Happy Canada Day

Today is July first and in Canada this means Canada Day and that means PARTY. Or so I thought. It turns out they celebrate stuff a little different around here….

As far as I can tell, no celebration is even worth that term if there isn’t a pancake breakfast. The breakfast is usually sponsored and generally consists of pancakes, maple syrup and bacon and of course this is downed with coffee. Inserting rant here: Canadian coffee is of the weak kind, which is why they can drink it all day long. It is basically water with some brown color and a hint of coffee taste, not far from the dishwater I throw out after washing my own coffee cups…

Anyway, since I arrived here, there have been many pancake breakfasts, daily during the week long rodeo and also when the (ice) hockey was in town (Go Bandits!). I’m not a huge fan of the breakfasts to be honest, mostly because my breakfast starts with some strong coffee and a hearty sandwich. The sweetness of pancakes and maple syrup laced with that coffee is not great enough to get me out of bed.

And, by the way, I do understand that it’s not about the breakfast really, that it is more about the community coming together. And I totally embrace that thought, just not at 8 am …

Moving on. I was told that Rosemary has the best Canada Day celebrations, so all week I have been googling stuff, trying to find info about what where and when. We found out there is indeed tons of stuff to do and we aimed to be there for the start of the parade at 10.30 am (skipping the various breakfasts we could have had on our way.)

When we got to Rosemary the sun was shining, the mood was good and we found a parking spot not too far from where the action was going to be, in other words, the center of town. We got out of the car and hurried towards the noise, because now that we were there, we didn’t want to miss a thing!

We bumped into a few people, one of them carrying one of those fishing chairs and we told each other that we really are not quite pro’s at this. We had even left our blanket in the car. He laughed at us and said, no worries, you missed it! We laughed at him, out of politeness mostly because we didnt understand it really, and speeded along. We came around the corner and there was everyone, lined up in rows so everyone could get a glimpse of the parade. The kids in the front (with their plastic bags to put all the candy in), then a row of people who brought their chairs and then a row of people standing.

Now, from an earlier experience this year, a parade is mostly one giant commercial where all the businesses in town have their own float. Along the floats people walk along passing out candy (apparently it is not allowed to throw candy anymore). Since everyone knows everyone, there is a lot of ‘He you!’ going on. People are dressed up and they usually have something cool to show, or a theme throughout the parade. It is fun and we were ready for it.

We found a spot along the road and figured we’d just wait there for the first float to come by. It was 10.20 am so we were ready in plenty of time. After about 10 minutes we saw more and more people leave. We saw a bunch of kids with their plastic bags full of candy and we started wondering about the whole thing…. Then, we eavesdropped on the conversation behind us.

“What did you think of the parade?”
“What do you mean, has it been already then? I thought it was supposed to start at 10.30!”
“Don’t you read the newspaper then? It started at 10!”
“No, I checked the website and it said 10.30!”
“Ah, I don’t trust the internet you see, I get my information from the newspaper!”
“Oh, are they still making those then?”

At which point we had to laugh. To be fair, that conversation might have been as entertaining as watching the parade haha.

Anyway, we did enjoy the rest of our stay and participated in some of the games. We couldn’t find everything, but it was fun while it lasted. We managed to spend about 2 hours there and then made our way back home. Where we continued our day as if it was just another day.

Happy Canada day 😉