I love this place

There's a section on the local news right now about a beauty pageant for bulldogs. The winner got a crown and cape.

The adverts for redbull have to state that it doesn't *actually* give you wings.

In the supermarket yesterday, I noticed that everything in the freezer and the raw meat section stated "must be cooked" on the packaging.

comments

i've had to moderate them thanks to randoms

update: i've had my suspicions confirmed about the identity of these randoms.....you know who you are, don't make me out you!!

Interesting facts for you

My microwave is beeping at me and I don't know why. My fridge beeps when its been open too long, my oven beeps when its reached my desired temperature setting and my washing machine beeps when its done.

I'm getting a LOT of static mini shocks.

My kettle takes an inordinately long time to boil.

My walk to work is either two or four songs long depending on the album and if the lights are with me or not.

There is a LOT of sunshine in this city.

I have to set my alarm for 5.30am tomorrow as I have a meeting at 6.45am. (This fact I'm not so excited about). (But you could have probably worked that out on your own).

They get some random english programmes over here: Gordon Ramsey hells kitchen and the nightmare one, Jamie Oliver in Italy, Antiques roadshow, lots of DIY things, dad's army, you are what you eat and the one about the scottish estate that i forget the name of with Archie in it to name (well...nearly name) but a few.

US versions of english programmes are rubbish.

They have Canada's next top model and Canadian Idol (neither of which I've seen yet, but I am very excited at the prospect.

AND - most exciting of all: Miles has asked his lady to marry him ANDSHE'SSAIDYES!!! How is Anna going to take the news??? What's going to happen between Millie and O'Donnell??? and HOW does she find him even remotely attractive???

Yesterday

I got my work permit through the mail, I got some new business cards and I opened a bank account.

I am official!!

Now I just need to get some money to put into my bank account and we're laughing!!!

my head

hurts. Actually its not as bad as it was when I first got up - a cup of tea, a muffin, a vat of orange juice and a strawberry yoghurt have all combined to work their magic.

People start work way too early in this town.

Way too early.

oh

i meant to say - i went to get coffee at TH at 10.35 as advised and there was only one other person ahead of me instead of 30! So I ordered a drip/dark with milk and a sour cream timbit. Also as advised. And what do you know? But they were both good. I didn't really have faith in the sour cream timbit, but I did what I was told and I am glad. Glad. It was all lovely. Slightly sugary (the timbit). But good.

Fran - I know I've started sentences with a "but". But it's late goddammit.

well

I went out to a bar tonight and I had me some beer. I was drinking the local brew - Keith or something like that and my companion was drinking guinness. Then gin. A good night was had by all even though we had a few flakes. I think I am going to like it here. I might be a leetle bit tipsy. Jussaleelte. I had fun. And apparently I'm going to have some more fun tomorrow since that's the first night of the playoffs. Whatever they are. But I have an invite to go drinking and meet some more people. So that can't be bad.

Good night John boy.

My mission

should I choose to accept it today is to get a cup of coffee from Tim Hortons [and I may as well accept it since its self imposed...]

Apparently having been in Canada this long without tasting some of this coffee is a travesty. In my defence, I have tried a few times, but the queue has been ridiculous (we're talking waaaaay out the door). At first I thought maybe there was someone famous in there or some kind of free coffee giveaway, but I've been by it at least twice since and the queue has been just as silly.

Today I am going to try and find out the optimum queue/coffee ratio time of day.

Wish me luck....

thinking up titles is hard....

Today was a good day....went to a meeting, got taken to lunch, had a mint milkshake from Peter's (or Pete's - something like that) which was very good, but I could only manage about a quarter of it!!! HUGE. But good. Pottered about at work, didn't notice the time going which is good as last week was a bit trying - hard to pass a 12 hour day when you have NOTHING to do.

Went for a beer with some of the boys. I think I'm going to like it here :-) I'm starting to get the inside line on some of the characters so am feeling part of things a bit more...

American Idol nearly on, I'm eating the Canadian attempt at cambozola with some french bread and a glass of red: all is well on the Western front...(I still have to do that 'never eat shredded wheat' thing to figure that out - please tell me some of you are with me there???)

mmm mmm...

