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!

Rockin Rockies

Starting in Calgary, the plan was to enjoy a bit of the end of ski season and teach me how to snowboard. B is a pretty good snowboarder and has worked in a couple of different Canadian resorts teaching snowboarding for 4 of the past 5 winters. In preparation he bought me a rockin new Burton snowboard which is so damn pretty but at which I curse expletives as I tumble down many a small hill. I want to know how to snowboard, but I want to already know how to snowboard, learning is so damn tough. I've hit my head (the new helmet has already paid for itself, brain damage no thanks) numerous times, sometimes questioning if I was unconscious but then reaslising if I was I probably wouldn't question that. I'd just be saying, What? Where am I? Who are you? Why do I have this strange board strapped to my feet? Why aren't I at the beach? I've slid across snow on my ass and on my knees. I've fallen flat on my back. I've fallen on my arm. I've fallen where my body is somehow alongside my snowboard and my knee twisted in an alarmingly un-natural position. And this is supposed to be "fun" and I am supposed to be on "holidays".

B pretending to be a human bobsled on the track at Calgary Olympic Park home of the 1988 Winter Olympics.

Ben has been a very patient teacher and I have been a very patient learner. You can see why couples would blow up on the slopes.

Boy says to girl. "Lets have a "holiday" in the snow, I'll teach you, it will be "fun". 

Girls says, "Will there be daiquiris and a chance to tan?"

"No" says the boy "but give it a go".

Then girl is hitting her head on something that looks like marshmallow but feels like concrete not once, not twice, but oh about 50 times per day, and flailing about like a newborn calf. There is no energy even for daiquiris at the end of the day and the only tan you get is between your cheeks and your chin. But I am determined, I will learn this god dammit, and I will enjoy it, and I will look cool on the slopes and I will drink schnapps in the lodge after and smile and say "It's nice out eh". Not yet. But I will. It's only going to take a bit more practice and possible serious injury. That's all.

Next stop was Golden, staying at a friend of B's new log cabin. It was absolutely amazing, made entirely of giant logs from Saskatchewan, it has giant windows and overlooks the rockies and is surrounded by big beautiful trees. It's a short drive to Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, where we continued operation steasy* snowboarder. Unfortunately "operation steasy" lasted not even 1 run.

The first run of the day was pretty average, you get up off your ass (which isn't as easy as it looks btw) you start to pendulum (beginner speak) down the slopes, your boyfriend screams "head up!" "hands over the board!" "GET THAT ASS FORWARD" fun holiday time for all, then you stack it.


It's so funny when beginners fall. (hilarious). We just lay there, on our backs, in star position, arms and legs flayed out, just laying there. Not sure why, not sure what we're waiting for, sometimes this can be for a couple of minutes, waiting for a sign maybe, some sort of sign to continue, waiting for the dizziness to subside or the sharp pain running through the coccyx to go away. Anyway, this is our time, we need this for reflection and to gather our thoughts, to get the will to get up and start again.

The rocky mountains, how can you be so pretty yet so evil at the same time?

The mountain, no problem, the mountain can do what it wants to me, but the chairlift, oh how I hate the chairlift. The enemy of every beginner. Why is this part so hard? Essentially it's just like getting up off a chair, except the chair moves, and the chair pushes you, whether you are ready or balanced or not, it pushes you down a short but icey slope, right into the path of 1. people with sharp poles 2. a fence or 3. a wall of snow. It seems to create the kind of chaos only seen at a wedding dress sale and you are more likely than not to fall dramatically into an un-natural and painful position. And to top all that off, you must get up and get away quickly or you will suffer the wrath of the impatient liftie or worse, be crashed into by other angry, frustrated beginners. It's a recipe for disaster I tell you. And it's not funny. (unless you are watching other people do it safely in the distance.) So this is what happened to me, on the second run of the day, I exited the chairlift, lost my balance, fell over, I did a ninja roll, my board did not. I felt my knee twist, I screamed* (*B said I squealed like a pig about to be slaughtered) and lay there, then I said ow ow ow about 5000 times. I crab walked to to side to get out of the way, the liftie got me a blanket and called ski patrol. I was to go back down on the mountain, not looking steasy, but on a ski patrol toboggan. For years, when I saw a ski patrol go past, with the toboggan behind them, with a body in a bag, I used to think someone had died on the mountain and they were bringing their body back down. It looks so creepy. But they strapped my leg up to a wooden board, put me in the little boat, tied me up, all I could see was the sky out of my goggles and the feeling that we were going very very fast. It was so much fun! A definate plus to a fucked up knee! B told me the story of a friend who fell while skiing and she broke 7 ribs, she was picked up by ski patrol who started to take her down the mountain and during the trip something went awry (all signs point to dodgy ski patrol guy) and her toboggan flipped 5 times! And she had broken ribs! Ouch! Luckily this story was told to me afterwards! So my knee was looked at, just a sprain, no more snowboarding for me for a couple of weeks… Kinda happy to give my lil lo body a break.

