Happenings in March............

Spring break is over, and school starts on Monday. Although spring has 'officially' started, the temperature is still hovering at 0 degrees, going into the minus at night. Still no sign of anything green, no birds chirping or any other sign that spring is actually here....oh wait....except for one thing. Spring sales!

Every other store seems to have a sign hanging on the door saying, 'Buy now! The latest Spring collection, in store now!' From shorts to garden hoses, swim wear and spaghetti tops......spring seems to be only in the stores for the time being.

We made a booking for a night to stay at Niagara falls next week as my cousin is visiting. The room rate came to $119 per night, for four people in a room. These are falls view rooms, and do not include any meal. The breakfast buffet rate is about $7 per person, and kids are less.

You can easily find hotels and make reservations online, where the final booking will have to be made over the phone as they will need a valid credit card.

Once the confirmation is made, they will send you an email with the booking number and details.

Met some Indians yesterday who moved to Canada thirty years ago! Their kids were all born here and are now working or studying in the University. None of them regretted moving to Canada and felt that life for their children was certainly better here. But on the other hand, I met a couple that moved here just five months ago as their married son wanted them to come and stay with him. Well, that couple is just waiting for a chance to go back to Delhi where they lived for the past sixty years. Coming during the winter didn't help and being stuck inside a house without being able to drive (remember getting your license here takes time..see one of my earlier posts on this tagged license) can be really boring.

Keep watching the Indian news channels to find out what is happening in India. Good to know that our cricket team made history in New Zealand!!

On that note......I'll sign off until next time!

Ice Skating

Today was the second day of ice skating class for both of my children. They are half an hour classes, and they start exactly on the dot of 10am. You quickly notice here that no one is late..and a lot of parents bring their kids in ten to fifteen minutes early.

The kids put their skates on and entered the arena with the rest of their group. The instructor was a young man, who looked like he was a college student, probably earning extra credit for volunteering during his spring break. He immediately got the kids to 'walk' across the ice, then 'jump' up and down and then actually 'slide' side to side. Then he spent five minutes getting the kids to 'fall' down and then learn how to stand up again.

Each group had about ten to twelve children, and there were about six groups totally all around the arena in different corners so that no got in anothers way. What was really cute..was the three year old group. They were all bundled up in their snow suits, skates, helmets and gloves..and looked so adorable as most of them were just falling all over each other trying to stand up. The skate staff were well trained, patient and knew what each group was doing for the day. Overall, I was impressed with how well coordinated they seemed to be. As groups of kids finished their class for the day they exited on one side of the arena, while the next group entered through another entrance. All the children had to write their names on white labels and stick them on their helmets.


By the end of the class, the school age group kids were able to get from one side of the arena to the middle and back without falling. By the end of the week, the kids should be able to skate. The community center's arenas are open for specific times during each day for recreational skating, and this is open to anyone who can skate.

We also watched the ice hockey training session....and after watching this I realised how far my kids had to go in terms of sheer agility, speed and technique required in skating for this sport. Will write more about ice hockey in a later blog.

Have a nice day!!

Happenings in March...........

Spring break is here!! Next week, all schools and colleges are closed across Canada for Spring Break. I was watching the news yesterday and they actually had a camera crew in the airport, Pearson International, interviewing people leaving Toronto for the short break. Families were going to Vancouver, Ottawa etc to meet other family members, some familes and students were going to Paris....and others were going to Florida..to enjoy some beach and sunshine for ten days. Many students here go off for the first time with friends for a holiday by themselves. Parents were seen giving last minute instructions, do's and don'ts to their teens and waiting for ten days of having peace and quiet at home!


We decided that since we are here in Canada, for spring break, our children could learn something unique to this part of the world, that they couldn't learn in India. Ice skating! So for the next week, every morning, we're going to drive them to the nearby community center, where they will learn to ice skate.

We went shopping yesterday for the skates...as my kids are eight and eleven, we got skates that fit shoe size 4 to 6. They stretched out to the bigger size so that kids could use the same skates for a year or two without having to buy new ones. The skates cost $39, they were on sale and the original price was $99/- marked down to $49 towards the end of winter and then finally $39/. This is why a lot of people here buy things for the next season, at the end of every season...as you get almost all products at more than half the price off!

These are our daughters skates...and the ones for our son are the same except for the colour...blue! Will let you know how their first class went tomorrow.

The newspapers are FULL of ads for musicals........The Sound of Music, We will rock you! (songs from Queen and Freddy Mercury), Dirty Dancing (yes the movie now on stage) and many more. Tickets cost from $199 for a set of four family tickets for some shows, to $28 per ticket for others.

All the community centers have so many activities and classes for kids and adults...from cooking, learning any sport, babysitting classes, hiking, environment based classes and get togethers for a movie or dance..spring break like all their other breaks are well planned and you or your kids can never complain that there is never anything to do!

This week the weather is great...we're wearing half sleeves and sandals after many months of coats and boots. With Easter around the corner, the stores are full of chocolate covered eggs and candy.

I tried frying Thilapia this week and made a gravy out of this fish too. It was really nice and I recommend this fish if you are here in Canada. I'm putting together a range of simple Canadian dishes, and will put up the recipes on this blog shortly.

The time is now 7pm and it is still daylight outside. A big change from a couple of months ago when the sun was setting by 4pm!

I really appreciate so many of you reading this blog and taking the time to let me know!

