Tuesday morning was freezing and so I took Buffy to work in
the car instead of her riding her bike.
After dropping her off, I went to another supermarket – ‘The
Real Canadian Superstore’. This time, I felt right at home. It’s a big (Tesco
Extra big) store with everything from fruit and veg, to clothing, electrical
and food – lots of food. Alright, they still didn’t have any meat and potato
pies, but they did have real crisps (I don’t like Nachos) Ginger Nuts and
HobNobs, Ribena and loads of other recognisable non-cardboard tasting North
American Crap. (To any North Americans and Canadians reading this – I’m sorry,
but I don’t like a lot of your food. We are different and like different tastes,
but Nachos will never come close to a good packet of Prawn Cocktail crisps!!)
The shop got even better and slightly weirder, when I
reached the end and saw boxes of fish, like in China and massive Crabs and
Lobsters being kept fresh and alive in big glass tanks. Stranger still was to
come when they had ‘Durians’, a strange Asian fruit that we tried in Indonesia
and I have never even seen in UK!! It’s
pretty safe to say that I really enjoyed my hour wandering around the store,
checking out every aisle and silently thanking the supermarket god for making
me feel a little happier. As I said the other day, food is a really important
part of any place and being able to find something I am able to eat and enjoy,
will make me a lot happier.
Needless to say the rest of the afternoon was spent peeling
potatoes and cooking a nice meal with some steak for when Buffy arrived home in
the evening. It was my first real full meal since I have been here – meat,
potatoes and veg – just what a growing boy needs!!
Wednesday – I dropped off Buffy at work again and this time
went to another supermarket – Walmart!! Yeah, I know I am supposed to be
travelling the world etc etc, but I need my home comforts if I am to stay
somewhere, or at least base myself somewhere, so finding two good shops, both
near the bus routes, for when we have to reluctantly give the BMW back next
week, is a big bonus. I won’t say any more about it, except for the fact that I
also stopped at the beer shop later and found Boddingtons and other decent
beers there too.
My other shopping for the day was to get a printer. I can
print maps, bookings and tickets at the library, but it costs a few cents per
copy and means I have to go when it is open, so I decided if I could find a
cheap printer I would get it. Now $30 is a cheap printer (About £20) – but it
is also a wireless printer with colour and black and white cartridges over
here, so I am now the proud owner of such a printer and have already printed the 10 pages or so for my first trip away next
week – its already paying for itself. It also helped me forget the terrible
display by Man United who just got been beaten by Wigan – Bloody Wigan!! FFS!
Buffy is at her works delayed Christmas party tonight (Yes, I did type that
correctly – a delayed Christmas party) so I have a quiet evening in on my own,
where I am going to do the square root of fuck all!! But we are off out for a
day tomorrow, as she has the day off!!
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| Crabs!! |
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| This shop makes me happy |
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| Inside |
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| What the fuck is this !?! |
The day out was really good fun. We visited a town called
Portage La Prairie, about an hour away, where there is a silo painted to look like
a massive coke can. It claims to be the world’s largest (Even though it
obviously has no coke in it!!) So just for the excuse of seeing that we drove
out through the open prairie. Once we had taken our time to see the can and had
a spot of lunch we went south to a couple of other weird roadside attractions.
In the town of St Claude, they have built ‘The world’s largest smoking pipe’,
as the town was originally colonised by French people from a town where pipe
making was the towns’ trade. Then on the way back to Winnipeg, we stopped in
Elm Creek, where we saw ‘The world’s 2nd largest Fire Hydrant’, a
30metre high monster of a hydrant and the best of the three attractions we went
out to see.
The fun continued into the evening, when we drove to the
north of Winnipeg to do some indoor rock climbing. It’s been a few years since
I had done any of this and it showed as I couldn’t do some of the stuff that
Buffy was doing – particularly the swinging from one rock to another around an
overhang. She does have 15 years in age and about 10kg in weight advantage
though!! Plus longer stringy arms!! Hehehe!
My arms and fingers ached by the end of the evening, but once again it
was fun and a good night.
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| The Fire hydrant |
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| The coke can |
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| The pipe |
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| Jumping the coke can |
Friday was a shitty rainy day, so after driving Buffy to
work, I continued another mile or so to visit The Royal Canadian Mint, to see
coins being made. They make coins for loads of different countries here as
shown by all the flags flying outside. I was lucky that it was a free day and I
was allowed to wander the tourist corridor all alone. I love industrial stuff,
so seeing the raw metal being turned into blanks and then stamped into coins
was fascinating and at one point I spotted a pile of $2 in $1000 boxes. I
counted at least 300 of these $1000 boxes. When I went back down to the gift
shop I also saw a water pool, that people had thrown their coins into, in order
to make a wish. I thought it was quite sad that the coins in there didn’t make
it very far from where they were made and now sit in 2 feet of water, without
ever being spent.
In the gift shop there was a security guard with a bar of
gold. He told me the gold weighed 23lbs (About 10.5kg) and was worth about
$600,000. It was heavy as I lifted it up but was secured to the steel table by
a chain, so I had no chance to nick it. Still, it was a good visit to the mint
and I enjoyed my hour there – even getting a wave off one of the bored workers
as he waited for his pennies to be made.
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| Coins being made |
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| The coins that didnt make it far |
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| Gold in them there hills |
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| Doing the chimney |
Friday evening and I
joined Buffy on a night out at a friends ‘Wedding Social’. Now this is a strange
concept, even for Canada! Basically, it’s a party, put on by a couple who are
getting married soon. First, the couple contacts local shops and businesses and
asks for donations of prizes for a raffle type draw. Then they invite all their
friends and family along to the social, at which they all buy tickets for the
raffle. As usual, the draw takes place and the winners take home their prizes –
But heres the rub – The money made goes towards the cost of the wedding. So it
is a way to make money to pay to get married. No charities, no orphans or ill
donkeys. Just lots of money going towards
a wedding. I must admit, it was a fun enough evening, the prizes were
great – Joel in particular loved the fact that he won a Wii, Xbox Kinect and an
ice cream maker. But it is still a bit of an alien concept for me. They couple
even had their own dance, like a first dance, before the dance-floor filled up,
so it was almost like a wedding reception, but months before the nuptials
themselves. I may have myself a ‘travel social’ and invote a load of people so
that I can make a pile of dosh to pay to go around the world – again. Anyway,
like I say, it was a good night, the girls had a dance, I had a couple of cheap
beers and everyone went home happy.
Saturday I went into town
for wander around and had a great time – First I saw a tank being driven down
the main road by the Town hall Legislative building – Yes, A tank. It turns out there was
some kind of military parade and I had just caught the end of it. I ended up
wandering around the inside of the building after everyone had gone – exploring
the empty corridors and taking photos of the two massive Bison statues in the
entrance foyer. Its a cool building with a dome that you can look up to from
the buildings lower floors all the way through to the roof itself.
After the Town Hall, I
wandered home and came across a Curling Club. The door was open and so I
wandered in and spent half an hour watching a few teams play in a curling
tournament on the ice rink. It is actually a good game to watch, especially
since one of the women playing kept falling over every-time she threw one of the
stones.
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| Joels prizes |
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| The dome |
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| Bison |
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| Haahaa amateur curling |
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| Inside the Legislative building |
Dinner was spent down the
pub on Saturday and Sunday I watched the Grand Prix and football before packing
my stuff to leave tomorrow and get the train to Edmonton. I have been here 2
weeks and cannot wait to get on the road again. I have itchy feet.......
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