Long time no write....

So its been a while since I last blogged, last year in fact, right after the Obama presidential victory.

What's happened since then? Quite a lot but not all stuff I wanted to write about.

I lost a lot of impetus when it came to the blogging and I wasn't too bothered to carry on.

Now before you ask, nothing terrible happened, apart from the death of our dear sweet dog Blackie (whom I've written about many times before). This personal tragedy has been written about quite eloquently by my darling Kata here and there's not a lot I need to add to it other than I'm glad we were both with him when he died and that he didn't suffer in his last days (it would have been much harder to watch our darling lil puppy get older and grumpier and start to suffer from old age).

As to my personal situation; things are in the same approximate limbo as before. We're still not married (still no date set), we're still living together (and extremely happy) and I still love Canada (although the winter we just went through was one hell of a how do you do compared to my first winter here). I'll be heading back to the UK some time next month (tentatively set at 15th May) and I'll be back to take care of a bunch more stuff on the UK side that will hopefully let me cut the final non-familial/friend ties with the "mother country". Here's hoping things go smoothly while I'm over and the weather isn't terrible (mid spring in Scotland is way worse than mid spring in southern Canada) so that my time there will be half decent.

That last paragraph was a bit rambling but that goes with my current frame of mind I guess. Money has been tight recently as we're living off Kata's wages alone (my savings were spent ages ago) and without her job we'd be screwed (by western standards anyway), so finances have been tight, but we've managed. But I will say, apart from our Bubby's death, we're the happiest we've ever been and our lives can only get better once all our crap is sorted out and I can get to earning in Canada.

I'll try and start writing more regularly but I won't promise anything (not that anyone is really clamouring to read my writings) and I may be really preoccupied over the next month what with travelling to the UK and back, so we'll see.

In any case, for anyone who does read this, hey there, I'm still alive and still happy with my darling Kata in wonderful Canada, minus one adorable fluffy lil puppy named Blackie (Andre Jefferson Blackwell the Thurst as we decided one happy day to call him for no good reason).

Canadian Thanksgiving

So its been almost 2 weeks since my last past and that's not a good thing, but its been pretty busy since I came back from my trip to the UK (post to come eventually), we spent a few days being a couple again and then we took a trip to Ottawa for Canadian Thanksgiving.

This was my 2nd Canadian Thanksgiving, last year some 30 or so friends from the Keith and the Girl and Team Drunk Ottawa communities made their way to Ottawa to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving and to have an excuse for drunken revelry. Last year I drove in Canada for the first time, took 6 other people with me (Kata and 5 friends, 2 from the USA) and after 13 hours in one direction and 11 hours in the other direction, we had accomplished a Thanksgiving to remember (for mostly good reasons).

This year Kata and I packed our belongings and our dog Blackie into our rental car and made our way to Ottawa on Saturday. The drive out took approx. 8 hours (we left around 9 and arrived just after 5) and was relatively uneventful. We were staying at a pet friendly hotel in downtown Ottawa (the Comfort Inn just off junction 115 of the 417 highway) and settled in for a couple of hours before we headed out for an evening with our friends at the Heart and Crown pub. The year before we had gone to the same pub and taken up 3 large tables, this year we all fit on one large table and we had a great time with our friends catching up and enjoying the food (really good for pub grub). We hung out for close to 4 hours and then headed back to our hotel to rest up for the next day.

The next morning we awoke relatively early and joined the other residents of the hotel for our complimentary continental breakfast (always a good thing). The selection was decent, mostly baked goods (bagel, english muffin, muffin, waffles, bread) some cereals, fruit, coffee, tea, etc. After breakfast we headed out to visit Kata's uncle George and her parents who were in Ottawa to have thanksgiving with her uncle. We only visited for an hour as her parents had a lot planned to do that day (the day before they had visited a tractor museum, Kata's step-dad is a tractor "nut" who has his own show tractor and plowing tractor which he competes in plowing matches with) so we headed back to our hotel to relax a while before heading out to a friend's house for the thanksgiving meal.