I have just made THE nicest sandwich in the world ever!!! Wholegrain bread, turkey, white trash cheese slice (fat free mozarella - whatever next??) tomato, cucumber, spring onion, lettuce, shredded carrot and pickles. mmmmmmmmmmm

mmmm mmmm mmmmmm

Admittedly I should probably have made the ratatouille that I made the effort of buying ingredients for on the way home, but I'm crazy like that sometimes. Just wild.

snow?!

Its no wonder I'm a bit under the weather...am just back from my walk (turned into a bit of an epic stroll). Weather when I started out was warm and sunny, thought I'd pop into safeway on the way back to get milk and when I came out (10 mins later) it was snowing!!!

Snowing?!!? Its freezing now!

poor me!!

Turns out my tiredness on Thursday was actually the cold I picked up en route from London coming back with a vengeance and I have spent large quantities of time in bed dozing and feeling sorry for myself - so no drinks on Thursday night and no Banff today :-(

The good news is that I'm starting to perk up (just in time for work tomorrow - sod's law) and am also suffering greatly from cabin fever, so am off to explore 17th Ave and 4th St - the so called trendeeee areas of this city and right on my doorstep! Nothing more exciting to report at this time other than I *think* that I've now mastered the required coffee/water ratio for the machine....oh and I also think my dishwasher is leaking...

quick update

turns out that the dishwasher issue was not mine, but the dishwasher's!! All is fixed now now and I have clean things once again. I thought I had a problem with the oven, but I managed to press enough buttons and got it working.

The work permit issue is going to be resolved without me leaving and re-entering Canada. Amazingly they are able to do what I was hoping all along: issue a permit and send it to me. WOW. Amazing. Well done guys...its only taken the best part of a week for the lawyers/ immigration people to see sense. This is both good news and bad as I was kind of looking forward to heading off to somewhere interesting this weekend. Hey ho. This Saturday I have an invite to Banff from some of the guys from work which is nice and I am in work on Sunday which is less than nice (although perversely I'm not that annoyed - will be nice to feel like a fully functioning part of the team and I don't think its going to be more than 2-3 hours). I am supposed to be going out for some beers tonight, but I'm in my pjs already and have faded somewhat.....

No idea what I'm going to do tomorrow, but I want to do some more exploring - there's loads of this city that I haven't seen yet. Keep the e-mails and comments coming, nice to know there's someone out there!! ;-)

Happy Easter to all xxx

...

generally feeling quite :-)

although i can't work my bloody dishwasher. its not the obvious option.

am just watching a programme about some girl who's having a 16th birthday party and is dying her poodles pink. seriously. the world has gone mad.

work permit

forgot to say yesterday, my next idea is to go to seattle on the weekend so that i can re-enter canada for the permit....its not all bad!! either seattle or san francisco.....not sure

First Day

well....that wasn't so bad! Although i do realise i'm in the honeymoon period right now, but everything went well - even got taken out to dinner by a couple of the guys! I sit in a room off the main drag of the office with two other guys and it seems that guys will be guys whether in London or Calgary!! They're nice - easy on the eye and good company thus far; I have had much cause to laugh. I have a feeling that there will be less crazy drunken nights out than there have been, but that's fine - I'll take what I can get! Stampede sounds like it will be a big office affair as well - if I get the time out of work!

Today I am mostly smiling. Actually, today I am all about smiling :-)

It might not be Kansas, but I like it....

scary stuff...

I'm watching the local news to keep a check on the time and it was proving quite amusing until I caught the story of the woman who has been fined/ prosecuted for traffic obstruction. Yes - you've guessed it: she was on the road when the red hand was up. Her argument was that she started at the green man but didn't get enough time. Now I actually support her in this as there are some crossings, and you don't actually know which one, where it does seem like you're taking part in a horrible computer game and the man changes back when you're at the midpoint. I kind of like these random challenges, but there is an apparent 'crack down' by police and I have a trusted informant who tells me this is a BIG DEAL.

I don't feel so stupid any more...

underground, overground wandering free....

Up until about two minutes ago, I was having a great day. Started off with discovering that Special K over here is how it used to be YEARS ago over in England; kind of like discs made out of rice crispie type stuff. Lovely :-) Since breakfast, I've been traipsing around town generally exploring - I walked from the apt to work to see how long it would take (15 mins....would be less than 10 if I didn't have to wait at the red hand with everyone else even though there were NO cars in the vicinity...).

