Some wish they hadn’t immi­grated to Canada and crit­i­cize every­thing and oth­ers praise every­thing but now hate their home coun­try. The truth must be some­where in between.

The Olympic Torch Relay In Ottawa (2/2)

After shoot­ing the torch relay, I decided to stay down­town and to have a look at the night fes­tiv­i­ties on Par­lia­ment Hill. By the time I got there, I learned from two ladies (pic­tured below) that they would only start after sun­set… I wasn’t going to sit on the cold wait­ing, like them, for a few hours. I headed to Chap­ters and grabbed a hot coffee.

The Olympic Torch Relay In Ottawa (1/2)

Today, the Olympic Torch of the Van­cou­ver 2010 Olympics arrived in Ottawa and it trav­eled all over the city. I walked to Bank Street and waited patiently with the next torch bearer for the cur­rent bearer to arrive.