Boston, Bonspiels and babes in Birkenstocks

Tags

Albert Camus, Boston, Canadian Winter, Curling, Harvard, Harvard National Model United Nations, Kim Kardashian, Ottawa, Sochi, St. Patrick's Day

Croatian third division football, Kim Kardashian’s little sister’s hairdresser’s love life and the Icelandic constitution. Before moving to Canada, I would happily have added the game of curling to this list of things I couldn’t possibly give less of a shit about.

By no means do I wish to overstate my newfound Bonspiel appreciation…let’s be honest, it is little more than a slippery version of bowls, rightly reserved in Britain for the over 65s. But the harmless fun of it all, the importance of etiquette and the inclusivity of the sport make it so telling of the Canadian way of life. “Protect the button, just protect the bloody button this end!” Before I could help myself, I was already offering my expertise to the Canadian Olympic side.

Perhaps it is by the nature of doing a degree in History and Politics, with the constant emphasis on critique, analysis and pedantry, that I found myself determined to pick out every little Canadian shortcoming. So much so in fact, that in this country of vast open plains, I was beginning to feel peculiarly claustrophobic. I felt suffocated by Canada’s apparent inability to measure up to my greener grass mindset.

Frankly, I caught myself becoming a cynical little bugger. So to address this, here’s a few of my favourite Canadianisms…

1. They say thank you and smile warmly when handed a flyer detailing exactly how Joe Bloggs is the salvation the student population has been waiting for in the run up to the student council elections. I think they actually read them too.

2. In Ontario at least, the student population is phenomenally liberal. I almost feel guilty for not being gay or part of a repressed ethnic minority.

3. Nowhere in the world so readily gives the benefit of the doubt. This is particularly useful when it comes to the marking of sloppily thrown together reading reviews and discussion of the previous night’s morally dubious escapades.

4. The dress sense is remarkable. What may appear eye gougingly terrible in the U.K. seems to work out here. Canadian girls possess a unique ability to make Birkenstock sandals and socks look sexy.

5. Tim Horton’s is currently running a ‘roll up your rim’ competition. This means that as a reward for every 1 in 6 cups of satanic bean-juice you manage to finish, you may win a donut. The fun of this rolling competition lies predominantly in referring to it as a rimjob and pretending such a term has no other meaning in the U.K. Naturally too polite to explain, Canadians are hilariously uncomfortable when they hear such a slip of the tongue. Pun intended.

 

I went on a pilgrimage a couple of weeks ago. Not to the Via Dolorosa or the Wailing Wall, but to Boston. It’s difficult to explain really.

I veiled my weekend trip to the Irish Mecca with the cover of the Harvard National Model United Nations. That sounds a lot grander than it was. The weekend consisted largely of listening to American College kids pretending that what they had to say about Djibouti’s immigration policy was much more important than anything anyone else had to offer.

In what was essentially a glorified game of dress-up, high-heeled young women stumbled around the hotel conference rooms like new born giraffes whilst barely post pubescent men sauntered around Bradley Cooperesque in their Dads’ suits. The ‘Delegate Dance’ on the Saturday evening resembled all too closely my 3^rd form school disco, the only real difference being that these people were more likely to have referred to the two kids snogging in the corner as ‘the pair engaged in a deep suavium’.

When I had a moment outside of the ‘Nerds gone Wild’ political extravaganza (which I secretly rather enjoyed), I found myself at O’Connor’s Irish pub in downtown Boston. It wasn’t like anything you’d find in Ireland, but it did feel Irish. Somehow this discrepancy has been allowed to manifest and it seems no longer does Ireland hold the exclusive rights to Irishness. Frankly, I’m not sure how I feel about this…I fear St. Patrick’s day in Ottawa may be even more unpalatable than I’d thought.

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.”

Just when you thought these blog posts couldn’t get any more painstakingly contrived and pretentious, I’ve managed to squeeze in one of Albert Camus’ typically brilliant introspections.

Pretentiousness aside (of which I was so frequently reminded of by friends and family over the Christmas break) I couldn’t help but relate Camus’ words to the latest instalment of my year abroad.

In hindsight, I can’t say I wasn’t warned. People had joked about the searing pain in your nostrils on drawing your first breath of -35° air, made light of spending 3 hours every evening desperately trying to return feeling to your toes and fleetingly alluded to the possibility of your eyelids freezing together.

But Boy Scout I was not. I could not have been less prepared for the onslaught. As January turned to February, the relentlessness of the Canadian winter became all-consuming and thoroughly depressing. I cursed the taunting grins of the natives that seemed to sadistically revel in their own ability to last out the long months in this godforsaken wilderness and I became everyday occupied with just getting through it.

In this way, I lost touch with the exchange student blurb. I could no longer identify with the footloose, carefree huntsmen of serendipity. It just didn’t come as naturally to me as I thought it would. I’d forgotten how to live in and for the moment.

That was, until my week spent on the alternative spring break programme. I think the key was getting out of my own head. I was forced to break away from Roropia. Throughout my time spent in the most outwardly grim and bleakest parts of Ottawa, I saw the very best of the city. Not only through the passion of the men and women running the schemes and initiatives working tirelessly to combat the ills of homelessness here, but in the heart of the other guys on the trip.

Not one of them billed themselves as the do-gooder set on changing the world in a week. They were acutely aware of the limited effect making a few peanut butter and jam sandwiches would have. Rather, they simply wanted to learn. They challenged themselves and each other with the bigger questions; how is this being funded? What comes first, losing your home or losing your marbles? If people are going to inject themselves with opiates regardless of any laws from on high, isn’t it better that they use a clean needle? How can they get them?

A bit of perspective goes a long way on a year abroad, I only wish I’d spent more time chatting with heroin addicts before.

The last of my annoyingly epiphanic contributions is this; people look very differently when you stop analysing them. The next two months are no longer about making it through until summer, but cherishing every moment I have with the new characters in the story of my life. It took some time but at last, in the deepest midst of winter, I was able to find my invincible summer.