Canada: A White Christmas
Our time in Vancouver passed swiftly, the only real measurement being the seemingly sudden change from sunny days warmed by the kaleidescope of fall colours, to the cold, bare trees and bright white of winter snow.
Working in a coffee shop during the week, we spent our weekends sightseeing in Vancouver, mostly on foot, standing on Capilano suspension bridge overlooking mountains of fir trees one day, and walking the entire circumference of Stanley park the next.
The wages were terrible, by Australian standards, and so we neither ventured far nor lived it up, but as I told those who sounded amazed that we weren’t going ‘there’, living and working in a different country was a travelling experience in itself, right? (And then I cried because, damn it, we could afford to go ‘there’, wherever it was).
Being Sydney girls, we were amazed by the snow and it’s everchanging state, and began to look at the clouds as perhaps Tim Bailey might, and nod, mumbling to ourselves that yes, there would be snow tonight.
We shopped and dined, danced and drank, slept and watched movies, and became intensely familiar with the names of streets, the neighbourhoods, friends and customers – until one day someone asked me where I was from and I stared blankly at them, replying, “Oh, just down on West 13th”.
We fell in love with Vancouver, especially over the holiday season, where Santa and his thermal coast and sleigh made perfect sense, and we could make snowmen in our front yard and hum tunes about Jack Frost nipping at our noses, with ease. We had dreamed of a white Christmas – and although we both worked Christmas day and trudged through the freezing sleet/snow/rain there and back – I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
In retrospect of course. Ideally we would have been sipping hot chocolates on a mountain resort somewhere, watching chestnuts roast and whatnot, but damn it, we couldn’t afford to go ‘there’ either.
-Sarah
Sarah