Saturday dawned sunny and bright which matched my anticipation of our visit to St. Jacobs. My family find it quite amusing that I am obsessed with seeing these people that choose to live very simple lives but they indulge me anyway.
We headed off soon after Garry got back from his hockey training and followed the highway to Kitchener and Waterloo.
Compared to the last time we drove through St Jacobs, on a Sunday, today was full of tourists. The whole Main Street was packed with families and bikers. At the markets it was equally busy. There were dozens of stalls selling produce – strawberries, raspberries and blackberries for $1/punnet. Halloween sized pumpkins, tubs of apples and all the herbs you could think of. Our favourite was the range of maple syrup products.
I was really only in search of one thing – anyone who looked like a Mennonite. I have heard that you are not supposed to take photos of them so it was strictly undercover. They all wear very plain clothing but it’s almost a uniform of sorts. All are quietly spoken and like to blend into the background.
The food halls were very popular. We found our first hot cinnamon donuts here, freshly cooked, and they were delicious. Everywhere else serves them cold and they are more like cake. Garlic King tempted us over with their wafting aroma of garlic bread. We had no choice but to buy a range of garlic products. We settled for grilled chicken burgers and hot dogs for lunch. The hot dogs came with a can of pop and chips. Chips over here are a bag of potato chips. We have been caught out several times.
With the markets finishing up at 3pm, we discovered that all the produce gets sold off quite cheap. We picked up a tray of 12 punnets of berries for $5 and a bucket of small bell peppers (which Olivia and Lachlan ate like apples on the way home). Adam finally found the missing duo of maple syrup. You can get light, medium and amber but we had only seen medium until now. I will have to get some for mum because we searched everywhere for them whilst she was here.
The highlight of my day was driving out of the markets and seeing the Mennonites leave in their horse and buggies. We managed to get some video as they left for home. Very ‘Little house on the prairie-ish’.
Our afternoon continued with an invite to Kevin and Deb’s for a BBQ dinner. Kevin is Garry’s principal at Milton and has been a constant source of inspiration and encouragement since we have been here. They have both done an exchange to Australia before and so our conversation was peppered with their impressions of Aussies and our accents and our common stories of how interesting challenging we have found the differences to be. Lots fun to be with people who get what it’s like to be in a new country with so much to learn. Deb cooked up some pea meal for us to try. It’s the nice round part of the bacon we know but it is soaked in brine and traditionally rolled in pea meal then sliced and eaten as we would eat bacon. These days you are more likely to get it rolled in cornmeal. After a yummy dinner of pork and chicken rolls we headed off to the music festival. They close off a few streets near the lake and have five stages set up with bands playing all afternoon and into the night. There are rides and food trucks and market stalls everywhere. The music is free and many bars and restaurants set up on the pavements outside so it’s very festive. People of all ages mix and dance and party into the early hours. My favourites were the jazz bands who played in some of the quieter areas – guess I’m showing my age. We finished the night watching the fireworks from the edge of the lake and farewelled our new friends until the summer is over.
Goodnight beautiful people Jxx.
Exchange to Canada 