My thoughts to that question were, "I just told you my mother is from there. Of course I have been to Canada before! I used to go every summer as a little girl and a teenager, and the last time I was there prior to this trip was when I turned 25, and when bungee jumping in Ottawa as a birthday present."
So yes, I have been to Canada quite a few times. Of course, things were different back then, as always. I will write about my most recent trip, but first, I need to write about how it used to be.
As a child, sometimes I would take the bus up with my mom, (I remember one winter, my sister and I had our new 'Hot Looks' Dolls with us.) or most commonly, we would all just drive up. We would stay up to close to a month sometime. We stayed at my grandmothers house, and she used to live in the little apartment complexes which always smelled like clean air and fresh laundry. Back then, there was a military base at the mountains in which always reminded me of the castle from the movie Labyrinth, because there were 3 bubbles that were evident from the mountains which just reminded me of the castle.
We would walk in the mud, we would see cat tails in the pond, we would see planes that fly above the lakes. Those little water planes. We would jump on the bed, and play hide and seek. I dont know, kid things. I remember my cousin Gloria did something called 'the funny show', where she gave herself a front wedgie. My other cousin pulled his pants down while jumping on the bed. I don't know...???
Why did I share that!???! It's not funny tho. Despite the name of the show...hmm....I think its just because, if you look into your own childhood, you will recall examples like this occurring as well. Right?
Ok so...when my grandmother moved to a new house, I was more of a teenager, and I used to hang out with my friend Karen. We all used to wander the streets thinking we were lil' hoodlums. We all tried to be the girls from 'The Craft'. It was me, Karen, Lisa, Gloria. We also hung out with Sam and Marina. Karen and I used to steal posters, chokers, candy, even 40s of Canadian beer and cigarettes. We were pretty bad. My cousin Sabastien had his band of 'sidekicks', who would follow him around everywhere. "Jimmy with the boogers, chubby Nate...ogre like Charlie..."(idk, I can't remember them all)...Cameron who got his leg cut off by the train out back. Nonetheless, there were always kids around.
We also used to go the campgrounds, where we would watch the older kids play volleyball, or we would hear the mission bell ring, which told us it was time for childrens church. Sometimes we camped out there. There was a white family from Illinois who would come up to teach childrens church. They had a ginger daughter named Katie, who would come up with her friend with curled bangs. I remember one time they were dancing the Roger Rabbit. They used to stay at Annie Moores house which was next door to my cocums...and Sam would stay there too.
The childrens church had games, puppet shows, songs. There were yellow lightbulbs and big moths flickering around. It was inside a wooden barn like place. One of these days, I will print out pictures and find old ones and turn it into a picture book. It is part of my life.
They had camp meetings and we would hear people speak in tongues. Old, indian women. I used to sit next to my mom, and my grandmother. I miss those days. We spelled like Off. I felt safe with my mom, my dad. I was a little girl.
I recall many different times of my age because we went there many different times. Some days, as a teenager, we would sit in the camper and talk about scary stories. Or we would walk down the dirt road, where one day the older guy Roy scared us. He made us think he was a bear.
I remember we were talking about Sabastien and his sidekicks making an 'onion ring'. Where all of them were connected forming a sort of ring. WTH??? Weird!?!??! (Not like human centipede tho.)
In Senneterre, the town, we would walk alot. Play mini golf, or go to the stores. Or we would go to the many lakes for swimming and picnicking. Or we would go blueberry picking.
We would go to the hockey arena to watch the boys practice. We would get penny candy. One time, Karen, Sabastien and I made makeshift rafts out of floaty material we saw to float down the river to the old mans house who would let us four-wheel. That time he looked at us confusingly and we did not go four wheeling. We got a ride back to town on the back of his truck tho.
See, back then it was a magical, wondrous wonderland. We were children. We were young. Things were and felt different.
I went back now. Yes, it was different. I will write pt 2 later. I have to go to work!!!
((I also uploaded a video of pt 1 of my canadian trip on my personal youtube channel.))
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