We're in Canada y'all...: Another post with no real focus...

1. People love RV’s here. EVERYONE has one. EVERYONE. Pop-ups, pull behinds, ones that insert into your truck bed, ones that you drive, etc. They are everywhere. And the best part? People park them in their driveways. Lovely. Our neighborhood is littered with RV’s. I’m assuming since there is such an expanse of land if you are to drive anywhere there is a serious chance there will be no hotel and you better be prepared.

Creepily taken picture from my iphone while running. My neighbor was outisde cleaning his RV and suspicious of my photo snapping.

2. Everyone parks on the street or in their driveway. Not in their garage. I don’t get it but at any given time 85% of people have their car on the street or driveway not tucked neatly into their garage. My research from walking and running around our neighborhood concludes this to be because Canadians have MORE CRAP THAN YOU CAN EVEN IMAGINE. Peoples garages look like an episode out or Hoarders. Due to this phenomenon they have…

3. TONS of garage sales. Every weekend there are probably 5-10 garage sales in our neighborhood. I can’t even count how many there are in Calgary. And look I love a good garage sale but up here it’s basically like 2 old boxes or Ritz crackers, your Aunt Doris’s old aprons, and a used baby bath…seriously. Sometimes its just random clothing laid out in the driveway (because the cars are lining the streets generally SMACK dab in front of my house…I’m not bitter) on a blanket.

4. I learned something new about myself last week. I have seen hail. I have seen rain with hail. I have never seen a hail storm. It’s like something out of the bible. I was waiting for the locusts after experiencing 3 days of intense hail storms. Below is video and photographical evidence of said hail storm. This went on for about 20-25 minutes at a time.

Daisy eating hail stones

5. Would you like to see the flowers in my neighborhood? Behold!

I bet you are thinking; “Wow, you must have some pretty dedicated green thumbs in your hood to keep your flowers looking so fab, eh?” Well, yes, if my neighbors you mean the Calgary City Park Department. Yep, that’s right. The CITY has a fully dedicated team that tends to ALL of the landscaping in shared areas of our neighborhood. And they do it for ALL of the neighborhoods and all through downtown and the parks. The flowers here are GORGEOUS and I can only imagine how much ~~they~~ WE spend with our taxes on them.

6. Ice skating. One way to immediately prove you aren’t from around here is to refer to “ice skating”. Someone at a bar (don’t judge, I have to make friends somehow) told us he has a rink in his backyard so anytime we want to come over and skate please feel free to do so this winter. Uhhh. I immediately said umm, ice skate? To which he said, ice skate? We just call it skating. (you could hear the unsaid DUH in his speech) What kind of other skating is there???? (again DUH!) To which I promptly replied ROLLER SKATING! HELLO! Yeah they apparently don’t do roller skating rinks up here. WHAT? Where do kids have their birthday parties? Have you ever done the hokey pokey on skates? Chariot races? Canadians would rather race around on metal blades, freezing cold, on ICE, that you most certainly will fall and seriously injure yourself. Point AMERICA!

Britton and I come this February

7. Christmas lights. One in five houses still has their Christmas lights up. Two comments on this:

· I’m guessing their up because in January when Christmas is over they are probably frozen solid to your house and unable to be removed unless you have an ice pick and blow torch. And then by the time it thaws out up here you might as well just leave them up for next year.

· Christmas is going to be so pretty here with all of the snow and lights! Too bad I won’t be sticking around to see that.

8. Girl Scout Cookies. My favorites are Tag-a longs. My mom is a Thin Mint gal. Britton loves Samoas. All in all, they are all delicious. The Guides (Canada’s version of Girl Scouts) also sell cookies up here to raise money. Only guess how many flavors they have? 12? Nope. 6? Nope. 3? NOPE….one. ONE FLAVOR?? Well technically it’s too but hear me out. They sell a mixed box of basically what are chocolate and vanilla crème sandwich cookies…kind of like Oreos. SNORE. While they are tasty I was SO hoping for some maple cookies or something. Add that to your list of things to send me. Good ol American Girl Scout cookies. (disclaimer: Our neighbors are awesome and their daughter is so adorable and I woudl have probably bought 20 boxes from her if A) she had that many and B) we weren't broke. Feel free to send money with those Girl Scout cookies.)

9. So this happened…

What exactly is a 'rib tickler'? And since when are buffalo chicken strips, chicken strips, and chicken wings, Canadian Classics?

10. Credit cards. Dear America, I hate to bring this up when you are already flailing with a few…let’s call them…’personal issues’ but I felt the need to point out yet another complaint… You know all the uproar and mess caused by the millions of people who are victims of identity theft? Well, again, I hate to do this, but it appears Canada (and the rest of the world) has had the fix for this for say, I don’t know, YEARS. Please take a look at my Canadian Visa card. Do you see that little chip? It is IMPOSSIBLE to replicate basically and whenever my credit card is used I have to use a PIN number. So pretty much, this card is UN-clonable. So you could steal my credit card number but you would never be able to create a card with the number. That would cut down on some illegal use, no? More than 10 Canadian people have pointed out to me how strange it is that the US is behind the times on this one…I think so too. So ~~once~~ if you get yourself straightened out, just some food for thought on protecting more Americans from credit fraud. With Love, Rebecca

11. Random pictures from the past weeks:

Before Dresser - FREE from Kijiji (like Criagslist)

After Dresser - Paint $.75 rfom the 'Oops' Paint section at Rona (like Home Depot) and some new handles

Desk Before - FREE from Kijiji

Fresh Paint and it has a brand new life. Same hardware, just spray painted silver.

Lamb Chops from a tasty Greek restaurant

I got pizza

Canola fields. They are BRIGHT yellow and so pretty.

The entrance to our neighborhood

Lake Moraine, Banff National Park

Lake Moraine, Banff National Park. This is exactly the color of the water. I havent rectouched this or anything. I dont even know how. I took this with an iPhone.