As I write this next entry, my head still feels hazy from the travel and my surroundings are a little ridiculous, but I have time to kill. But I feel that this just exemplifies the disaccord I'm about to try to explain. It's currently 7:47am, or maybe 6:47am, I'm not sure.. But either way, I've been up for close to 3 hours now, because as predicted, it felt like 11am my time, which is the latest I can ever manage to sleep in. So I'm running on 4 hours of sleep again. Or maybe 3, I'm not sure.. But with a 26 hour day between my last bit of 4 hour sleep. I think my body may start revolting soon. Either way, I digress (probably due to the lack of sleep). I'm currently sitting on the floor in a corner of a Holiday Inn room in Winnipeg. Of course, since it's very early, my brother Kyler, his girlfriend, and Jasmin who picked me up at the airport last night are all still sleeping. Since the sun also doesn't come up for another couple hours, and they are all fast asleep, its pitch black in the room, and the only source of light is my laptop screen and backlit keyboard emanating like a mysterious glow from the floor of the corner of the room. I even got dressed and did my hair/make-up to kill time, and went down to the front lobby to get the password for the wifi.
I feel like I'm viewing everything from an outsiders perspective. However, as I am technically an insider, that I'm privy to viewing the inside and core of the culture, but again from an outside point of view. Everything from the taste of the tap water, to the thickness of the air in the extremely well insulated and thick walled rooms, to the sheer amount of space and abysmal amount of people feel odd to me. I almost feel like I'm viewing Canada and Canadian culture for the first time. The accent sounds strange, the clothes and style, the speaking patterns, and the ridiculous friendliness, all seem foreign to me. I mean, my last flight from Toronto to Winnipeg had landed and we were waiting to disembark, the woman sitting next to me just starts talking to me about the BC and Montréal football game. Talking about the stats, the score, the strategies, the current team standings, the upcoming playoffs, etc. etc. I was beyond exhausted at this point, and don't care about football even on a good day, but she was so damned friendly that I had no choice but to give in and politely but distantly engage in the conversation.
Landing in Toronto was hard. Not only were the customs people pricks, thinking I was lying about my "story" (seriously though, why on earth would I make up doing a Masters Degree in International Conflict and Security?! If I was going to lie I'd pick something more plausible and recognized than that!), but of course the luggage was extremely late and the queues long. So it ended up taking me a good 2 hours to get through customs, pick up my luggage, make my way to the check in counter, drop things off, and proceed to my next gate. Once I was passed customs however, the staff were of course, beyond friendly. But friendly in a strange way. I mean strange probably in the sense that a foreigner does. To me they seemed almost unprofessional. Female security staff sitting on the counter in the bathroom texting, men standing in a circle jeering, staff walking down the halls in animated cell discussions, security scanning personel and luggage personel cracking jokes and jests left and right. Staff that seemed to be paid to stand there coming up to me to 'explain' to me where to go, when a) I had not asked them, b) knew where to go, and c) they gave me false directions for what I needed, as I had already asked someone. Yes, that first 'someone' was actually one of the few staff that seemed, well, for lack of a better word, 'normal' to me. She was very clearly not North American, I would guess German actually. And was an extremely professional, direct, polite, and curt kind of helpful.
When I finally got to a café next to my gate, everything was disconcerting. The way the staff (who looked and seemed to act like she was 15) took my order. The way the food looked. The fact that it tasted like deep fryer to me. Not deep fried food, chicken as it happened to be, but just deep fryer grease. The texture and taste, or lack thereof of the vegetables. Even Starbucks off all places didn't feel like it used to. The fact that they gave me two cups for me tea struck me. In Europe that practice is so unsustainable, I don't think I've ever seen it. However, the fact that I could give a slightly complex and customized order with absolutely no problems or confusion on their part was very nice.
I think one of the most noticeable disconcerting and 'foreign' things for me, was the space itself. It felt.. expansive, capitalist, and uncultured. First of all, because there was just so much of it. Even the spaces between the chairs at the gate waiting lounges was at least triple what it was in Amsterdam. The width of the hallways was at least double. Everything so open. And that was just inside the airport! I have yet to really be outdoors yet. But I feel like as open as it was, I felt the pressure of advertisements and 'sales' everywhere. It felt like things weren't there for your convenience, it was there for the convenience and pocket book of the owner. Europe tends to be the opposite extreme, where the 'convienice' tends to be lacking. But this was too much. Just things and advertisements selling more things absolute everywhere. And speaking of 'things' everywhere, I never noticed the sheer volume of Washrooms here! I mean, it's like their afraid people will piss themselves if they can't wait for the next one. Lastly, I don't mean 'uncultured' in an uncouth barbaric sort of way.. But, you can feel the youth of the place. The lack of history. In Europe history and culture basically beat you over the head they're so pervasive. After living in that practically culturally oppressive atmosphere for a while, here it feels just like a void of culture. I don't know how to explain it more than that.. Culture is obviously made up of many things, so it's hard to pinpoint certain things that give off this vibe.
Again, none of these observations are meant to be negative, or bad. Like I said, I just feel like I'm seeing them for the first time. That I'm landing with new eyes. Seeing things as a foreigner would. The differences are just striking. Désagréable parfois, it's true, but simply because I miss Europe terribly and here it all just feels so different. Even small innocuous and mundane things like background music also practically shouts of difference to me. It feels too young, the music that is. It feels like its catering to the youth specifically. And not simply the youth, but a capitalist, corporate American youth. But that's a whole other discussion I believe.
In all, the last half or third of my flight to Toronto sitting next to a Nigerian man that kept talking to me about my kindle while I was trying to read on it, the 6 hour waiting time in Toronto, and the 2h30 flight to Winnipeg all felt longer than the last. It felt like time just kept slowing down only to stand still about 1.5 hours before the flight to Winnipeg was scheduled to take off. I was so happy to finally get out of that last flight, pick up my luggage, and leave, just to be out of airports. But not relieved, not quite yet. As technically I am still travelling as we only made it to the Hotel that night, and I still have the 400km trip to Redvers to make. But thankfully for this leg of the journey, I have my brother who just picks up my 25+ kilo duffle bag and slings it over his shoulder like it was my handbag.
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