Migratory Byrds

Migratory Byrds

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Canada Day

Last Wednesday, July 1st, was a public holiday for Canada Day. This day celebrates the July 1st 1867 joining together of four provinces into a single country, Canada. The variety of ways in which it is celebrated are very similar to Australia Day celebrations - BBQs, parades, concerts, fireworks, citizenship ceremonies etc.

For Canada Day, we had brunch in a park at Peace Arch, by the Canada-US border. This is about 40 minutes' drive from where we live. The most dramatic incident of the day occurred when, instead of parking on the road beside the Duty Free shop, we pulled into its carpark. Due to various barricades, we were unable to drive back out, and instead had to join the 90-minute line-up of cars waiting to cross the border into the USA (and without our passports too!). The line-up happened to be very close to the park where our friends were setting up the BBQ, so Lisa and I went over and joined them, and a few others went over to provide advice to Ben!! Here's Ben in line...


And here's the eventual solution - driving over the curb and parking on the grass beside the border queue, and later driving across the grass to the proper carpark!


For brunch, we enjoyed pancakes, waffles, strawberries, blueberries, whipped cream, maple syrup, bacon, sausages and eggs. Yummy!!

Cooks at work...


Digging in to the tucker...


Taking it easy...


Playing bocce (a game like boules), which the kids from a neighbouring BBQ quite enjoyed too!!...


Before leaving, we walked over to the nearby Peace Arch (which the area is named after) - this stands on the border of the US and Canada, with a space of "no man's land" on either side. We didn't go over to the US side, but from others' photos I can tell you that the US side of the arch says "Children of a common mother". The Canada side says "Brethren dwelling together in unity". Each side also had an awesome flower garden forming that country's flag. Here we are in front of the Canadian flag garden (the photographer didn't quite manage to capture Ben and I in midair...):


Happy Canada Day!

2 comments:

Liesl said...

It's not a lazy summer day w/o an Archie Comic... Love the adventures in parking, :-) and more berries... yum! Happy Day!

Roxy said...

Love the pic of your guys jumping...very amusing!! looks like a fun day :)