In Canada my hair doesn't have low self esteem.

When I was living in Australia my sister stayed over one night and while she was having a shower she shouted out to me "Jesus Christ, your shampoo has low self esteem!" She was right, my shampoo did have low self esteem, it was for "normal, dull and lifeless hair"! My poor hair! Normal could be a good thing, but teamed with adjectives such as dull and lifeless, normal means boring, and normal ain't good. And the other thing was, after using this shampoo for a long time, my hair actually liked it, but would my hair EVER not be dull and lifeless, shouldn't prolonged use make my hair shiny and bouncy? This shampoo was taking me for a ride. I would never break free of this psychologically abusive relationship.

In the end, all I needed to do was move to Canada. Here, my hair is free, my hair is happy and no one is talking smack about my hair.  In Canada, the same version of my shampoo, is for "normal hair that needs body". Well that's a little nicer, normal, but with just a little bit o body. Throw a bit of that Canadian optimism into it! Advertising that doesn't drive you to drink! My hairs feels so much better about itself now.

And Canada is so gay friendly! They even have milk especially for homos! I love homos, so I always make sure I buy this milk. And every morning when I get the milk out for my cereal I say "Yay for homos!"













It's not cold yet, but when you are not used to fashion in sub zero temperatures you have to keep an eye out for interestings items. This is on my fashion "wish list" for 2010. I found this on the internet but can't seem to find where to buy it!? Maybe I need to learn how to knit. I must have this!

So many of my friends are pregnant right now, when looking for interesting gifts online I came across this gem.

You CANNOT sit there and tell me this doesn't look like the comfiest, happiest baby you've ever seen. And Mums looks happy too! Everyone wins! Don't you just want to smooch this little alien right on it's freaky white forehead?? I sure do!

Craigslist

The biggest north american discovery so far has been craigslist... pretty sure it exists in Sydney and Spain but it seems to be bigger here. I am mildly obsessed with the "free" section and love looking at what goodies people want to get rid of. It's especially good as it seems, like in Sydney, the city charity stores here charge crazy prices for crappy second hand goods. Just cause it's pre loved don't make it an antique people, or retro, or worth more than you would pay for the same thing new in shops. My previous list of salvation army bargains was from a suburban store, where you could still find plenty of bargains. Any store closer to the city seems to be run by people smoking crack and their prices are completely whack (rhymes). But now that we live here, and are without car, furniture at the suburban salvos is out of the question. Yes I live near the city, but I am still poor, and only here for a year or so, and Craigslist "free" has become my new live in lover.

Sometimes craigslist can turn against you. This happens when your boyfriend finds a "free" TV that is so large, so ugly and so offensive to all your senses, yet he thinks it's cool. Then one day when you are out trying to get a job to feed the family, he goes and gets it, and when you get home it is there, hurting your eyes and confirming that any coolness you once had is now obsolete. I present you, the TV.

Yes that's me standing next to the TV so you have an idea of size. Yes the remote control next to the nintendo is the same width as my head. Yes that is an old style nintendo, with super mario bros that we actually paid money for, cause apparently nintendo is retro and you do have to pay for that shiz, but it's cheap entertainment. Yes that is me in a onsie 80s ski suit, looking pretty proud of myself cause $10 for that thing was a serious bargain.

Probably the worst thing about the TV is the fact that it doesn't actually work unless you are playing super mario bros. Seems that when B got the thing home, turned it on, there were no channels, and then some Canadians tell us that you don't get free TV! You have to pay for cable TV along with your internet. Well, we don't actually watch much TV and really only wanted the thing to play super mario bros. So we won't pay for TV cause we hardly watch it, but then what is the damn point of having such a giant TV I ask you? There is no point. And B is better than me at Mario, and I am a sore loser. Stupid TV.

Canadians are so damn nice!

I don't think I've ever been anywhere where you encounter such random acts of kindness on such a regular basis. Most of the countries I've travelled to people are mostly pretty friendly, but Canadians, well, they win the nice race. From day 1 things have been happening that make me go, wow, that's really nice! Crazy nice strangers!

When we arrived in Vancouver we were going to stay at B's friends place, she wasn't going to be home till that afternoon so we made our way slowly over to her place, with our mountain of baggage. B had a suitcase on wheels, 1 giant snowboard bag about 2metres long on wheels, and carried a backpack, camera bag and a manbag* on his body. (*man handbag) I had 1 giant suitcase, 1 large suitcase, 1 sml suitcase (attached crazily by B, god knows how, to the lrg suitcase) and a backpack. We really pushed our baggage allowance and so in total we were carrying approx 60kilos each. Yes this is alot of baggage. As we were walking it started raining. Seconds later a guy and his Dad pull over in a big van, "You guys are crazy, those bags look heavy, can we drop you wherever you're going?" I wouldn't normally accept a lift from strangers but they looked completely sincere, and I knew it would be fine. 70 yr old dad even helped lift the bags up! They left us with a little "Welcome to Vancouver!"  So nice!

Money is tight, well tight for us who never really want for anything, so after food shopping one day and B says to me, "wanna spend our last $12 on a bottle of wine?" and I say "hell yeah!"  we go into a bottle shop. This bottle shop was a little bit more posh than we've seen and everything seems way out of our price range. The salesperson asks to help us and we say, we'd like a local bottle of red for $12 or under... and we show her, our last $12. (God we are such deros!) So she proceeds to point out her favourite bottle of local red, which she says is delicious, but as it is out of our budget she will knock the price down to $12 just so we can try it. So nice!

Cars stop for you so you can cross the road. I'm not talking about at lights or crossings, where they have to stop anyway, I'm talking about normal roads, the cars just stop in the middle of the road if they see you want to cross and they let you pass!  Even if there are cars behind them, and the cars behind don't even bip them! It's such a nice feeling to not have the cars rule the roads so much! So nice!

Bus drivers are nice, they say good morning to you. If there is a customer service misunderstanding people say, I'm sorry, it must have been my fault even though the blame may be unclear. People apologise for not knowing if I am from Australia or New Zealand (I say "hey don't worry, you sound American to me!). The Ferry people open the doors for people with bikes. The greyhound bus guy gave us student rates without even asking!

And... the buses also cheer for the Canucks. (Vancouver ice hockey team currently in the playoffs)

Seriously people. This is one nice country! Yay Canada!