oh canada

so i was thinking, so far our little blog thingy here has centered solely around our own activities, but has contained precious little in the way of social observation of this foreign culture, so, at the behest of Frank & Judith, i'll give you a few pointers on how to survive in canada if the world blows up and theres only one country left and its (you guessed it) Canada (and they are still the same then as they are now).

1. Driving: people here are courteous - i mean really courteous. Example: Wal (one of our sherpas) was so excited by this phenomenon that he ran out into a 3 lane major road, with traffic bearing down (much to our alarm). But where in australia the traffic would have swiftly accellerated to 'teach that stupid idiot a lesson', the traffic here slowed gently and then stopped to allow Wal to cross. Incredible. What in victoria would have been a 20 second spot on the nightly news is commonplace here. I nearly walked into the path of oncoming traffic the other day (as i STILL cannot figure out which way it will be coming from) and lo and behold, the driver slowed - all this without an angry grimace or shaken fist to be seen.

2. Shopping: they have a wierd system in some stores here - you go around and select whatever you would like then take it to the counter to pay. At the counter, the fun begins. They take the item from you, place it on a bench and then you go to the back of the 'paying' line. By the time you get back to the counter again, it is highly likely someone else has purchased your clothes, or by miscommunication you are about to leave the store with the panties of the rather overweight woman in line behind you. strange. I mean, how hard is it to do those things at the same time?

3. Drive through: everything. There is a drive-through bank, which i believe they tried in Oz for a little while - but it's full. 6 cars waiting in line to get cash without having to get out. amazing.

4. Take-away: is not take-away, it's "to go". I nearly got hit over this one. enough said.

5. Clothes sizing: rowena is extatic - she was trying on a pair of size 6 jeans yesterday which has not happened since she was 12. The flip side of this is that i cannot find a t-shirt any smaller than those worn by rap artists.

6. Native Fauna: where in australia you can only view wildlife from marked paths and viewing points, in Canada you are free to bush-bash your way to a one-on-one with a bear if you so desire. No "please keep to the path" signs or grumpy rangers. The down-side of this one is bears in (those damn big) t-shirts and streams of floating debrie.

Cananada (as i'm going to call it from here on out) is a wonderful place, especially the outdoors. The towns and citys (from the few i've seen) can be a little drab, but the place does freeze over for 8 months of the years, so that can be expected.

In other news, the only mentions of Australia over here are the actions of the criminally stupid bogans who sent that envelope to the indonesian embassy. Between that and Alex Downer it's little wonder our public image is a little brown-stained at the moment. Kind of embarrassing really.