Hello Folks, fans and freaks!
I am now writing to you from our Nations’ beautiful Capital City of Ottawa, Ontario. I am working diligently at being the best activity leader this language academy has ever had! My group of Spaniards arrived on July 3rd at the Montreal Airport. I drove with the bus driver to pick them up and get them all back to Ottawa and distributed the students out to their host families where they will be living while they are here. Each group gets a chaperone/translator from their country to help out with keeping the kids in line. Their ages range from 16 to 18 years old and so far, my group is the most well behaved, yet they are all equally as crayzee… So far we have gone to play mini golf, museums, canoeing, and we also had a charter bus take us to Niagara Falls for a day! This week, it looks like rain, so a few of our Beach day activities have been cancelled and moved ahead further in the month.
Yesterday was the final showdown for the World Football Cup, Spain vs Netherlands… we took our two groups of students along with two chaperones downtown to a local sports bar/restaurant where we could watch the game on big screens. A few of the students had staggered on ahead of the group and managed to get a seat in what was a full capacity bar upon our arrival. In fact, once we checked for other venues, we realized that they were all at capacity.
And so we ventured through the streets of Ottawa searching out a new place to watch this great boring game of soccer. A restaurant accross the street had opened up a closed section and brought in two televisions and hooked up the game. We seated for drinks and entree’s while the game played on. The ball was passed and passed and passed once more before I got bored enough to leave and venture further down the street in search of a new venue. A friend of mine, DJ Sir-K of the Ultrasound Collective joined in with myself, David and Carolina the two chaperones. We discovered the Lieutenants Pump on Elgin street and found that this just may be the last remaining bar in Ottawa that will let you smoke out on the patio! Let us in! We ordered some more drinks and then it came, the shouts and roars from inside the bar, and as we looked inside we could only see sorrow and disgust on the faces of those all garbed in orange, the color of the Netherlands team.
The four of us continued to order more drinks as the cars flew by blasting their horns, waiving their Spain flags out the windows and chanting in the streets! What a great sense of country pride they have!
If only we in Canada could learn from them we might have some fun in this place. Today, the museum of civilazation awaits us! and i’m due to get out of this air conditioned office for the last remaining rays of sunlight before the rain hits us tomorrow!
Peace,
Dr. Jay Cole,