Friday, June 29, 2007

Canada Day celebrations started today

Gage Park is the scene of It's Your Festival. A celebration of Canada's birthday with food, music, an amusement area and crafts. I went for the food.
First I tried a bite size Spinach pie from the Middle Eastern booth. No photo but I did get the name of the spice they used to give the filling a little zing of lemon..........sumac: This spice comes from the berries of a wild bush that grows wild in all Mediterranean areas, especially in Sicily and southern Italy, and parts of the Middle East, notably Iran. It is an essential ingredient in Arabic cooking, being preferred to lemon for sourness and astringency.

Moved on to a Bosnian stall and tried their cheese and spinach rolls. Not a lot of zip but the mix of cheeses was nice. They were served cold.
After walking around and checking out the Indian, Chinese and Polish booths I headed to the Commonwealth of Dominica booth and when I said I was after a mix of tastes rather than one dinner they very nicely made up a sample plate for me. Rice and beans, curry goat and curry chicken with some potatoes on the side. I ate goat meat. First time. Not bad. They had used a light hand with the curry so there was flavour, no burn.
Full and happy I did a last tour around the craft tables and headed to the bus stop. I was on my own today so decided to use public transportation. A tale in itself.

Had a nice chat with two elderly ladies while I waited to catch the bus downtown at noon. Pleasant and normal. Transferred to the bus to get me to the park and watched a woman trying to hand out cherries she had just bought at the market(no takers), listened to a woman with a heavy accent complain about all the foreigners being let into the country ( non-Europeans ) and managed to pick up a strange little woman who got off at the same stop who wanted me to see her new blouse and necklace. Her sister had given her birthday money and she'd been shopping and she would have happily shared the store names with me if only she could remember.

Walked a block to catch the first bus home and waited with an elderly woman wearing a wool hat and jacket in our 25C weather. The bus made it to the stop before ours and seemed to suffer a breakdown. Nasty nasty language out her mouth, so I stepped away. When a replacement bus arrived very shortly she short changed the driver by .15 cents. He reminded her that the fares had increased the first of June and that she would be expected to pay the full amount next time. Boy did she snarl. He let it drop.

It was a ride I'd rather not repeat anytime soon. Seems swearing is appropriate language on the bus, ignoring the drivers request to move back to allow others on is expected and no one seems to lower their voice when telling lurid tales on the cell phone.

I happily transfer to my bus home.

Perhaps the name of the bus route says it all.

See what I got at the festival today!
Left upper arm. It should last several days. I'm not ready to commit to a real tattoo.

1 comment:

Lib1 said...

Hope you are having a great Canada Day. The outing sounded fun. Even the bus drive was an experience to be savoured.