Andrea's Musings on the Maritimes

Andrea’s musings on the Maritimes
• Tax - the tax here is a bloody 13% and I never know how much anything is going to cost. At 5% I could do the math in my head and have a basic idea of what am item will cost with tax. But here I’m clueless and it always amazes me when you bring up an item that’s supposed to cost $18.99 and it ends up costing 72 dollars. Seriously, the tax just kills me. It always sounds like a good price until you take it to the till.
o The only good thing is when you’re tipping the waitress - then you just tip the tax.

• The people are so nice and really friendly. When Anna and I were trying to move the heaviest TV ever made that we had just bought we had 3 people randomly stop to ask us if we needed help. And the driving here is amazing too. We haven’t been honked at once even though we’ve made tons of driving mistakes since we’re not used to the roads and signs here. And for me the most amazing thing is that people driving the opposite way on the road will actually stop and let someone make a left turn! I’ve never seen anything like it.

• Store hours - things close early and on Sundays grocery stores can close by 5. Where can you get cheese at 8 o’clock on a Sunday if you’re making nachos and run out?
o But I’m really not used to stores being closed when I want to go in them. I’ve almost walked into a couple of automatic doors simply because it never occurred to me that a store might be closed at 6 on a Sunday. The only things that are open late around here is Tim Horton’s (anyone surprised?) and apparently Walmart is open 24 hours - but that’s only because they’re evil and trying to take over the planet.

• Government run liquor stores - you have to plan ahead to drink here. In Edmonton you can get liquor anytime - even at 2 in the morning. Here stores close by ten on normal nights or 5 on Sundays and sometimes even earlier on holidays. Sometimes they don’t even open at all on the holiday! If you forget to pick up some booze or run out your simply screwed - you can’t just pop out and grab some more whenever you need to.

• No slurpees - I don’t know how I’m going to survive without slurpees. I’m considering opening up a 7-11 franchise just so I can get one. What else can I do? Thank god there’s a 7-11 right by the airport in Edmonton. I’ll warn anybody who will ever pick me up from the airport that 7-11 will be the first stop we make!!

• Fog - I love it. I’m absolutely fascinated by it. Fog was a pretty rare occurrence out west and even when it happened it didn’t last long and wasn’t very much. But I love how the fog can roll in here. So thick and imposing it looks like you shouldn’t even be able to walk or drive through it. It makes things so mysterious, especially when it’s night fog. I love how it hides things in the shadows and I love how neon signs look in it.

• I love the ocean so much! Our apartment is great because we live 5 blocks from the downtown harbor in one direction and ten blocks from Point Pleasant Park in another. Point Pleasant is amazing - it’s this huge park with trees and walking trails that’s on the south tip of the city. There are beaches and grass along the ocean on three sides the park. Anna and I have spent many an afternoon there.
I’ve been trying to make a point of going down the ocean every day. Whether it’s taking a walk down on the waterfront or heading down the beach, just seeing the water puts me in a better mood. Even catching glimpses of the waterfront when we’re walking downtown makes me happy.
I also love watching the boats - I’m fascinated by them and I really hope to befriend people that own boats so we can go on the water.

• Humidity - holy crap did that mess with my hair. For the first few weeks after we hit humidity I had no idea what to do - my hair was constantly a big ball of frizz and curls. I couldn’t tame it to save my life. And it didn’t help that I had the worst haircut ever - I always looked like a giant mushroom-head. It was awful, and Anna didn’t help much because whenever my hair started mushrooming she would start singing “Mushroom-head, mushroom-head, you have a mushroom-head.” (But I have to admit, I made up the song - it was catchy) Not even a ponytail would help since the mushroom layer was so short as soon as I put my hair back the mushroom part was the only part that still showed. Thank God for Anna’s sister Elaine - she cut my hair one day and fixed it so now it curls nicely. I’ve also found some new hair products that help keep the frizz down. Now I actually quite like the curl - but straitening my hair is definitely out - it goes back to curly within an hour - which is a shame because I was getting rather good at straitening my hair back home.

• Milk - for some odd reason milk is really expensive out here. It’s like $3.50 for 2 liters or $6.50 for 4 liters. But I don’t understand why it’s so expensive… have you been to New Brunswick? They have all the cows…

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