Summer Walks Around My City !!

With summer touching the shores of Canada, the Northern polar hemisphere awakes from its slumber to take advantage of the beautiful warm weather. At this time of the year people walk a lot coupled together with biking and scooter rides thanks to the city tying up with an Los Angeles based company to promote an active city. Waterloo is a beautiful city filled with breath taking trailways, little rivulets and brooks that trickle their way through the city from their mother source The Laurel Creek which feeds the conservation centre and Waterloo's biggest summer attraction around the year. My husband and I both share a love of long walks amidst nature as your heart and mind are the calmest when you are one with Nature. We have taken many walks around our little city together and seem to have taken a love for all the little corners far from the madding crowd of Waterloo Public Square
                                 The other day I chose to take my husband to the wonderful Waterloo park in the heart of Waterloo which is much like New Yorks Central Park. It was built in the 1900s and named West Side Park. It was renamed Waterloo park in 1913. It is quite a sprawling park with soft, lush green 

grass and lots of evergreen trees and is the home for many social events from summer through to early fall when the nights are chilly but the remnants of summer make you nostalgic. We walked on an enchanted little bridge across a tiny rivulet which streamed over the smooth well worn pebbles on the bed of the rivulet. A few ducks alighted gracefully on the water and floated down stream on the rivulet on their way to Silver Lake. After crossing over we walked across a field of green grass and towering coniferous trees, we came to a beautiful gazebo in the heart of the park where we cooled off for a while thanks to the cool breeze of a thousand maple leaves.After much walking and trying to beat the ion transit which skirts the park on its way to Kitchener we went off the track to the little bridge in the distance.

 To our surprise the bridge brought into view the beautiful but reclusive silver lake right in the heart of Waterloo. It was a sweltery summer day and the breeze from the lake was a relief to the people of the community. There were people spending a few hours over a leisurely lunch or emphatically trying to catch up with next chapter in their book. Since school has finished for the year there were children squealing and running about the splash pad near by, a few of them chose to sit on the grass banks beyond the boardwalk and have a lick of fresh vanilla ice cream from the local food trucks down at Waterloo Public Square. Silver lake is home to a variety of birds and most of Waterloo park is a healthy ecosystem for a variety of animals. It is usually recommended not to feed the wildlife in the park as they become dependent on human sustenance and remain back during the migratory season only to perish due to lack of food in our harsh and brutal winters.

As we enjoyed our casual stroll on the boardwalk a man came out with a loaf of bread. He ripped open the bag of bread took out a slice and threw it in the air and as it landed a flock of Canadian geese attacked the piece of bread ripping it into pieces. As the man inched forward the geese followed him in unison. Summer is a popular season to witness geese all over Canada as they return home to bear children after the long cold winters amidst the natural flaura and fauna our cities are endowed with. Along with the other birds there are the ducks who also cohabitate the water bodies along with the geese. Sometimes you can spot a duck couple waddling down the lone walking trails together. Many times on our walks together we came across geese families having a stroll, the proud mums and dads herding their brood of furry little goslings along the trails around the lakes like the Columbia lake walking trails. After walking about the scenic Waterloo Park we made our way to the exit. 

After the exiting the park as we were making our way to Uptown Waterloo we came across the magnificent Clay and Glass Museum a quaint museum adjacent to the erudite perimeter institute. I decided to have a peek inside and to our luck the museum did not require an entrance fee at all. The museum was a quaint, tiny museum. Some parts of it were closed of to the community as they were in the process of reorganizing the museum. The museum was laden with beautiful crockery made from all colours and types of glass not to mention the beautiful glass bead jewelry and pendants. Besides that there were fascinating myriad hued kalaiedescopes with lens made of various coloured glass. The effect of the Kalaidescopes was enhanced by the bright sunshine of the unexpected hot and humid day. Besides that there were beautiful vases and birds and creatures carved out of glass.

The crockery sets were exquisite. some were moulded out of blue glass or light green glass or multi hued clay. Each piece was a carefully crafted spectacular piece. There were shelves upon shelves of beautiful crockery. Some were sets of multiple dishes and some were just lone pieces, masterpieces of their own. The Curator was a very pleasant lady who offered the most relevant guidance in how to view the art. The Blue crockery set caught my eye as they were a beautiful shade of purply blue and reminded me of the traditional blue bone china crockery prevalent in Ancient China. There were crockery sets moulded with shiny gold glass. Besides all these exceptionally skilled creations there were also the basic creations like moulded delicate stars, hearts and even a maple leaf coloured with duo chrome paint which glinted different colours. There were some abstract pieces which caught my eye as well and left me intrigued and curious as to what inspired these creations.

The piece that left me intrigued the most was this pale blue shell shape glass creation with wings at the back the curlicue shell in the front reminded me of a snail shell but coupled together with the feathers it gave an appearance of an exquisite bird with pale blue feathers at rest. The duo chrome maple leaf surrounded by pebbles seem to remind me of the erosion of rivers down the years which led to smooth carved rocks in various shapes and sizes and sometimes shapes that signify things in our human world. Glass is beautiful, so firm yet brittle but through the combination of various coloured glass pieces we saw beautiful colourful intricate designs aglow in the sunlight. Besides all the glass and clay exhibits there was and exhibit set up by an artist in the neighbouring room.

This exhibit was called "Whale Fall" and is a collaborative exhibition between artists Nicholas Chrombach and Nurielle Stern. It consists of an assemblage of broken furniture, pottery and neon lights. It resembles a decaying whale carcass and is a visceral visual metaphor for accumulation, loss and the passage of time. This exhibit was enormous and occupied a whole room of its own. Most of the assemblage items were covered in a neutral white paint and its as if the ocean world had consumed the whales flesh and blubber and left behind its white carcass a framework of white brittle bones and with the passage of time the accumulation of barnacles would take over the lost creatures carcass. The broken furniture in the assemblage was also made to look like animal bones.It was amazing and as I walked around that room in silence viewing that exhibit from all angles the beauty of the artists impression came out. I personally felt this was a perfect portrayal of life and the transience of life with the passage of time.

Not to forget the museum had a little bit of an International angle to it. At the door of the museum stood a huge replica of the Chinese warrior in Clay. It is said that a Terracotta Army was found buried from 3rd century BC in the tomb of the Quin emperor Shi Huang. It is said his tomb was the size of a soccer pitch and houses over thousands of warriors in four pits. Each pit classified these warriors according to rank and position. So we found our friend the Chinese warrior standing very stoically by the door of the museum welcoming us into its world of glass and clay so we decided to cheer it up by standing by and posing with our friend the great Chinese Warrior. Im pretty sure he's glad to be out of that pit and probably enjoys his photography session with all the tourists and people of the community who troop in to experience the museums world of clay and glass.

On the whole I enjoy walking around my city and discovering new spots I have never been to before and now I also have my husband who shares my passion so together we have made it our goal to explore and find something new within the beautiful city we live in and enjoy its history culture and heritage. I hope you all enjoy these walks as much as my husband and I do in Waterloo.