We picked up a couple of our friends from the Ottawa Jail Hostel (a number of our friends had stayed there the year before also) and we headed out on the 417 highway into the wilds of the Ottawa countryside. The drive was around 30 minutes and we ended up at our friend's house where we were to have our Thanksgiving meal. It was a pot luck and people were bringing all kinds of food (mostly desert). We brought a Tofurky with us (for the vegetarians amongst us) and our gracious hosts (the McDonalds, Dr Bri and Juanita) took care of the turkey and most of the fixings, vegetarian stuffing, potatoes, all manner of vegetables and other delicious, if not vegetarian, savoury foods (a beef roast was also brought by one of our friends (Mr Rhi)).

All manner of deserts were laid out after the main course, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheese cake, an apple pie (can't remember the exact type but it was delicious), blueberry muffins (from scratch), McCain frozen cake (a Canadian classic) and peanut butter pie (one of our friend's speciality pies, thanks as always Rickeh). I'm sure there were some other deserts but my mind has been clouded by the sugar overload (wink).

After all the wonderful food we all relaxed, talked and made merry. After an hour or so, a chorus of "happy birthday" began, I was bemused, no one had told me it was someones birthday, then it dawned on me my friends were singing for me, my birthday isn't until the 20th, but coincidentally thanksgiving was the 1st anniversary of my living in Canada, so they had sprung a double surprise on me. Our friend Amy had arranged with my darling Kata and our friend Rhi to get me a cake, with purple icing (one of my favourite colours of late) and celebrate my time in Canada so far. It was really adorable, the cake had "happy birthday dev" on it (my nickname of course) and they had a "1" candle for me to blow out. The candle managed to blow itself out thanks to the breeze from the aircon (or from the open window) and then I cut the cake whilst Kata took pictures. Everyone was already stuffed so not much cake was eaten (I took a slice) but the thought and execution totally counted.

The evening continued with a viewing of the previous week's Family Guy (I dream of Jesus) and later a game of Scene It on Xbox 360 (my team came 3rd the first game and 2nd (after leading for much of the game) in the 2nd game). By the time we were finished playing things were winding down, people were starting to get tired so we headed back to the city, dropping off a couple of friends at their respective hotels and then returned to our hotel to take care of Blackie and head to sleep ourselves.

The final day, Thanksgiving day itself, we had breakfast again, packed up and checked out of our hotel. We then headed over to Rhi's apartment where we planned to leave Blackie for a few hours as we were heading out to the Elgin Street Diner for our 2nd annual Thanksgiving farewell brunch. Many of our friends had the Poutine, for which the diner is most famous and after the repast we said our farewells and headed back to collect Blackie.

The drive home was relatively uneventful, although traffic was quite dense in a number of places (near Oshawa and Cobourg and some near Milton). Despite the traffic, the drive home took around 9 and a half hours and we rolled into our apartment's parking lot around 11pm, tired but glad to be home after another great Thanksgiving weekend.

p.s. here's a link to pictures Kata took over the Thanksgiving weekend

Going "Home" part 1

Foreword: This is late, very late, but whatever, I'm gonna post it now and part 2 later once I get it all written.

Well I went back to the UK for a week as I said in my last "filler" post and a number of things happened; I spent time with my mother, I spent most of 24 hours travelling, I slept on a couch for 6 days and I managed to turn half my back into a mess of pain.

I guess a little explanation is needed, so here we go; I needed to cross the Atlantic for a couple of reasons, for one my visitor's visa was about to expire (although to be honest Canada isn't that worried so long as you're not trying to work or claim for anything), and I still had to tell my mother the plans that Kata and I had with regards to marriage and our future.

I booked my flights with about 6 days warning, which caused no little amount of anguish to my darling Kata (and to me naturally) and I sorted out my other travel requirements (Airbus to Toronto airport and back) and then spent my last few days before travelling with Kata trying not to think about 7 days away from her and our life.

The day of my trip came on Wednesday 24th September and after a last afternoon of passion and affection, I left our apartment and started my trek to London, England. The first leg of the trip is always pretty easy, get into the airbus and wait for 100 to 120 minutes for the driver to head along the 401 highway to YYZ (Toronto Pearson).

