He said “We must leave the city immediately”
Doesn’t this sentence belong to the scenes of movies?
I had to go to Canada for a business trip. I immediately thought of the popular stories about the cold weather in Canada. Therefore, I prepared my suitcase as tightly as possible in accordance with the climatic conditions.
As someone who grew up in Izmir, TR when I go to cold countries, sometimes I feel like freezing.
I had experienced European countries and their harsh climates many times before. I had even experienced the harsh winter winds blowing along the canals of Denmark and the Netherlands, where I remembered that I had tears in my eyes in cold weather.
I arrived in Montreal after a total of 11 hours of flight and 16 hours of travelling time, departing from Izmir and connecting in Munich.
The first night in Montreal I was to stay at the Hotel Zero1 opposite Chinatown in the city center.
Due to the time difference, I was experiencing Jetlag for the second time on the same day. When travelling northwards, you should not sleep until your biological clock on the first day in order to get out of Jetlag in the fastest way.
Otherwise, you will be sleepy all day long and it takes 3–4 days for the body to get used to it.
I will never forget; my room had a great view. It overlooked both the city and the Chinatown from above.
I arrived in Canada in the evening, and I had to go to bed as late as possible on the first day to get rid of the jetlag quickly.
So, I decided to walk around the city center and have a light snack in Chinatown first thing in order to catch up on sleep.
I like to explore different countries and cultures on foot, walking among the people. After walking around the city for about 20K steps, I went back to my hotel and slept soundly.
My technique worked and the next day I woke up quickly recovering from jetlag.
Since my colleagues from different countries had different arrival times, we had almost half a day more to meet. I went out to do some shopping and explore the back streets of the city.
I found a store called Dollarama. The specialty of the store is that everything inside is 1$ and you can find really nice things.
It was time and after meeting my friends in the lobby of the hotel, we started the 2-hour journey to Drummondville, Quebec.
Quebec region of Canada is really a very different place.
When you approach this region, you suddenly feel like you have left America and travelled to Europe.
Speed limit signs on the roadside etc. all units of measurement change from miles to kilometers.
After spending some time in the region, I learnt that almost the entire population of this settlement is of French origin. In fact, this region has a role in Canada being a bilingual country.
The states on the east coast of America were the settlements of the first Europeans who came to the country.
The same was true for Canada, but what was different from America was that the first communities that came to Canada were both French and English from the very beginning.
The French settled in Quebec, the largest province of Canada.
They preserved both their native language and the details that were important to them, such as the units of measurement.
In fact, Montreal is also located in the Quebec region, but you do not feel such a harsh and strict European breeze.
For the simplest example, I observed that they even used the name of KFC differently in Quebec. They changed it to PFK.
Let’s come to the most crucial part of our story after a short Canada and Quebec breeze.
After a two-hour journey, we arrived at our hotel in Drummondville.
After placing our belongings in our rooms, we travelled 10 minutes to the place where our interviews would be held.
We learned the details of our training schedule that would last for a week and then we left for dinner.
Our schedule was very busy. Every day between 9:00 in the morning and 17:00 in the evening was filled with meetings.
As it was very cold outside, the only activity we usually did was to hang out in the hotel bar and play darts. We would also go to two places just 5 min. walk away to have dinner.
Just when our schedule had settled into a routine like this, on the morning of our 3rd day, a Canadian friend of ours said something in an excited voice that I will never forget.
Storm is coming and we need to leave the city immediately.
I said to myself “just a second”.
Doesn’t this sentence belong to the scenes of movies?
There were participants from about ten different countries around me. Everyone was looking at each other fearfully, trying to understand the situation.
When we asked what was going on, they said that an important storm warning announcement had been made for the region. There was also a tornado warning. That’s why a curfew was going to start.
If we did not leave the city immediately, we would have to stay there until the storm subsided.
Of course, we did not want to take this risk and decided to go back to Montreal immediately. We continued our meeting at the Sheraton Montreal Hotel inside the Montreal Airport.
In the evening, when we watched the images and news of the storm on television, we realized that we had made the right decision and why our friend had warned us so excitedly.
Bonus: I would like to share with those who are going to Canada for the first time an important information I discovered later.
Canada is one of the places with underground shopping centers and the largest underground living spaces in the world.
If you travel to Canada during the cold winter months, you can enter the underground shopping malls from one of the metro stations. Until I discovered this, I had to freeze outside for a day shopping and looking for a restaurant.
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