Very wet ass, from falling so much at the beginning in Calgary on the bunny hill. I heart snowboarding, yeah, like totally.

Next stop Vancouver, where real life begins. Jobs, apartment etc. Looking forward to discovering my new city!

Oh Canada! Oh Saskatoon!

On arrival at Saskatoon airport it was clear we "weren't from around here". Coming from 35 deg and sunny in Sydney, after a 16 hour flight via Vancouver, we were in T Shirts and comfy floppy pants, as everyone prepared to leave the plane, out came some pretty hardcore looking coats/hats/scarves which made Ben and I look at each other and say, um, "Do you think it's cold out there?" We were in T Shirts for god sake! It was minus 10 degrees outside! Holy crap it was cold! We were met at the airport  by my friends Kristie Anne and Lia, both Saskatoonians and both suitably dressed, I was in ballet flats and on exiting the airport I shrieked when snow got inside them. There was snow everywhere! So pretty! Snow in people's front yards! Snow on the side of the road! Snow on the lake! As soon as I got in the car, Kristie Anne told me to flick the switch along side of the automatic window switch to activate the bum warmer! WTF! In seconds my ass was toasty warm! I love this place! So we stayed with my friends Kristie Anne (who I studied spanish with in Sevilla in 2003) and her husband Terri at their giant house. Gotta love having friends that have their shit together and let me stay in their comfy digs!

After much consideration as to what typical Canadian things they would introduce us to we first went to a local ice hockey game, I took some red wine in a "to go" cup to keep warm (excuse) and we saw teenage Canadians slam each other into walls and try to trip each other over with their hockey sticks, fun times.



Terri is from a small town outside S'Town called Wakaw and his parents, who still live there, have the keys to the local curling rink. I'd never even heard of curling before the last winter olympics and I unfairly exclaimed that it was the most ridiculous sport I'd ever seen. So when the opportunity came to play it, when you can normally only get a game if you're affiliated with a curling club, I had to take it up. It was damn fun! But so freakingly bizarre, kinda like bowls, on ice, with a giant marble stone thing* to toss down, and you have to do it while sliding on the ice on one knee. The weirdest part however is that people on your team, run in front of the giant marble stone thing as it slides down the ice and can heat the ice in front of the marble stone thing by scratching these broom type things in front of it to make the marble stone thing slide faster. You also have to wear special things on your shoes. One thing called a slider and the other a griper. Obviously one makes your feet slide and the other grip to assist in a weird type of walking on the ice. I am sure you'd get used to it but I was all over that ice like a newborn calf.

*marble stone thing - correct professional description   

After curling, Terri's Mum made us chicken soup and there was a knock at the door, it seems Terri's parents had spread word out that there were some aussie's in town and Ed was here to take us skidooing on the lake! Ed was wearing a lumberjack jacket and had his skidoo on a trailer and was ready to rock, so were we, we drove out to a frozen lake, which he assured us was still 40 inches thick, he dressed us in some ridiculous skidoo suits. Ben looked like a beekeeper and I looked like I was about to be shot out of a canon, I do love that helmet though, pretty cool. We were let loose on the ice alone, we rode together and Ben got the skidoo up to 95kms/h and we were flying across the lake, at one point being chased by a pointy toothed dog! When it was my turn to drive I got it up to a crazy pills 20kms/h! It felt fast! After we couldn't feel our faces from the cold it was time to head home and Ed offered us some whiskey from his hip flask he kept in his jacket pocket, that shit sure warms you up as promised, as it burns down your throat. yum yum.



above: Ha! B looks like he is a beekeeper. I laugh everytime I look at this photo. 

In Saskatoon we also spent a night drinking spiced rum (note to self, 2L between 3 people is too much) with a snowboarding buddy of Ben's called Mark over in the ghettos of Saskatoon, we ate, we drank spiced rum and we played rock bank where I was reminded that I should never be in a band, virtual or otherwise as I have no musical skills. what.so.ever. The next day we went to Mark's Mum's house in the country for lunch where there was more food and some dirt biking (why don't these people want to stay inside??) and after discussing our plans to travel on a Greyhound bus later that evening to Calgary, they all told us about an incident where a schitzo guy was traveling on a greyhound bus and chopped another passengers head off. Seriously, that happened. In the same province, and not too long ago. Great.

Anyhoozle, said bus trip has been completed and we are alive. Loving Canada, it's freakishly friendly people, the bum warmers and the crazy amount of sugary lollies at convenience stores.

Right: I look like I am about to be shot out of a canon. I love this helmut!