This journey there were 3 other passengers and another driver being taken to Pearson to pickup a vehicle. The driver and one of the passengers were both of American origin, although the driver also has Canadian citizenship and in very little time talk turned to politics. Frustration at the American banks which were collapsing with alarming frequency, disgust at the banks' directors who were bring given "golden parachute" payments from the banks despite their clear ineptitude, anger at the politicians who had allowed such things to befall the nation due to lack of regulation and wonder at whom would be capable, if any, to restore the nation and more so the world's finances back to a steady ship as opposed to the sinking ravaged hulk that we were being shown every day.

Debate did run over the presidential candidates and their running mates; concern over the very notion that the GOP candidate would win and very real concern that if somehow he did win, he could very well die before the end of his term and leave his woefully inadequate running mate in charge of the world's most powerful democracy. The consensus however was that Obama would win the election but not if voters were complacent "every vote counts" was certainly mentioned, although as I've mentioned previously, truly every vote doesn't really count, or at least doesn't count for as much thanks to the vagueries (british spelling) of the electoral college system used in the presidential election (swing vote is a fantasy movie, not based in reality in the slightest, although I must admit I've not seen the movie for fear or wishing ill on Kevin Costner, nah not really, it just looks terrible).

So in any case, after listening for a while to the conversation I sat back and relaxed listening to music on my Creative Zen media player and I drifted off for a while. When we arrived at the airport I was the first to leave the bus since terminal 3 is first on the drop off route (International travel is for the most part handled by terminal 3 of Pearson). I headed in, picked up my ticket (as I'd booked less than 2 weeks before travel I had to get my ticket at the travel desk) and then I checked in for my flight. I took a short wander around the shopping area, not that there's a huge amount of it in terminal 3, and then I headed for security. Now at the risk of being misunderstood, the following is without prejudice or overstating, every time I've travelled out of Toronto, and I've done it 4 times now, I've noted that the vast majority of the security staff and store workers on the departure side of the terminal are of Indian descent (India the Asian country as opposed to the native American peoples), mostly 1st generation immigrants. The Tim Hortons (a bastion of Canadian coffee shops) is entirely operated by Indians (I assume the franchise is owned by an Indian family and they have brought relatives to Canada to work with/for them), the other food emporia and stores also have a high percentage of Indian staff. Its kinda weird but I take it as part of the rich Canadian culture of immigration which enriches the nation (I for one know that immigration is a positive activity after all I'm technically an immigrant about to emigrate once more).

One thing I suck at is waiting for things to happen, in this case I get pretty bored and antsy waiting for the flight to board and ultimately take off. My frame of mind is that until I get on the plane and the doors close I'm still responsible for what happens. After the doors close, its out of my hands and things are down to the flight crew, only then do I relax, or at least try to relax.

Anyway, as I was saying, because of the way things are these days, you have to wait around for 2 to 3 hours before your flight takes off and of course you need to keep entertained, fortunately I'm used to trying to keep myself entertained and I always take way too much stuff with me, so I settled down, stuck a DVD into my portable DVD player and started watching. I only managed 20 minutes before boarding started. Since I had asked for a seat near the back and on the aisle (leg room and proximity to the emergency exit in case of disaster) I was in the first major group to be boarded. I reached my seat (28D) and got myself set for the journey ahead, magazine, creative zen, bottle of water, hoodie, then I waited to see if I would be lucky enough to get an empty row or at least a seat between me and 28F (the other aisle seat on the central section of the airbus A310). Unfortunately the entire row and in fact the entire aircraft filled up and the passenger to my immediate right (28E) was an above average width adult male (less wide than me but still wider than say Kate Moss).

