Hotel life - Week 7

As of today, we finally heard that our immigration documents were approved. We don't have them in our hands yet, but at least we know they're done and on their way. It was supposed to be prioritised, but it doesn't seem like that happened. So we will be in Edmonton for approximately another 2.5-3 weeks as we won't be able to book our travel until we get those. But at least there's an end in sight!

This past week, I visited Lois Hole Provincial Park with my aunt, who had come in from Northern Alberta for a visit. And because she was here, my other aunt stopped by on her way home from an event she was at in Ponoka, so it was a nice visit. We were able to stay out in the open and physically distance ourselves, even with our dinner--we did takeout separately and found a nice, big picnic table where we could be out in the open and sit to visit and eat but also stay apart safely. It was wonderful to visit them before I move away for a while. You always hope family will come to visit you when you live overseas, but time and money often prevent those. No one except one friend from Europe visited me while I lived in Mexico for a couple of years. Many people wanted to come, but almost no one actually did, so you just never know. In any case, I didn't get any good photos from Lois Hole PP because there wasn't a whole lot going on, but I got a bunch from the U of A Botanic Garden, where we went a week later.

I've loved the U of A Botanic Garden for a long time. My brother had his wedding there, and as he doesn't live in Canada, I got to be the on-the-ground person organising it, which meant that I got to visit there as often as I liked for planning purposes. I don't think I actually abused that, but I did need to go there quite a bit, so I was not unhappy to take extra time to walk around and enjoy as I could get in for free--technically paid for by the cost of using it as a wedding venue, but I could make unlimited visits. It was wonderful. I should have mentioned, when I posted photos from the St. Albert Botanic Park that one of the reasons I love gardens so much is that I find them to be places of solace for me. There were certain family challenges growing up, and gardens were spaces of peace and solace for me. My grandmother had a gorgeous garden that was hidden behind a hedge of overgrown caragana and through a doorway that was a small, white-picket gate. There were lots of roses and delphiniums, particularly. That's mostly what I remember was because I was still young when it got razed accidentally when an arborist company came to tear down some trees that were very tall and in danger of destroying the house if they should every fall from being hit by lightning. And as I grew up, my mom's perennial garden grew and matured, and it also became a place of solace. So I can't wait for a home again where I can make my garden and build it and enjoy it as it matures when I'm back from England.

Hotel life - Week 6

The rose garden

This past week brought us to the St Albert Botanic Park. I had come across it in an article I read online, and I hadn't heard of it before, but the photos were beautiful, and it looked like somewhere I wanted to go. The gardens did not disappoint! My only regret was that I missed peony season, but it will be something to look forward to someday when I'm back in Edmonton. There was just so much to see there that I barely wanted to close my eyes, and the rose garden was lightly scented with the many roses. What I also love about this place is that it's totally volunteer-run, so entry is free. It's an unbelievable place to visit for free! 

I also wish I had known about this place when I got married. We found a decent place with some trees near our venue, but the botanic park here is actually relatively close to our venue and would have been much more suitable for wedding photos--but you can't know everything! I took a lot of photos, but I've only included a few here. Make sure you click on them so you can see them larger rather than the thumbnails I've included here.

    

Hotel life - Week 5

I seem to manage to find adventure no matter what I do. In terms of discovering new places during the past week, I visited Paul Kane Park. It's a little park in Edmonton. It's named after a well-known Canadian painter who was in part known as one of the earliest people to document the lives of First Nations peoples before colonisation had taken place. I didn't really know much about him other than having just heard of his name before.  

In any case, as he was a landscape artist, this park was designed as an art park to pay homage to his landscapes and has a man-made pond and water feature that trickles water down into a very shallow stream that runs into the pond. The stream has benches on either side of it, and at some points it's close enough where you can take your shoes off and just let the water run over your feet. As we went on a super hot day, this was a refreshing activity, and it also reminded me of Heritage Days when I was little, and my parents would also stop at this little creek that would trickle water into the man-made pond at Hawrelak park. We would take our shoes off and cool our feet in the water after walking around for hours in the heat. The stream sometimes is dry now, but when it's not, it always seems to be muddy there, and the rocks covered in that slimy green plant, so it's not a good place for that anymore. I know with Paul Kane Park, I won't have to worry about that happening, and it's definitely a place I want to return to!

