Somewhere in ... Ontario, Canada

We have crossed the border now between the United States and Canada with the first impression immediately that we were in another country - we can understand the temperatures which are in celsius and the distances which are in kilometres! What a beautiful border too, decorated as it is by the famous, and most impressive, Niagara Falls, which we had the chance to experience upclose in the boat "Maid of the Mist" which takes us to only within a few feet of the falls and gets us all wet in the process!

We spent then the weekend in Toronto, hosted by some real Torontonians, Hilary and Clinton! And even though we are coming in from New York, Toronto seems so vast! The difference clearly is that in New York the attractions are mostly concentrated in Manhattan in a very compact area and the residential neighborhoods surround it. In Toronto, the real attractions are the residential neighborhoods themselves, which are spread out so much walking around by foot is just impossible. In fact there is no real feeling of a "city of Toronto" - with half of its 2.6 million population born outside of Canada it is not surprising to see a varied collection of neighborhoods hailing from many different countries, each with its different personality, culture and often language.

Hence we have passed first by Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Italy, and by accident, Little Portugal, where many Portuguese and Azorean flags adorn the houses and shops alongside the Canadian flags, and Portuguese with an azorean accent is heard.

After Toronto, we did a short drive to one of the most impressive natural parks in Lower Canada, the Algonquin Park, a huge expanse of maple trees and pines, and lakes everywhere, where moose and bears and wolves roam. We saw amazingly built beaver dams (although the beavers themselves were waiting for us onwards in Ottawa!), and we even spotted some moose in the distance, animals the size of horses!

Our final stop in Ontario, before moving on to french-speaking Quebec, was the capital of Canada, Ottawa, itself already a bilingual city. As with Canberra, Australia, we were expecting a bland, featureless "new" capital, but instead we found a really exciting town, with amazing architecture including the impressive Parliament Buildings themselves, and with a size of 700,000 it felt like a very chilled out and pretty capital city.

We have now reached the region of Quebec, where we stay for almost another week and practise again our french, hopefully we have not forgotten it! Donc, a Bientot!