I have never been able to sleep properly on a plane. Trans-Atlantic flights are moderately long, 7 to 8 hours, and west to east are "best" done over night so that you can sleep on the flight and be fresh in the morning when you land. Unfortunately for me that doesn't work, the planes are uncomfortable and busy. I'm a big man and although I fit relatively well into the seats, my shoulder width means I get bumped almost constantly when people walk past me. The length of my legs mean I have to leave one leg in the aisle if I want to improve my comfort level, which again causes problems. Also thanks to my shoulder width my head is mode forward than most in the seat, which means for comfort reasons I need to have a pillow behind my head for any length of flight.

OK moaning aside, the flight was pretty normal, the movies were meh (Indiana Jones 4 which sucked and Vantage Point which I'd seen with Kata in the Cinema. Although I did watch Indiana Jones 4 to see how badly they had destroyed the Indiana Jones franchise. To my mind the recent South Park episode said it better than I ever can), the food was fine (it was President's Choice Indian food) and after 8 hours of passing out for 20 minutes every hour or so, we were finally landing at Gatwick airport. I made my way from the airport to Fulham Broadway underground station where I met my mother and we made our way to Hendon where she lives.

To be continued...

Work

I'm trying to find a job, really I am. Its hard though when you're trying to find work in another country. Well it is when you go from the EU to anywhere else. The EU has an open borders and open work policy (for the most part) within the original EU countries (about 12). If you are from one of those countries you can move around amongst them, live and work there, no problems, no questions asked. Its a nice system but its one I never had to take advantage of.

I'm in Canada now and the situation is this, I want to live here, most likely for the rest of my life, I want to work here, pay my taxes to this nation and partake in all it offers whilst taking back as little as necessary (the way the government want it).

I have skills, I have a diploma in Stained Glass Production Techniques (a level 2 skilled job on the NOC list) and I speak English fluently (naturally) and I have basic French (from high school). I've never been in trouble with the Police in any country, I don't do drugs, I don't smoke, I drink responsibly and infrequently and I'm healthy.

I've absolutely fallen in love with this country and its people and all I want is the chance to give of myself to this nation. If I'd decided on this and thought about it properly I'd have applied for some kind of work visa or the skilled worker immigration, but I didn't, I was thinking only about how much I loved my new life with my darling Kata and what the future would hold.

I've applied to a number of glass companies in Ontario now, waiting to hear from most of them with regards to any interest (one did reply saying they don't do anything with stained glass, although my skill cover everything they are looking for to fill the job). I think the real reason they weren't interested is they don't want to go through the hassle of proving that the job they are trying to fill couldn't be done by a Canadian worker.

Its a bit of a catch 22 for an employer, I'm looking for someone to work for me, I can't find anyone easily and there's a foreigner wanting to do the job, but technically in Canada somewhere there's someone who can do the job. I know that's probably not the way it goes, but still, it make my side of things harder.

There is one relatively simple way for us (Kata and I) to fix things, get married. We had planned to marry next year, in June of 2009, but it looks like we may well have to bring that forward, which causes problems with getting people to come for the festivities etc, but we'll see.

So if you believe in crossing your fingers or some other superstition (prayer, stinky socks etc), do them for me getting a job some time really soon, thanks (I won't though, I'm not superstitious).

Cycling in London Ontario

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I got a junker bike to use as a runaround in London, so in the last few days I've been using it and starting to build up my cycle fitness again.

So the basics, its a mountain bike, was a front suspension but the suspension is seized solid, which is fine as my last bike in the UK was a full rigid mountain bike. It has 21 gears (7 on the wheel and 3 on the pedals) but I'm the kind of cyclist who never uses the pedal cogs other than the largest (my legs are a testament to the power I put into my cycling). I also generally never go lower than the 3rd gear on the wheel and will cruise on 4th or 5th gear (about 42 to 24 for 3rd and 42 to 18 for 5th).

Back in the UK I used to ride to college 3 or 4 days a week, each day would be around 24 miles round trip, the journey mostly took me through town and city streets and some small part was on a cycle path along the river Clyde. The trip would take me about 1 hour each way, depending on weather conditions and traffic (some days its pretty ridiculous). Many of my friends said I was stupid to do it and some days I had to agree with them (gale force winds, driving rain, blown and shredded tyre, abandoning bike over night and walking 1/2 mile carrying both wheels) but I enjoyed the cycle, loved the exercise and saw the benefit it made in my health.

