Happy Canada Day!
 

To all my Greek sisters and brothers who live in Canada, or are adopted Canadians...happy Canada Day to you, eh?

Happy Canada Day!!!

Happy Canada Day to my favorite Canadian, eh. ;)

Thanks!

I celebrated my first St. Jean Baptiste Day and Canada Day recently. It is gorgeous here!!!! So much different than SOuth Texas!!!

When we lived in Detroit, there was a "Freedom Festival" at Hart Plaza on the riverfront every weekend in the summer.

To me, the greatest one was the co-celebration of July 4 and "Canada Day."

(Although I'm not sure it was called "Canada Day" back then.) Maybe "Dominion Day," or is that another time?

Canada stopped being a Dominion in 1967, but the official "Canada Day" designation wasn't used until 1982.

The International Freedom Festival still exists at Hart Plaza. It wasn't every weekend though. Th IFF is for about a week, around Canada Day and the 4th. The joint fireworks show is more amazing every year. The other festivals occurred each week.. there would be an Italian festival, a HoeDown (country music), a Jazz fesitval, a Polish festival, etc. Although I know the IFF still happens, you don't hear much about the others, except the Jazz festival. We used to go to all of them when I was a kid. Now I need to research if these others still happen!

St. Jean Baptiste Day is only celbrated in Quebec. And as much as I dislike Quebec, I'll have to agree, Montreal is the oldest city in Canada and also one of the most beautiful cities in Canada.

Montreal is one of the oldest cities in Canada... officially I think Quebec City currently has that claim - although St. John's Newfoundland is arguing that (they say they are about 100 years older).

I stand corrected.

Montreal was founded in 1642, Quebec City in 1608.

I'd like to add that St. Jean-Baptiste is only a holiday in Québec. It is celebrated in most Francophone communities, like Windsor, Sudbury, Pointes-aux-roches, etc.

It's pretty much Québec's "make-up" since they don't have a civic holiday in August.

I love Montréal - def need to get back there some time!

I stand corrected again. Perhaps I should just shutup. ;)

I didn't realize there was a large French community in Windsor.

Oh no, don't shut up :) you weren't wrong - I was just adding info

Windsor used to be a lot more French. But yup it's still got some frenchies, as proven by my family reunion yesterday with all the descendants of my great-great-grandparents (French Catholics who had 14 children!)

I think Halifax is no Spring Chicken either, although I have no idea when it was founded and I'm too lazy to look it up.

Universite Laval (in Quebec City...well technically Ste. Foy) is the oldest university in Canada...Harvard (another oldster) only has a headstart on it, by something like 70 years. Again...too lazy to look up and confirm the details/facts.

1660 something... founded as a seminary by Bishop Laval... just finished attending a seminar on the history on education in Canada today...

Oh yeah. That's the way it was back then, too. I just didn't explain myself very well.

I actually just got back from Windsor last night and I was surprised at how many of the signs, drinks, etc had English and French. It was actually nice though because I realized I actually retained some of my high school french.

And for my first ever visit to Canada I just have to mention how clean everything was! Even the rundown alleys and strip clubs we saw seemed to be cleaner then some I have seen here in America. My only complaint was the people who tried to rip us off on the conversion rate when we used American money... but I guess that was our own fault for not exchanging our money right away.

I was in Windsor on teh weekend too. my hometown :) Yeah, the stores will totally rip you off with the exchange.
most food labels and any "federal" signs have to be bilingual - it's the law.

I went to a Chinese restaurant in Windsor and was quite surprised to see that the fortune in my fortune cookie was in French! I turned it over and there it was in English. I teased my Windsor friends later about taking me to a French Chinese restaurant!