Last summer I was very lucky because I got a scholarship and I had the opportunity to visit Grimsby. Grimsby is like a small town near St. Catharines, a city, where almost all its inhabitants work. Grimsby and St. Catherines are situated in Ontario, Canada on the lakeshore Ontario. The lake is so big that you cannot see a bank from the other except when it’s dark and you can see the lights from the buildings of Toronto. One of the best things that I saw there was the sunset over the lake.
In this place, houses are squat and with big roofs. There are a lot of housing estates where all houses are equal, but not only people live in them, also there are houses with large expanses of grass that are always perfectly neat. There are a lot of trees, green parks, forests and huge green fields to play sports. Because of that every child plays some sport like football or baseball, but only in summer because the weather is sunny and hot. However, in winter, it always snows and it’s cold, in this time children usually play hockey. One of the good things about Canada in general, is that boys and girls practise the same sport without differences, in other words, it isn’t a sexist society. In Grimsby, families are traditional and they have two or three children, and the government supports them with many aids, for example a long maternity leave. There, people are kind, friendly and generous and parents get on well with their children and they try to spend as long as possible with them, doing special activities like camping, riding a sea-doo, doing barbecues… With regard to food, you know that they have a packed lunch at one o’clock and at they have dinner at six o’clock, but a thing that you never could imagine is that they have the milk in a plastic bag and every type of cereals for breakfast. Another admirable custom is the possibility of picking-up fruit straight from the trees and pay the farmer at the moment. In addition, the fruit has been grown without pesticides.
However, if you want to go to the cinema or to a shopping centre you have to drive into St. Catherines, about 26 km, and in Grimsby there aren’t public buses. Therefore, they use their cars for everything and you can drive when you are 16, young Canadians have this advantage, but also a disadvantage they usually get married at 23.
Close to Grimsby there are some interesting places like Niagara Falls and Canada’s Wonderland. Niagara Falls is a very famous place but in my opinion is too tourist and Canada’s Wonderland is an amazing amusement park where it is the biggest scenic railway of the world and really good security measures. Another traditional thing of Canada is Tim Horton, a chain of restaurants where each minute there are innumerable types of fresh donuts and coffees from different countries. But if something is a symbol of Grimsby’s life this is the barbecue in summer, roasted marshmallows on a fire to eat them with chocolate and a cracker.
I think Grimsby is a place that you have to visit in your life at least once, especially if you want to be relaxed and quiet. Grimsby is an example of Canadian spirit: ecological, simple, homeloving, no xenophobic. Canada is a multicultural and multiracial country with good customs. Moreover, you can improve your English and, in some areas of Canada, also your French.