The last time I cycled any great amount was in February of 2008 when I was back in the UK for a couple of weeks. I haven't owned a car for a long time (more than 4 years) and the bike was my every day vehicle. If I needed something from the store I'd hop on my bike and head out.

As I mentioned previously, I've "had" a bike in Canada since November last year, but due to laziness and the winter that came along, I never sorted out the 10 speed racing bike. When the opportunity of a cheap bike to run around town on came about (see previous post) I jumped on the chance. For the first few days I used the bike just to pop down to the local Valu-mart or the post office, rides of not more than 2km, however on Friday we needed more things than I could easily get at Valu-mart (Tofurkey for one) and I decided to take a ride out to the Masonville mall area of the city.

I mapped the route on Google (although I already knew it from the bus rides and the car drives we've taken out there) more to see how far it was than to actually get directions. The route works out to 4.8km each way, so I got my gear on (so far its just riding gloves here) and filled up my water bottle.

The day was warm, around 26C, there was almost no breeze and the sun was blazing, as it seems to do all summer over here. The bike is far from perfect for me, the saddle is a little too low, the frame is a standard 18" (back in the UK I rode a 21" with the saddle way up) and back in the UK I had bike shoes with clip pedals.

The ride to Masonville is relatively uneventful, there are a few hills and train tracks to cross but nothing major. I set off and managed to arrive at the train crossing just as an East to West CN cargo train was rolling through the city as they appear to do many times a day. I was waiting for a good 5 minutes as the massive freight train rolled by but once it cleared I set off once again.

I remembered just in time that I had to stop off at the Post Office to send off a package and took a short break there while I dealt with things. Heading back out I got myself back onto the road so that I could head back out on my journey. The first hill came along pretty quickly and while its not a hard hill, it took me by surprise a little and it taxed me for the first time in a while. As I mentioned earlier I never drop below 3rd gear even when climbing (unless its a monster climb) and I had to work pretty hard, the low saddle position making me have to use more energy than I normally would. The hill drops off after a short while and the road levels off for a km or so, but then there's more climbing, its gentle and relatively easy, but its pretty constant.

By no account was the ride hard, but the weather and the return to cycling was making me dehydrate quicker than normal. By the time I reached my destination I'd already gone through 2/3 of my water. I took care of my shopping and headed back out onto the road for the mostly downhill return home.

On the way home a couple of college kids in a car did what stupid kids do in cars to cyclists all over, they shouted as they passed, to which I returned a couple of expletives (as usual). The only other issue I had was to deal with the "right turn on a red light" issue whereby instead of hugging the side of the road as in the UK, I had to keep out of turning lanes and avoid cars going round me to turn.

In general the drivers were more well behaved than UK drivers and the cycle, although tiring, was really good fun and a nice introduction to local riding.

Saturday morning I had to pop to the pharmacy to get some anti-biotics for Kata (she has an infected piercing) so I took my bike to save time and get some more saddle time in. After the pharmacy I headed down to the Tim Horton's near Kata's work to get her a Timmies breakfast (she started work at 7am) and then meet her for her lunch break. After lunch I headed back home again, another few km under my belt.

Sunday morning, Kata was craving a McGridle breakfast, so I took my bike again and headed for the nearest McDonald's, which is in the heart of downtown's most ghetto crossing, Dundas and Richmond. As I waited to enter the establishment, 5 ghetto "gangstas" were leaving, I held the door for them and waited for them to leave, no thanks were rendered, but I didn't expect any. This branch of McDonald's has a walk up window, just so you know, but I had no intention of using it, hence why I walked in. Once I had my order I headed back out to make my way to Kata's work and she had her breakfast/lunch. While we were talking I was thinking I had nothing to do that afternoon and I wanted to take a cycle, this time I thought I'd head out the other side of the city and make my way to the White Oaks area and the White Oaks mall.