The beginning of the stream

 In other news, I ended up rescuing another animal--in this case, a German shepherd puppy! We noticed this puppy in a red and white t-shirt on the street corner, trying to chew on a straw from someone's discarded Slurpee container, and I wanted to get the straw out of its mouth as it seemed very dangerous--not to mention the fact that the puppy also was just out with no apparent owner in sight. So I looked for a tag on his collar, and luckily it had one of those kind with his name and a phone number. It took me a while to get the phone number because, being a puppy, he was super silly and playful and kept jumping around and play biting, and I was trying not to allow his teeth to sink in too much. Anyway, I was able to finally get the number, and the person I spoke with seemed really surprised that I was calling about his dog. Within seconds, a girl of about 12 or so appeared from the house right next to where the puppy was! It seems that their gate somehow got open, and out went the puppy to explore the big world outside! I was really glad I was able to help out, especially a dog of that breed being very susceptible to theft, and if he'd been any bigger, it might have been too dangerous to approach him, and he would have been take by the City. The owners would have paid a hefty fine to get him back since he is unlicensed! So apparently animal rescue is my new thing... hahaha

Hotel life - Week 4 (Critter rescue day)

  

I thought I would have little to write about this week. We haven't discovered anything new or done much different this week, but today seemed to be a day of rescues. This morning, my husband and I went out to get breakfast. We usually have cereal in our hotel room, but we felt like changing it up a little this morning. I guess it was meant to be. As we entered the parking lot, I saw a few gulls in the parking lots--there are usually flocks of them in every parking lot in this area of town. One in particular ended up standing out to me--it looked like its wing was broken quite badly. It definitely couldn't fly. We even tried to toss it a bit of our food, but the gulls that can fly were able to swoop in and eat it before this poor one could run over to get it. 

I called our local wildlife rehab hotline and left a message. They say they check messages frequently but that they don't open until 9am, so I wasn't sure what time they'd be able to call back and arrange for someone to come out to help me get this bird. I decided to put out a request on a bird Facebook group I'm a member of, just to see if someone could maybe help catch the bird and get it to an emergency vet where it could be examined and held until the rehab place opens up. Someone was indeed able to come and help! This person has caught many injured birds before to help them, and surprisingly, it didn't end up taking us that long to catch this bird, and the person who helped drove the bird to the rehab place, which was open by the time the ordeal was over. It felt really good helping. I don't know what will become of this bird, but I figured at least if it can't be healed, it will be humanely euthanised rather than suffering by starving to death in the parking lot or getting run over because it's too weak to get out of the way in time of an oncoming vehicle.

Then later, when we went out for lunch, I spotted this poor dragonfly stuck in a puddle. It was still moving, but losing strength, trying to get out of the water, it seemed. I put my shoe near it, and it suddenly clung on for dear life! I walked carefully over to the grass--they have strong grip, and I couldn't shake it off me!--and brushed my shoe on the grass. It came off and just sat there. I didn't see it after, so I'm hoping it was just waterlogged, needing to be dried off, and didn't die and it was just camouflaged to where I couldn't see it.

Meanwhile we are one step closer to departing. Our passports will arrive on Monday, so we're really excited about that because we can finally take the next step before we can finally apply to be approved to travel. It will all work out in the end, but it's quite slow with all the pandemic delays!

Hotel life - Week 3 (thoughts about "home")

 This week's highlights of discovering my own city was Borden Park. Since I've mostly lived on the outskirts of the city, this was another place I had never known about, let alone been to before. There are a lot of sculptures in the park, my most favourite being this colourful piece, not only for the sculpture itself, but also for the way it casts shadows on the ground.  There were a lot of little red squirrels running around, too. I know they can be an annoyance in a yard or home, but in nature, they're super cute.

