Christmas & Canada

For a person who cannot stand the cold and almost got hypothermia the one time I went skiing, I crazily decided to go to Canada to visit Eppie for Christmas.
I arrived in Toronto on a Saturday, which, luckily, was the one day there were no snow storms in a string of 4 days of storms. Eppie offered to come to pick me up and regretted her decision the whole way as the power to the subway was shut down while she was on a train when a couple of idiots jumped onto the track.
On Sunday, we went shopping for all of our Christmas feast ingredients. Eppie deigned to take her shopping cart to the supermarket in the interests of practicality even though it was against her 'trendy image'. We got the smallest turkey and ham, which were still enormous. Quite simply, Canadians may think that they are different from Americans but they are exactly the same (except they don't carry guns).
That evening, we went to a consultant's house for dinner, along with a couple of other neurology fellows, one from Saudi Arabia (a 30 year old who is probably a little too independent to get a traditional Saudi husband) and one from India (a pediatric professor with an O&G wife who was visiting with 2 of their children). Sitting in a conversation with a bunch of doctors can sometimes be very boring...
I caught up with Gu Jie twice while I was in Toronto. I haven't seen her for several years so it was good to have a couple of long chats with her.
Eppie's friend, Michelle, from medical school, arrived on the 23rd. She is now in private practice in dermatology. She may also be coming to London for a year to work at one of the hospitals (she finds out in late January). The other weird connection is that it turns out that her mum is friends with Sei Sum. They met when they were all in Canberra. What a small world!
On Christmas Eve we went to Eppie's friend's place for dinner. Johanna is a doctor from Colombia and she invited another doctor from radiology as well as a doctor from Colombia. She is a sterotype of the South American girl - gorgeous, exotic & lively (and late). We took the ham over to her apartment so that she could heat it up in her oven (not enough room in Eppie's oven to do both the ham and the turkey). She urged Eppie & Michelle to go to church on Christmas morning.
Eppie & Michelle dragged themselves out of bed on Christmas morning and went to church. Johanna slept in and missed it. I roasted the turkey, the stuffing & the vegetables. Not to blow my own trumpet but the turkey was a tremendous success. Best turkey I have ever had, if I say so myself! Johanna & her Colombian friend, Oscar, came over an hour late and we had a wonderful lunch/dinner.
On Boxing Day, we sat around and lazed away the day.
At the crack of dawn on the 27th, we got up and went to the airport to fly to Quebec City. Luckily for us (for me in particular), we hit Quebec City during a lull in the weather and it was quite mild for the whole time we were there (-10oC, feels like -17oC due to wind chill).
Quebec City is a very interesting city. It is a strange combination of French, English, Canadian, Inuit & Native American history. The buildings in the Old Town are a mix of French & English architecture, sometimes in the same building.
The first thing we did after we arrived was to book ourselves on a walking tour. The guide thought that it was a good idea to tell us about the history of Quebec while standing in progressively windier and colder spots. The 'walking' tour was for 2 hours and after 75 minutes of mostly standing, I was ready to give up. At that point she took us into the cathedral to warm up. We warmed up for about 10 minutes and then it was out into the cold again. I was frozen again by the time we finished.
We visited 3 museums while in Quebec: the Museum of Fine Arts (the Inuit collection was the best bit by far), the Civilisation Museum (the Inuit/First Nations bit was the best by far) and the Museum of French America (nothing good about it). We also visited a 'museum' on maple syrup, which was just a little exhibit above a shop selling maple products. The thing that struck me the most about all the maple stuff we saw was how accurate Laura Ingalls Wilder was in her descriptions of all things maple in her Little House books. My visualisations of her writings were exactly how the pictures looked in the exhibit and in the streets.
We went to a restaurant called Aux Anciens Canadiens, which specialises in good old Canadian food like elk, bison & pheasant (or peasant as Eppie kept calling it). I had escargot for an entree, which was fantastic and pheasant for a main, which was a lot better than the partridge I had a couple of months ago. Eppie had a wild game pie.
When we were packing to go to Quebec, I put certain items (set of underwear, toiletries etc) in the hand luggage as a precaution against lost luggage. Eppie & Michelle mocked me. On our return to Toronto, we waited at the baggage carousel for 45 mins before the last luggage came out and our bag wasn't there. We lined up at the lost luggage counter only to find out that our luggage wasn't lost, they knew exactly where it was and they made a decision not to load it as they ran out of room in the hold (this would be because North Americans are allowed 2 enormous bags each regardless of how far they are going). I almost did not share my toiletries when we got back because they mocked me. ; )
New Year's Eve was quite boring. We decided not to go out into the bitter cold and watched it on tv and from the apartment window. Toronto is not the best city for fireworks...
On New Year's Day, Michelle and I went to Niagara Falls while Eppie went to work. Niagara is amazing, even in winter. It may be even better in winter as there are icicles forming everywhere. I got some fantastic photos of water, icicles & rainbows.
On the plane on the way back to London, I watched Empire of the Sun, which I haven't seen since I was about 12. It's still a great movie with a wonderful hymn, which is still stuck firmly in my head. Christian Bale was great as a child actor.
Photos in the usual place.