The ride to White Oaks is further, about 6.4km and there's far more climbing involved, riding along Wellington Road, from around Grand Ave almost to Bradley Ave where the mall starts, its a steady climb, harder than the climb to Masonville and much longer, the temperature was in the mid 20s again and the sun was blazing, so once again my water wasn't lasting. I kept going, because I rarely give up and I made it to White Oaks before long and headed into the mall for a wander around.

I didn't do much more than wander, although I did visit the WalMart to use the bathroom, then I wandered around again until I was bored and headed out. I decided to visit Canadian Tire for the first time and was quite impressed by the place, I didn't buy anything and headed out again.

My water was almost empty and I decided to stop on the way back home at the A&P supermarket to pick up some water, or in this case, a can of Arizona Iced Tea (honey and ginseng flavour). I picked up a couple of other things and headed back out again, refreshed and raring to go. The rest of the ride home was uneventful and I got back, hot and sweaty, but certainly happy.

I'm planning a lot more cycles around the city now. There are a bunch of cycle paths through the parks along the Thames which I'm considering taking (although the mosquitoes and black fly may make them less enjoyable), but I am planning a big cycle around the outskirts of the city, which should be around a 35km circuit, something that I'll build up to in a couple of weeks I'm pretty sure.

So I'm finally back on my bike, building up my bike fitness and enjoying myself in the nice weather. I best make the most of it before the snows come again.

Body Modifications

Preface; I have a piercing and two tattoos, my fiancee Kata has lots of piercings and tattoos.

Back in the UK people with tattoos generally were of a certain type, mostly the "working" class. At least that's the perception for most of them. Some of the people with tattoos are of the extreme sports type, so they have their tattoos as a form of uniform. In any case tattoos in the UK for the majority of people are looked down upon as a low class thing to have done to your body. Its a strange attitude but that's the way it is.

Piercings are another matter. They have become very common all over the western world, ears. lips, noses, eyebrows, navels especially, then there's the ones you can't see...

I got my tattoos for my own reasons, not to be cool, but for significant reasons. My wolf tattoo is a tribute to my father (I designed it myself) and my KATG tattoo is a tribute to the podcast that I love and led me to meet my darling Kata, she has a similar tattoo (we designed them together). The fact that they are unique makes them more important to me and I've not regretted having them in any way. With that in mind I don't know why anyone would get a tattoo that they don't design themselves, or why you would ever regret a tattoo that you put on yourself.

Now I understand that some people do things without thinking, you know, when drunk, or just being a reactionary idiot, but honestly if you're going to do anything to your body that you can't reverse easily and you're not 100% certain you want it for the rest of your life, DON'T DO IT.

Body modification is an interesting issue. Its a practice that's been around as long as human culture, but its only become popular (again) in the western world in the last 50 to 100 years.

The most obvious form is ear piercing, nothing unusual there, but there are extreme forms of ear modification, not only piercing every part of the ear but also shaping the ear to some other form, from lobe stretching to take larger items e.g. huge hollow plugs to amputating parts of the ear to shape them into elfin/vulcan forms. Why? I've no idea, some people are just, well, crazy...

Tattooing which I've already covered is a form of body mod, a very ancient form that's been around for thousands of years, although in recent decades. Many people will go through the process of covering their entire body in tattoos (something that is very common among the criminal underclasses of Japan).

The list of body mods are huge and growing, one of the more recent is scarification, the process where scaring is made purposefully on the skin by removal of tissue to produce a desired image. Now I say its new, but only in the western world really, its a practice that's been around for many generations in African culture and other parts of the world.

I had a point when I started this post and I guess I'll get to it around now. In the UK I could see people with certain forms of body mod, mostly tattoos and piercings, not much more than that. When I came to Canada I started to notice a greater range and variety of body mods on show in the "wild" so to speak. Rarely a day goes by when I don't see someone with big plugs in their lobes, or multiple facial piercings (a seeming favourite is two lower labial facial piercings on either side of the chin), people with tattoos are extremely common, from all facets of society.

