On this, Canada’s 144th birthday (a gross birthday, as one friend pointed out), I’ve been thinking about two of the Canada Days which I spent outside the country. In 2001, we’d been living in Ireland for about four months. For reasons that escape me now, we’d checked in with the Canadian consulate in Dublin shortly after we arrived. As a result, I received email invitations to all sorts of Irish-Canadian events.
One such event was at the Canadian ambassador’s residence, in a very posh Dublin suburb (the Canadian government has since sold it, but I see that you can rent it for a mere €10,000 a month). Rohinton Mistry gave a reading to a lot of middle-aged ladies-who-lunched, and two out-of-place young Canadians. We sneaked outside and explored the grounds, which included a lovely grove of eucalyptus trees.
But I digress. The consulate also notified me about a Canada Day event at a downtown bar. My wife and I brought a couple of my work colleagues down to investigate. Curiously, the bar was called Major Tom’s Down Under, and had an Australian theme. There are no Canada-themed bars in Dublin, so I suppose they figured a sister Commonwealth country was close enough. We stepped inside, and entered into a kind of hyper-Canadian party. Young people danced to The Tragically Hip, drank Moosehead Beer and watched Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em videos on the bar’s TVs. My Irish friends were perplexed.
Six years later, we were living in Malta, and were invited to a dinner hosted by the Canadian-Gozitan Society. A Gozitan is a resident of Gozo, the small Maltese island where we lived. The photo for this post shows a plaque on a house in the little village where we lived. Oddly, we never met the owners.
We had a splendid evening and four-course meal at a fancy hotel overlooking Gozo’s gorgeous Mgarr Harbour. Most of the attendees were retired (Malta is full of elderly ex-pats), so the proceedings were a little more staid than in Dublin. Speeches were spoken, and the Canadian national anthem was played over the hotel’s sound system. We sat at a table with some friends from Newfoundland (if memory serves), and talked of our first homes.
Never have I been more patriotic than when I’m living outside of the country. Canada Days spent abroad bring a kind of nationalistic clarity to my love of my country.
Have you spent a Canada Day outside Canada?
Spent most of my teen years with family in Europe over the summer. Sadly I don’t ever recall doing anything patriotic. Of course now that I’m older, I’m much more proud of my heritage – and I celebrate Switzerland’s National Holiday, here in Canada. Don’t worry, I still celebrate Canada Day too!
I have lived in many countries (Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, England, Japan, Taiwan, USA to name a few) and have travelled in over 70 and I totally agree with you, the best Canada days I have ever had were out of Canada! Most of the time, I would head to the Canadian embassies/consulates and either they would have some event or I would go to the local Canadian hang out.
I don’t know why, but my Canadian patriotism swells the most when I am outside of Canada.
What did I do here in Canada on Canada Day 2011? Shopped…couldn’t handle the crowds for the Vancouver Canada day events. How sad is that?!
I spent 2 summers in Saudi arabia and 14 in the US
When in Saudi we did Canada day proud. In the US the 4th kind of took over. I am glad to be back home to celebrate