30 Things I Love About Canada #29: Maple everything.

I was never a huge maple flavor fan before. Suddenly though, I can't get enough of it. I made a special trip to the store just to get these for this photo shoot and to pack with our kitchen stuff and smuggle some syrup up back to the states.

 

Something about Canadian maple syrup just tastes better than the lady-shaped caramel-colored corn syrup I grew up pouring on my waffles. I also got this:

Which I've never had before but I'm sure is delicious.

Also, I'm bringing back some of these little maple leaf shaped candies.

Other current flavors I'm obsessed with are anything: 

maple infused

maple glazed

maple marinated

maple smoked

maple coated

and maple encrusted.

I will gladly wash them down with a maple porter...

Or a maple milkshake or maple latte or just a full glass of pure maple syrup. Okay, maybe not that last one. Too rich.

I also love this giant maple tree in our backyard and the squirrels who live in it. 

In the fall, I loved the multi-colored maple leaves it dropped onto our deck.

I even love seeing Maple Leafs like this all over town...

And this maple leaf too will always have a special place in my heart. 

30 Things I Love About Canada #28: Olympic pride

Watching the Olympics on Canadian television I get to see national pride from another side, and it's just as inspiring. So when Simone Manuel and Penny Oleksiak tied for the gold in the 100 meter freestyle, I was thrilled for both of them. Simone Manuel is the first African-American to win an individual swimming gold medal in the Olympics and Penny Oleksiak is a 16 year old athlete from Toronto. Way to go ladies!

 

Getty Images

30 Things I Love About Canada #27: The map.

I bet a lot of Americans wouldn't be able to identify this country out of context.

By sheer land mass it's the 2nd largest country in the world (after Russia). Give up? It's Canada!

Growing up, this is the map I studied:

Canada and Mexico were invisible and Alaska was out in the ocean with Hawaii, not bigger than Texas or attached to the country above us. In social studies class we had to learn 50! states and capitals. This year my kids studied Canadian history and only had to learn 10 provinces and 3 territories. I bet most Americans couldn't name them all. Here's a quick lesson:

The provinces (from left to right) are British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador. The territories are Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. What's the difference, you ask? Wikipedia says:

In modern Canadian constitutional theory, the provinces are considered to be co-sovereign divisions and each province has its own "Crown" represented by the lieutenant governor. The territories are not sovereign, but simply part of the federal realm, and have a commissioner who represents the federal government.

I don't pretend to fully understand that but hopefully I've helped some people know a little more about Canadian geography.

Finally, an interesting cultural note: When someone in Canada says "Down South" they mean the vacation spots below America like Mexico and the Bahamas. When Americans say "Down South" They mean the southern U.S. states like Georgia, Mississippi, etc.  When Canadians say "South of the Border" they mean America. When Americans say "South of the Border" they mean Mexico, or if you're from the east coast they mean this weird rest stop along I-95 in South Carolina.  

from pinterest

Nevertheless, we share this big continent of North America and despite the border between us, we're really very similar. Some people think of our relationship like this:

And others see it like this.

30 Things I Love About Canada #26: Milk Bags

I had heard about Canada's bagged milk before, so when we first got here and I saw it in stores I was excited to buy it. Not because I like milk though (I don't) but because my kids do and milk is required for cereal and certain recipes.

When I got home though I was like, now what?

I failed to realize this floppy bag required a container. It felt like those weird watersnake toys they sold at Spencers in the 80s.

I thought it might fit in our skinny lemonade pitcher but it got stuck halfway down. Plus there was the added question, How do you open it?  

 

Suffice it to say we had several messy mishaps with milkbags until we found this container in the grocery store nowhere near the milk aisle.

I was surprised to see it wasn't more interesting looking. There is a definitely a decorative milk pitcher niche that hasn't been filled yet in Canada. Or maybe it has, I just haven't found it.

Anyway, Milk Bags: Yay! I'm going to miss them when we move. I still think milk is gross though.

