Ca-Na-Duh!

"It feels like home to me...it feels like I'm all the way back from where I come from."

There are a few holidays that I like.
Traditions are an odd thing. Between childhood and adult, you are stuck in that wandering phase where you can carry on the traditions of your childhood, or make your own. So you are lost in a sense.  Afterall, you can never go home again.

Christmas will always be associated with soft white welcomed snow, with romance, loud screaming, last minute shopping, violent outbursts, hectic schedules, drunk dads, brightly lit houses, traffic congestion, freezing toes and numb fingers, thick knitted sweaters, random acts of generosity, the end of exams and start of winter break, of shopping with sisters, turkey brunches, and gravy.

Thanksgiving brings about the feeling of settling.  Settling into new changes, schedules, and work loads.  New cities, houses, roommates, and relationships.

Birthdays denote a feeling of irretrievable loss, of sweet surprises, frosty cake and pungent booze.

Canada Day. Those two words simply mean heat, the unofficial start of summer, of cold caesars with crispy celery, of eating outdoors, of backyard BBQs, beach picnics, cottage decks, or bar and restuarant patios.  Canada Day is burning rays of sun, of iced cold beers, of friends storming the downtown streets of Ottawa cramming into Parliament Hill and Major's Hill, and the BOOM BOOM BOOM of fireworks.

This Canada Day, I spent it with a friend at a dark, rather lame Canadian bar in Gangnam.  A couple of girls at the table near us lit sparklers.

I have already made a list indicating the reasons why I like Korea, but like most things, you don't realize how great something is until you've stepped outside of it. So in tribute to the best country in the world, the second biggest, and the hand's down most beautiful, here is why I miss Canada:

1. Four distinct seasons: If I gather anything from living abroad, its that Canada has seasons worth mentioning.  Fall is crisp, nippy, and vibrant.  Winter is dry, windy, cold, and unforgiving.  Spring is simply perfect. Warm, bright, and fresh. Summer is hot and sunny. You definitely need four distinct wardrobes to satisfy the four very different seasons. 

2. Mr. Sun: I miss the way it shines down on you as bright as fire, as intimate as a kiss. The sun here is obstructed by this misty fog that never goes away.

3. Grassy backyards: I just love grass, walking barefoot in the backyard or frontyard  Grass in suburbia, grass under picnic tables at beaches, grass in parks, and on campus grounds.  Grass in school yards and in big open fields. (I asked one of my kids last year what they would do if they were principal of the school. She answered "more grassy areas.""

4. Patios: Self-explannatory.

5. Cottages: Friend's cottages where you shoot rifles, jump off cliffs into crispy cold lake water, go canoeing, build fires, drink, think, talk, laugh, play.

6. Maple trees: thick massive trunks and an umbrella covering of clustered maple leaves.

7. Big dogs: not lap dogs or purse dogs with dyed yellow tails and purple flapping ears, but big dogs. Golden retrievers, huskies, labradors, and bull dogs with saggy faces in public parks where you can wrap your arms around their muscular necks and wrestle them to the ground.

8. Diversity: attidude, appearance, cars, religion, emotions, food, fashion, hair styles, understanding, beliefs.

9. Tim Horton's iced cappuchinos: because nothing cools just like it.

10. My family. Yeah, I miss home.

"While the astronauts, heroes forever, spent mere hours on the moon, I have remained in this new world for nearly thirty years. I know that my achievement is quite ordinary.  I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home and certainly I am not the first.  Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination."

Photos courtesy of my sister's boyfriend, CT.