Granted there are a large number of tattoo and piercing parlors in London (15 by Google's count of tattoo businesses in London Ontario) which suggests that there's a market for them. The question I ask myself is, are they a factor of the society's acceptance of what was an underground art form, or are they driving the market by their existence?

I'm of the opinion that people make their own choices in life and that its hard to force someone to do something they are against, however its clear that peer pressure can be a strong driving force in many people's lives.

What I'm getting at is if you are going to carry out any form of body modification upon yourself, think of the long term ramifications before you take any action. Most importantly, DO NOT piece the ears of a child that isn't even out of nappies (diapers) as they don't for one second have the ability to know what the hell you have done, nor why you did it, you vain idiot (I have seen it with my own eyes and wished the child could be taken to a safer life).

Politeness and manners

I was going to post this blog yesterday (the 12th) but as I mentioned in today's other post, I ran out of time and ability not to pass out. In any case here it is...

As you all probably know I was raised in Scotland, part of the United Kingdom and home of all the books on manners from almost all eras. The British pride themselves on their manners and general politeness and for some people the greatest crime is to be rude or impolite.

When I was younger its true that people were friendlier and more courteous to strangers, Scotland still is a very friendly place, but the overall level is dropping. In part I suppose it mat be a break down of the class boundaries, the increase in casual culture, the rise of the Chav/Ned in "popular" culture, or its just an ennui with the norms of our forefathers, or all of the above. In any case its a shame that its happening.

Before I came to Canada I knew that the people were meant to be friendly. The world view of Canada tends to be that its the smaller cousin of the USA where people are generally nicer and don't kill each other as much (travellers from the USA will often pretend to be Canadians abroad). They also think its snowy all year, that polar bears roam widely and there are igloos all over the place (here's a compilation of questions people have asked about Canada).

Anyway I was almost digressing, in my time here in Canada I've found that in general the Canadian people, whatever their creed or colour, are extremely polite (apart from the odd idiot naturally, especially of the ghetto variety), they are genuinely pleased to make your acquaintance (or at least pretend they are much better than most other people I've met).

In the USA when someone tells you to "have a nice day" most of the time you feel like they really wish you'd die on the way home and never bother them again, its almost used as a cudgel of nicety, "HAVE *bash* A NICE *thud* DAY!!!! *smash*, but in Canada, they use it the way its intended, "have a nice day (nice person who didn't ruin my day)". Its really sweet and makes me feel warm inside.

I have always been a friendly and polite person, although with age I'm finding it harder to "suffer fools gladly", but that's just world weariness creeping in. That said I feel more at home here. When I walk the streets, either with or without Blackie, people are more likely to say hello to me as I approach, quick to smile and enquire about your well being. Sure that's not everyone, I'd be lying if I said otherwise, but the majority of people I've met randomly have been really nice. In social situations the people I've met have been generally nicer too.

Most of my experience comes from friends and family of my fiancee Kata, which certainly speaks of her character (friends) and upbringing (family). There is an underlying trend in Canadians though. In the cities, even Toronto, people live a faster pace of life (although apart from Toronto its glacial compared to the UK) but the people are still really nice. In the towns life is even more sedate and seemingly the people are even nicer, although my experience on that part is limited to Ontario and for all I know the people in Manitoba could be horrendous, but from the few Manitobans I've known, they've been nice too.

All in all, I'm saying Canadians are a sweet nation of people.

Sales tax

Here's something that still riles me, its the way sales tax is handled in Canada and the rest of North America (least I think they do the same in Mexico...)

In the UK, where I grew up, we have something called VAT or Value Added Tax, its the same as sales tax and its applied to any luxury items of groceries and pretty much everything else. So far so the same. In the UK though, its an invisible tax. How so? Well the tax is included into the price of the goods you buy. If something costs £1 that's what you pay, you don't get to the cashier and get hit with paying £1.18 (VAT is 17.5%). The only time you ever have to deal with VAT is at a wholesale store when the people buying there tend to be businesses who can claim VAT against their taxes.

The first time in North America, I didn't bother with prices, I was in New York City for a Keith and the Girl meet up and I was hanging out with friends, getting drunk, having crazy fun and not paying attention to the price of things.

