My trip to Canada – Part III: Hockey

I didn’t take that many pictures during the games. More exactly I took close to none pictures. Hai_di already had her camera ready before I did and she’s the better photographer anyway. So this post will contain only a few pictures and one of them even taken by her. To witness my hockey glory *g*

We had our first hockey world championship experience already at Frankfurt airport. We booked an Air Canada flight and didn’t know that that would be in cooperation with Lufthansa and we’d had to check-in with Lufthansa. So we went to the Air Canada counter to check in. We entered the terminal and the first thing I saw was the logo of the German Hockey Federation at the Condor counter. And a lot of young men in suites. Could that be..? Yes, it was. The German Team on their way to Halifax! The two of us debated for a little while if it would be very embarrasing to open our suitcase, get our Team Germany jersey and have it signed by the players. Guess which side won :-)

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My trip to Canada – Part II: Sightseeing

This will be a shorter post, I promise. A large collection of photos (and the photos in higher resolution) can be found here. I will just pick out a few of my favorites now.

Our first stop in Toronto was the Hockey Hall of Fame (who would have figured *g*) but I will cover that in a special hockey post. I think we’ve seen most of the “must-see” attractions in Toronto, at least from the outside. We didn’t have that much time, so we didn’t visit a museum although the ROM or the Art Gallery would definitely have been worth a visit. We’ll do that next time :-)

The golden Royal Bank Plaza was pretty cool to see. Real gold in the windowpanes and all of that for the sake of insulation. Neat!. And the CN Tower really is visible from everywhere. As long as there is not fog or rain clouds, then the top of the tower might just disappear.

My trip to Canada – Part I: The Canadian people

Yesterday afternoon I was almost run over by a car which was speeding over the crosswalk. Well I wasn’t really in danger, but still, he (those drivers always are male) sped although he must have seen me standing there. It only took two days back in Germany to get into mortal danger while crossing a street. Thus this first entry has to be about the totally unbelievably wonderfully nice and friendly and welcoming Canadian people, which would never put a pedestrain crossing a street in mortal danger. The Haligonians at least wouldn’t…

I really felt so welcome in this country unlike anywhere else before. The Candians are warm and friendly and considerate and still keeping a distance without really keeping a distance. They’re not like for instance Italian who also are warm and friendly and caring but who also can be too cheerful and too loud and sometimes invade just a tidbit too much into your personal space, if you know what I mean. It’s part of the Italian culture, so I totally understand it, but it makes me feel a bit awkward sometimes. But Candians also aren’t as reserved as for instance the people in Sweden. In Sweden you can’t just strike up a conversation (even if it’s just small talk) with anyone you just meet on the street (or at a hockey game). Maybe the people in Halifax just went out of their way talking to us because of the hockey fever :-)? Whatever the reason, I really really liked meeting and talking to them.

I felt welcome everywhere. Which might have something to do with the way we were greeted with “Hi, How are you today?” everywhere. It might be the usual ordinary greeting and the person might not really be interested in how I was doing, but it still felt nice. Although I still haven’t figured out what to reply really. Just “I’m fine, thanks”? Or “I’m fine, thanks. How are you?” Anyway it felt really welcoming.