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First Impressions of Canada: The Land of Maple Syrup, Moose, Beavers and Indian Summer

I arrived in Canada on the 5^th of August, waking up to 30 degrees Celsius, Canadian flags everywhere, a Canadian English accent (NOT to be mistaken by an American accent – seriously, Canadians don’t like you if you generalise Canada and the US), and very kind, polite people. Our family trip consisted of travelling from Toronto, via Kingston (hometown of Queen’s University), to Montreal, Quebec City, Tadoussac (whale watching!), and back to Montreal. From here on, it was time to say goodbye to the family, and for me to visit New York City.

I enjoyed my last days of the holidays, since my introduction (NEWTS week) week started on September 3^rd. This was simply amazing – our Newts week was especially for exchange students, castle students (Queen’s owns a castle in England, where students can do their 1^st year, and return to Queen’s afterwards), and transfer students. We did however, get the full Queen’s Frosh experience – we had our own cheers and yells, and had our own coveralls in which we experienced a real paint party, attended the tamming ceremony which made us “real” Queen’s students, at which we were welcomed by the Queen’s Band (Queen’s was established by the Scottish, being the oldest university in Canada, and thus the bagpipe and Scottish kilts are not so rare), learning the Oil Thigh (again, Scottish influence, being the Queen’s school song, and sung whenever the Queen’s Football team scores a touchdown), and just experiencing Queen’s amazing school spirit!

The next week however, really was the end of the holidays, and so classes started. The first 3 academic weeks at Queen’s are called “Open Enrolment,” which means that students can still switch their courses until the end of that period. And since I had not received all the courses I mostly preferred, this was quite a hassle to make right. In the end, I ended up with 4 courses: Introduction to themes in Canadian history (amazing course, focusing on the history of the Aboriginal people in Canada, and French Canada), the politics of ethnicity and nationalism (similar to the LUC course – I think – analyzing different theories of nationalism), the politics of rights (interesting course on the functions and (dis)advantages of having an entrenched bill of rights and judicial review), and theories of identity politics (a VERY theoretical course on political theory, and its relation to identity).

Even after classes have started, and the library on our beautiful limestone campus is cramped with people studying, school spirit is still very much present. Every 2 weeks at the football games, Queen’s students wear their tricolour (being the colour of Queen’s: blue, red and gold) outfits to cheer their team to the top, or all the events organized by the various clubs Queen’s supports, or even Halloween, where there’s an entire week of Halloween parties. Although I try to travel as much as possible during the weekends – Niagara Falls, Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, Algonquin Park, Frontenac Provincial Park – I also try to spend as much time as possible with all the exchange students in Kingston and at Queen’s, since it’s simply amazing!