When I came back to North America, I was visiting Canada, staying with Kata, having fun, hanging out, we went to Toronto to hang out with Keith and the Girl friends once again and once again, not bothering about prices.

A few months later, I came back to Canada, this time to stay long term. Then I started to pay attention. You go to the store and you buy something, the tag on the shelf says $2, you get to the cashier and you're asked to hand over $2.26. My mind goes "huh?" OK that's an easy example because my mental arithmetic skills are pretty good, but if you go grocery shopping, you can't just take the price of what you are buying, add it all up and add 13% (in Ontario the sales tax is 8% PST (provincial sales tax) and 5% GST (goods and services tax which goes to the federal government)) because not all goods in a grocery store have PST and GST applied.

Sure I know this isn't really a big deal, but in the UK I used to pride myself on working out exactly what I had to pay before the checkout operator was done ringing up my sale, I'd have the exact change ready for them and give them that little extra surprise to make their day a little less of a drudgery.

Oh and of course when I go into a store like Best Buy or Future Shop to buy something big and pricey, like an iPod, or an Xbox, or a TV, I'd like to just pay the ticket price, not have to remember that whatever I'm buying is actually 13% more expensive, if it says $499, why can't I pay $499? Is it so hard to price items with tax? At least on a province by province or state by state basis, please?

I'm pissing in the wind here, I know it won't change, not so long as each state or province has its own tax values and people are used to the idea of paying more than the ticket price... woe is me, all on my own, maybe...

Multiculturalism and Mongrels

I felt my other post today was a bit short. It was going to be a bit different, but I ended up with what I posted. So I thought I'd post another entry to make up for it...

In part this post comes out of my post about pets, more specifically mutts, also known as mongrels.

I grew up in the UK, a country influenced by its history of invasion, empire building and post war immigration. In London especially you can find people from all nations of the world (like pretty much every other major city in the western world) and this mix of cultures, creeds and colours has given the UK a wonderful mix of viewpoints, skin colours and culture.

I myself am a mix of 3 different nations (from my parents and many more from my grandparents and beyond), Scotland, Lithuania and Italy (via Israel). This doesn't make me anything unusual in terms of people of my generation born in Israel as there has been a massive influx of Jews from all over the globe to the country which led to a tumultuous mix of people united under one culture.

I grew up in Scotland, as I've mentioned before, and we were the only Jewish family in our neighbourhood for all of my formative years, we were also the only family who spoke a foreign language (Hebrew around the house and sometimes outside) and my mother was the only clearly foreign person for miles around (she still to this day speaks with a European accent even though she speaks fluent English).

Sometimes this wasn't such a great thing, I suffered some racial abuse (if you call Jews a race) and bullying, which wasn't helped by my being a fat kid for a long time (not super fat, but enough to get teased).

It took a long time before I realised that my family and my cultural mix made me more interesting than your average local who's family could trace generations of predecessors to the same insular area. I became proud to be a mongrel, rather than ashamed.

In the last 10 years, Scotland in particular has seen an influx of immigrants, certainly there were always Chinese and Pakistani populations while I was growing up (one thing that most bigots won't turn their noses at are the delicious foods that immigrants brought with them), Chinese and more recently Indo-Pakistani foods have been staples for most households, but now there's an even wider range of people and foods. Proper Mexican, Thai, Lebanese, Turkish, Ethiopian, Mongol, Caribbean, well you get my point.

As I've said, as far as multicultarlity (i hope that's a proper word) goes I'm nothing special, my parents and their parents all came from Europe, but considering the diverse cultures that developed in Europe, its still and interesting mix. What I'm trying to get at is I love multicultural societies and in Canada I've found a good one.

It took me a while to find this page and I hope it works, but just in case I'll summarise it briefly. In 2006 there were 31 million people in Canada, of that the majority are British and French, but after that most of the nations of the world are represented with a large skew to Europe, but there's more than 3 million of Asian origin and more than a million of African origin.

What can I say, I'm proud to be a mongrel and I'm proud to live in a multicultural society.