Reversal choques in Canada

After some unexpected, though not unusual travel delays. I'm finally home. Home being Canada this time.

Immediately some "reversal choques" are being felt. Perhaps my 2-3 week stay in Canada can act as my "re-integration" back to the Canadian culture.

• Canadians are friendly - I arrived at the entrance of my friend's apartment building at 2:30am. And this guy came off the street while having a smoke, and offered his keys to me: "hey dude, here are my keys. open the main door, put your luggage in, and then when you are done, give them back my keys." That is pure kindless that I've gotten to love in Canada


• Canada is international - a random guy i shared the cab with to head to downtown, suddenly started speaking a language to the cab driver I didn't recognized from the beginning. And I then realized the guy was speaking Urdu with the cab driver, asking if he was from Pakistan or India; Later on, I took a Chinese operated cab to go to my aunt's place, and when I saw the name of TD Bank (one of the main banks in Canada) written in Chinese.


• Generous portions of meals - I had a brunch with a friend this morning, and man was I amazed by how big the dishes are. I was so stuffed. Good ol' Canadian brunch: omlette, hashbrown, bacon, toast...etc
  
• Canadians speak English - well, this isn't something of a surprise. But it's just nice to be a over 50% English environment again. (The other 50% being all the other languages that are spoken here! Considering I will probably be speaking only Cantonese the next 4 days mainly with my relatives and the Chinese community here).
  
• Canadians speak English fast. - I guess this is my main choque, when I felt I had trouble understanding the fast pace at which my friend was speaking. I guess I'm used to speaking and listening at a slower pace in Costa Rica.

The skyline of T-dot. (One of the way Torontonians call the city)(With skydome and CN tower in the picture)

Skydome: a huge sports stadium. The home of my baseball team Toronto Blue Jays. Its famous because of its retractable roof that can open and close depending on the weather

CN Tower: The tallest free-standing structure in the world. There is a floor made of glass on the tower, and you can walk on it!

List of things to do so far:

Watch a hockey game LIVE. on tv. - anything hockey will do. With the Costa Rican televisions alergic to snow and ice. I just miss my dear sport.

Eat Chinese food - funny thing to say, but Canada probably has the best Chinese food. Authentic. No more Westernized Chinese food please: Chinese Tacos = spring rolls in Costa Rica.

choque del dia - football player being robbed

this post comes in the theme of "choque del dia" , which means "shock of the day"...among the internationals here, we used to share our choques which is something that surprise us mainly due to the cultural environment we are in. We have compiled quite a bit list of interesting choques, especially during my initial days as a trainee here.

Well, it's been a while since I have had a choque, but I got one interesting one to share.

Robbery and mugging is not unusual on the streets here in Costa Rica. Most of the Ticos that I know have had at least one experience where they got robbed of their cellphones, cash...etc, even at gunpoint. Among the trainees, a number of us have gotten that experience as well. knock on wood, thanks god i haven't yet.

Well, my favourite football player Alonzo Solís of Saprissa got robbed a while ago before a semi final match. The robber forced Solis's wife to go to the bank machine to withdraw some cash, while Solis had to wait with another robber. When the dirty business was all done, and the theives were happy...they had some final words to say to Solis:

"hey man, score a goal on Saturday in the semi final game! Ciao!"

UWC weekend

Work has been bogging me down during the past week or two, and finally an opportunity to have a getaway opportunity came. The Costa Rican United World College national committee organized a weekend into one of the member's cottages in the Heredia mountains. Well, being involved with the UWC movement through my internship here as well as my UWC days back in Hong Kong gotten me involved with the group since my arrival in Costa Rica in January.

The cottage

Juanra (my tico second year who studied with me in UWC in Hong Kong) and Julio (my tico second year who studied in UWC in Canada - Pearson College)

We spent a very nice weekend at the beautiful cottage! Played a little "majenga" - football game, and I realized I was SOOOO fit - NOT. Well, it was a nice game anyways, as my partner and I won it! =)

I think the nature of Costa Rica just keeps on surprising me. The different climate zones it has in this small area is incredible. The cottage was situated in the mountains, and all I saw around was huge evergreen pine trees, and very green grass. The night was relatively chilly - around 15 degrees I would say... with the whole cottage built in wood, if someone told me I was sleeping in the Swiss Alps, I would've believed them.

falling leafs...

What's going on with my beloved leafs? my hockey team is falling, just like it's autumn. It's lost 6 in a row now, and 8 out of the last 11 games...oh boy...it's gonna be a long winter. Though summer is around the corner in Costa Rica.

on a brighter note, my Saprissa team is in the semi-finals now =)

another one.

wow, is it earthquake week or what? Late last night 12:30am or so...as I was pulling some extra hours at home to work a bit... there was the sensation again. It was another earthquake, and this time was much longer probably lasted for 10 seconds or so.

maybe I'm still new to this...but I still feel amazed by this phenonmenon...and am I being horrible to say I want more?