WHY CANADA?: Part 2

Second in my three-part love-letter series to a country I haven't even been to yet. Because REASONS. Find part one here!

PART TWO

One of my school friends was going to Banff for a skiing holiday.
"Can you bring me something back?" I asked.
"Yeah, what do you want?" - she expected a postcard or a fridge magnet, but, no, I wanted an actual piece of Canada.
"Bring me back a rock."
"A rock?"
"Yeah, just pick one up from the ground and take it back with you."

We were sitting in church before our Christmas Carol Service when I saw her again after her holiday. She turned to me, reaching into her blazer pocket. I couldn't believe that she had actually remembered, that she had actually bent down and picked up a rock in Canada to bring back to me. She pulled out a small suede pouch, which had 'BANFF' printed on it. Inside was a chalky, grey lump of stone. It was perfect.

The rock sits on a bookshelf in my bedroom in Aberdeen. I imagine when I step off the plane I'll have an awkward Free Willy moment where I'll chuck it back into it's native land and say something like "YOU HAVE RETURNED". Perhaps I'll feel a slice of that cosmic magic, as well.

The initial dream of making it to Vancouver in 2010 melted away, but from the Rock Moment onwards my life kept offering small Canadian morsels to whet my appetite, until my final years of university, when I decided that there was only one thing to do when I finished my course, and that was to just pack my bags and go. When I told my parents of the plan, they understood it had a little more gravity than when I had decided to run away to the Winter Olympics at age fourteen.

In December 2012, I could do little else for the Canadian dream but impatiently wait for the  government to open applications for working permits. It being almost-Christmas, my friends and I decided to spend an afternoon at Edinburgh's German Market - it would be the last one we would do as a group, as this was our final year of university. I had abandoned all those going ice-skating for a caravan nestled in a web of fairy lights and coloured lanterns. Inside, I had accidentally spent more money than I had anticipated to have a woman in shimmering fabric tell me my fortune. My hands were placed on the table, palms upward, either side of a crystal ball. Spread out in front of her were seven Tarot cards, which she was in the process of turning over and interpreting. It finally came to the last card, which had precedence over the others, this was the Big One with Big Divination Vibes coming off of it. I can never remember what the card actually was called - her deck was of Native American design, and this card featured a totem pole standing in between two mountains.
"This card represents a foreign country, an English-speaking foreign country. Could be America, Australia, Canada…"
"Canada," I blurted out as soon as I heard it. She raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, so you know?" I nodded. She told me that this country was going to be very important, yes, a very important one for me. I was going to travel there, and big things were going to happen. This country was going to play a large part in my life. I was going to come back to Edinburgh one day, but as a visitor, not a resident of Scotland. When I stumbled out of the caravan to a cluster of skeptic friends, I gushed about the Canada Card. "Aye, right," was the main response, but I couldn't help but feel a glimmer of magic; the Universe had sent a message: you're on the right track, baby.

Over the cold, early months of 2013, I scrambled together all the necessary paperwork to get my Working Holiday Permit, which allowed me to live and work in Canada for a year. It was terrible and stressful and exciting all at the same time. There were several moments when I thought that I'd never make it - my application at one point had been rejected by Canadian Immigration because I didn't provide my CV in the correct format - and I would sit in my bed in my tiny room in Edinburgh and sob, because I just had to go.

It was April when I was sitting in my local pub and felt my phone buzz with an e-mail from Immigration and Citizenship. Damn mobile data, I couldn't open it there and then (which may have been a good thing, because if it was another rejection, crying in public is not a good look). My friend and I skipped back to her flat to find out the verdict on her computer. She made me peppermint tea as I furrowed my brows and sat so close to the monitor I was in danger of being absorbed by it. And then I opened my messages. The words 'Letter of Introduction' glimmered in my inbox. This wasn't real. This couldn't be real.

It wasn't the first, nor would it be the last time I'd cried for Canada (hello, the first time I ever saw Canadian money was a real emotional experience which I'm rather embarrassed about). What made this night different was that they were tears of relief, instead of tears of stress or want. I thought I'd finally made it. A month later I booked my flight to Toronto for September 2013. Now the only thing standing between me and Canada was a plane journey.

… and just when you think you've got it all sorted out, Life sticks her ankle out as you're walking past for you to trip over. I fell flat on my face.