I then went to the main post office and bought some stamps in preparation of the new letter writing phase of my life...quite excited about that. Am having visions of Jane Austen type scenarios, I wonder if I could fashion a seal with some of my candles and a potato masher?

Then I just mooched about - went to the tourism office and talked for ages with a nice old chap about his house swapping antics. (Yes, I did mean house). He directed me to the Calgary 'plus 15' system which is basically a network of walkways (15ft above street level - you see?) which connect loads of shopping malls in the first few floors of all the big office blocks in the downtown area. LOTS of shops. LOADS. Quite daunting actually, but I intend to face my fears as frequently as possible armed with my debit card!

Wandered home via safeway, feeling quite in the Calgary vibe having wandered for hours. I'm now a card carrying member of the safeway "club" which today saved me about $20 on my shopping bill!!! woo hoo!!! I even bought some lemon iced tea. Ok, not intentionally; I was rather absent mindedly reaching for the "coke zero" and got distracted by a cute guy. However I was thirsty so drank it and...gasp: it wasn't that bad!!! Actually there were quite a few cute guys in the supermarket so I was paying attention to my shopping basket and trying to put items in there that said 'hey, I'm a single girl about town who's fun, eats well and you'd probably do well to ask her out to hang with you and your other cute single buddies'. This lasted all of 2 minutes - they've got heinz barbie pasta shapes over here too!!! Sparkly pink tins of joy :-)

Anyway - back from random tangent. Came home to an email saying that I'll have to drive [in my imaginary car] to a US/ Canada border point in order to get a work permit as the people in Montreal messed up. That's all I know at the moment, but it does NOT sound like a fun thing to have to be doing...

However even this news cannot dampen my mood, so I think I will crack open my solitary bottle of wine (thanks Proll!) and toast myself. In a way that doesn't sound too loser-ish.

Cheers!

WHY

am i awake??

Not in kansas anymore...

I am beginning to notice some differences over here.....its strange as most things are familiar, but there's something 'not quite right' about it all.

Size: things are BIGGER over here! Its hard to find orange juice/ milk/ anything smaller than industrial vat sized which makes carrying things back from my local safeway less than fun

Brands: some are recognizable although on closer inspection, tous est en francais. There doesn't seem to be as much choice over here...especially in things like washing powder. Tide. That's it. Fabric softener doesn't really factor into their lives as everyone tumble dries things over here. [Connected to the tumble drier concept - EVERYTHING seems to go into the dishwasher...couldn't find drying cloths anywhere and then when I look at my sink area, there isn't actually any space to dry stuff...]

TV: there really are 57 (and then some...) channels and nothing on. Bruce got it right.

Crossing the road: everyone seems to wait for the green man; even if there's no traffic at all. I kind of want to just cross the road as I normally would, but concerned that I'll set off some alarm and it will all be horribly embarassing so I wait with everyone else feeling slightly stupid. Also - cars actually stop for you when you're waiting at the side of the road if there's no green man thingy.

My bed

Is about 10ft high and I sleep on something that looks like a duvet with a sheet on top of that, then I sleep underneath TWO sheets, TWO duvets and some kind of blanket thing. Why??? Why would anyone need this kind of bedding? It feels as if you're under 10 tons. Needless to say it all ended up on the floor apart from the lighter of the two duvets...which seemed like a good idea until I had to make it this morning. I'm about half a stone lighter now...proper workout. Although I've just noticed on my welcome sheet that someone makes my bed Mon - Fri and I have housekeeping during the week - wooo hoo!!!!

Right....am off to try and figure out how to make coffee with my scary looking machine....and I may have some toast and marmite (courtesy of Mel) although I don't want to resort to that just yet.....

The adventure begins...

Right. Well this is day one in Calgary.....rather than actually sort my stuff out, I thought I'd set up a blog. Priorities, priorities....

This is just a short post, mostly to see what it's all about before I start unloading on you all!! I hope to keep this as up to date as I can to let you all feel part of my tour in Calgary!!

UPDATE: I've now finished unpacking....so many things. Now I need to go and find my local supermarket which happens to be a safeway and is apparently 1km walk away - not too bad. Hopefully it'll be somewhat recognisable from the name...although they do weird things over here...milkyways like mars bars and other travesties. It's 4pm here - 11pm back home and I feel like its actually 3am, but hopefully that will all sort itself out soon.