This week had me thinking again about home. I've probably written about it in my blog somewhere before, but as someone who had lived overseas for a bit, was born of and grew up in an intercultural household, and have travelled extensively, I sometimes felt like a nomad. That's why my original blog name is about a wayfaring stranger; I have often felt like I'm just a little person trying to make my way in a big world. My childhood home was sold, and my grandparents' house, where I spent my childhood summers, is no longer accessible because it was sold as well, so sometimes I have felt a little homeless.

Without going into a long rant, now that I'm married, I understand my mom's sentiment that home is really where the people you love are. I have been working on trying to be less attached to "things," material things. Even houses--writ homes--are things, at the end of the day. Even though we're living in a hotel, when my husband and I are out, I'll say, "let's go home," and I'm referring to the hotel. My husband is my home. Where we are together, it becomes home to me. I also referred to the long-term storage place as home the other day, so clearly I still need to work on the attachment to things because I was referring to some of the things that are in the storage location that made me think of it as home, too! 😆

Anyway, it's nice to feel a bit of an anchor feeling like there is a home for me now, even if that anchor moves to different locations.  

In good news, we learned our passports are finalised, so once we get those, we'll be that much closer to to actually departing Edmonton and finalising our travel dates!

Hotel life - Week 2

It's hard to believe we've been here for 2 weeks, but aside from the fact that we have to eat takeout for at least 1-2 meals a day, it almost feels like we're just living in a 1-bedroom apartment at the moment. It actually hasn't been too bad. We thought it would really start to feel cramped when we brought the cats, not so much because they need space, but their stuff does: litter box, litter supply, food, and the large crates we have to use for transport that are actually meant for small dogs but are required by the UK government to meet IATA requirements.

We did at least find out this week that the visa application centres for the UK will be back up and running this coming week, and hopefully we can also get our passports sometime soon. That's the main issue at this point. Everything is coming together in bits and pieces, so eventually we will make it to London!

One of the neat things about being in limbo, however, is that we are forced to find things to do and place to go that are safe but that are entertaining. Now that we don't have a backyard or balcony, it's not like we can sit outside to eat when the weather is nice. I decided to look up parks and restaurantes in Lewis Estates, so we did takeout from there and took it to nearby Christopher Cruz park. For whatever reason, there was almost no one there. It was serenely quiet, despite the playground, with just the sound of trees and birds, and there was a small, quiet storm water pond with mallards, pelicans, and a double-crested cormorant. We found an old country road with a mossy old fence. It was just beautiful.

An old, mossy fence

Hotel life - Week 1

We've been living in the hotel for almost a week, now. It's not terrible. I think that some 1-bedroom apartments are this size, except you'd probably have some place for storage and possibly a larger closet or wardrobe. We are allowed 2 suitcases each, and since we're moving and not just travelling, we have 3 large suitcases and 1 medium sized one in the room, and as of today, we'll have 2 large pet crates and a litter box once we bring the cats over from the house. It will really begin the feel tiny. 

But it's nice that we have the kitchenette, and as we brought some things from the house that we'll use anyway, like dish soap and cat food and tea and things like that, in that sense, it feels homey. I can make chai every morning, even if not masala chai, but it's what I had growing up, and it was fine. We have space in the full fridge for things and cupboard space to store cereals and snacks. So it will be a bit cramped, but it is decent, and we can make do. We also have a decent view as we can at least see the trees from out the window instead of the other side of the building that faces a retail zone, like a Walmart and Petland and other shopping complexes. If you click on the thumbnail, you can see a larger view. The only thing I don't like about it is that we have the front entrance below, and there are often people out there talking really loudly and smoking, so we don't want to open the window. It just means we don't want to open the window.

The one thing that really annoys me right now is this blogging program. Apparently Google has made updates, and now I can no longer neatly insert a photo into the text so that the text appears around the photo rather than pushing it down the more I type. First they stop updating Picasa, which was able to perfectly embed photo albums with a slideshow into Blogger, and now they have even ruined in the in-text photo features. Why are they making worse and worse updates? Are they trying to move people away and use other blogging programs? It might be something for me to research to see if I can import my blogs to another program that works better.