Thanks,

Nalini

Non-vegetarians coming to Canada

Picture of the inside of a meat shop in Brampton.





When we first got here, our first trip to the grocery store was so confusing to say the least. Being non-vegetarians, the meat section was where we went to get some chicken. From organic, halal to lean and minced, with skin, skinless, with bones, boneless etc there is just so much to chose from..besides the different parts of the chicken (packages with only wings, only legs, only thight, only breast etc) ,then they have beef, fish, and meat (lamb and veal).

Something we have noticed is that the name 'mutton', does not seem to be used here, and if you go to and Indian restaurant and want 'mutton', look for 'goat meat', on the menu instead. They don't have mutton biriyani, they have goat biriyani. Strange, right?

So you can either pick up your meat from the regular grocer or from a meat shop. When comparing prices, for a package of ten to twelve chicken legs and two big pieces of chicken breast from a grocer can add up to about ten to twelve dollars. They sometimes have whole chickens, but these are frozen and can take forever to defrost.



The better bet for Indian cooking is to get your meat from the meat shop. This is fresh and you can ask them to cut a whole chicken the way you want. Normally, the price of a whole chicken comes to about ten to twelve dollars according to the size.



Besides fresh chicken and goat meat, they also have chicken tikka, tandoori, masala fish, goat and chicken pickle (not really pickle, but a dry cooked dish made of these two meats) and other masala coated meats that you can buy and grill or barbeque at home.









Above shows two of the Tandoor chickens available at the store with the prices per pound. There are NO flies, and the place is really clean with no smell of raw meat. They have machines for cutting the meat parts that have bones, so you get finely cut pieces.

Picture of raw chicken legs...you buy it by weight or number of pieces, that he will weight and price accordingly.

Since the meat shop is just a three minute drive from our home, I find this place really convenient. The quality of meat is outstanding...and the 'mutton' from here is really soft and delicious!!

One more thing, here in Canada, prices of chicken and goat meat are more or less the same, unlike India where mutton can be pretty expensive. Recently I picked up some Thilapia fish and fried it with Indian masala. It tasted really good. Four fillet pieces (which I cut into half as they were pretty big pieces) came to about six dollars.

If you have kids though...be ready to eat at KFC, McDonalds and other fast food places more often than not!!

Happy eating!

Touchless Car wash...our first experience

Ever since we got here, the kids have been begging us nearly every weekend if we could get the car washed at one of the 'Touchless' car wash places.

Almost everyone I know in India who had a car, also had a driver, who would wash their car every morning, if not every other day or at least twice a week. If not a driver, they would hire the newspaper boy or someone like that exclusively for car washing duties! Automatic car washes are either non existent in India or very rare to say the least. I remember an MRF one in Chennai, but I never knew if that actually worked or not. Does anyone know?

So, getting the car washed automatically by a bunch of sprayers and huge sponges was something new.

This is the outside of the Touchless Car Wash we went to. They are normally found along side a gas station or part of one. The one we went to was part of a gas station chain, and they had a deal where you got a discount on the car wash if you put in some gas first.

So we first put in twenty dollars worth of gas. They have different rates for different kinds of washes.

The basic one, the premium one (includes high pressure sprays underneath the car too) and the one where they spray anti rust underneath the car.

We took the premium one, which costs 8.99/- but we got a two dollar discount because of the twenty dollar gas we put in. So, minus 6.99/- and more gas in the tank, we headed for the entrance of the car wash.

This is a car that was in front of us which went in first.

As the doors closed behind this car, we positioned our car so that my husband could lean out of the drivers door and punch in the code from our receipt into the little touchpad they had near the entrance.

Once you punch in your code, and the car in front of you is finished, the main door opens and you drive in.

Once you drive in, there is a series of lighted signs telling you to either go forward, back up or stop. This is to get you into the right position for the sprayers to work.

Once you are in the right position, the door closes behind you and the high pressure sprayers come on. You sit in the car while this three minute process goes on...and it sounds and feels like you are in the car during a heavy rain storm with the wind and water lashing at your windows.

The sprayers come on and these huge beams with the sprayer holes move side to side, under and over your car....with very high pressured water spraying the dirt right off.

Then a soap water solution is then sprayed all over the car and washed off, this being repeated twice before a minute of high pressure water hitting you from all sides. Make sure your windows and sun roof are closed!!






This is the water being sprayed on the windshield. This process takes about two minutes.


Then once this is over, you drive very slowly out towards the exit where these huge dryers overhead blast hot air on the car to dry it. This dryer is a huge version of the ones you see in the bathrooms of hotels these days, for drying your hands. The picture below is of the dryers overhead.
















The exit door opens and you come out, noticing right away how clean the windshield is.










View of the exit through our now clean windshield. (You should have seen it before!)









Here is our car after the wash..notice how clean the tires are!! We got out of the car and said, 'WOW!' because it looked so good. It was such a mess before since we didn't clean the car for ages. (we kept hoping it would rain!) Then we went around and looked at the other side...OOPS..there was mud dripping down the entire right side of the car and the back of the read view mirrors were still filthy. So my husband took the car back, got a free car wash and came back home with a car that was now clean on BOTH sides. This seemed to be a one off...as the guy at the car wash said he would put in a complaint to the company that something was obviously faulty.

The kids wanted to go again, as if it was some ride in Disneyland...but for the time being....we will wait until the next time we feel like it and until then either wait for it to rain..or wash it ourselves!!