30 Things I Love About Canada #25: My kids made friends.

Sometimes I worry about how frequently moving from city to city is affecting our kids. Next month my son will turn 14 and will have lived in 7 houses in his lifetime. My daughter often nonchalantly says things like, "Next time we move, I want a pink bedroom." as if moving is something that's inevitable. The question, "Where are you from?" is a difficult one for us and often involves a lengthy explanation where the person who asked the question ends up looking at us like we're crazy, or lying, or on the lam from the law.

I'm jealous of families who are able to raise their kids in one place, who have friends with kids that grow up with their kids and family nearby. I long to have history in a place and connections within a community when I look for a job. I would love to stay in one house long enough to see several seasons of fruit come from the trees we plant. I'm tired of starting over from scratch.

The tradeoff is that our kids have seen more of America and Canada than most kids. They've camped in National Parks along the west coast and travelled through half of the Canadian provinces. They've visited landmarks that most people only see in photos and explored numerous art galleries and museums. They've experienced different climates and cultures and landscapes and points of view. And along the way they made friends.

My son is not the kind of kid who seeks out social situations (maybe because he's worn out from his parents dragging him all over the continent). He prefers to hide out in his room and draw or read or play video games and talk to people (about video games) on the internet. This year though, after a rough start, he started to spread his wings and made a few good friends. He asked to go on the grade 8 trip and spent 4 days with his friends touring Quebec City. Among other end-of-the-year activities for his senior public (aka middle school) festivities he went to a Blue Jays game at Rogers Stadium and attended a formal dance aboard a party boat that sailed on Lake Ontario around Toronto. He's ended up experiencing parts of Canada the rest of us haven't even seen.

My daughter is the extroverted one. She made friends the very first day and has attended several birthday parties and playdates and sleepovers throughout the year. She made a BFF and they choreographed a dance to Taylor Swift's song Blank Space which they bravely performed for the talent show. Despite the difficult year the rest of us have had here she maintained a positive outlook and in doing so, she helped me to see the bright side too.

30 Things I Love About Canada #24: Lake Ontario

The first time I experienced a lake that looked like an ocean was Lake Eerie. I was just a kid and Eerie seemed like a fitting name. It was eerie to look out on the horizon and see no sign of land or life on the other side and it was all freshwater, not an ocean. That same uncomfortable feeling gripped me when I first looked out onto Lake Ontario.

   

It was late August and the beach was deserted. There were no mountains or trees in the distance like we were used to seeing across Lake Washington.

It didn't look any more inviting in the fall, just brown and lonely.

The winter was even more barren and foreboding and uncomfortably cold. I took to calling it the blue-gray abyss.

Still, we kept visiting it. It wasn't until Spring that I started to see it in a different light.

It wasn't always ominous. Sometimes it sparkled.

And sometimes the color was hard to describe. What would you call this? Teal? 

The water became daily therapy for our old arthritic dog and searching for beach glass became a daily meditation for me.

Somewhere along the way I realized this place is not the depressing abyss I once thought it was.

    It all depends on the way you look at it.

30 Things I Love About Canada #23: The Beaches

    When I say I love The Beaches I don't mean "the beaches," although we've visited several in Canada and must say we loved camping on MacKenzie Beach in Tofino, British Columbia a few years ago. After coming upon several full campgrounds on the peninsula, we asked the campground host at MacKenzie Beach if there were any spots left and she answered,

"Yah, fer shure, no doubt, absolutely, eh."

 ...which is pretty much the quintessential Canadian greeting.

    The beaches I'm referring to in this post is the neighborhood known as The Beaches, or, The Beach, or simply BEACH, depending on who you ask. (I can't get a straight answer.) I recently bought this tea towel because it features some of our favorite spots. 

    We didn't know Etobicoke (pronounced E-toe-bi-COH) from Scarborough when we first arrived in the city and started looking for a place to live. (I do not recommend this random throw-of-the-dice method of relocation.)  By chance and circumstance we ended up here and despite the difficult time we've had in Toronto, I love this neighborhood. Our immediate neighbors have been the best we've ever had, we've had no shortage of restaurants within walking distance on Kingston Rd. and Queen St,. we're close to Glen Stewart ravine, and we're blocks away from Lake Ontario. If the cost of living here weren't so damn expensive or if we had friends or family or connections to keep us here we might even stay. For now, we're simply appreciating the time we have left in this beautiful place.