Canucks and a Weekend of Fun!

We went to a NHL game! Bucket list, check. Sadly they didn't win, lost in time overtime actually. That was a bummer. I might just stick with the Blazers from now on.

These smiles would have been even bigger had they won... 

Fancy shmancy rink with two Zambonis!

So weekend of fun went something like this...

• Drive to Vancouver and meet Alexis and Hal
• Have delish seafood feast at Joe Fortes
• Watch Canucks game
• Meet Greg and Lil at farewell drinks (not theirs)
• Sleep
• Drive back to Kamloops, and drop O'Hara at work
• 3 hour nap
• Pick up O'Hara and go to 65th birthday party
• Drop O'Hara home and go to karaoke birthday party
• Sing until nearly 2am
• Sleep
• Meet Wilson's and Dave and Kim for coffee
• Softball tourney for 5 hours
• Pick up O'Hara
• BBQ at Alexis and Hal's house

Also the weather was in the 30s. Aaahhhhhhhh-mazing! 

So for my delish seafood feast I had oysters and scallops. Oysters I've decided are better in Canada, than they are in Aus. I don't know why exactly, but I think it's because they are a bit smaller and more flavourful! 

Karaoke party for Sarah's birthday was so fun, I'm was still struggling with my voice. 4 days later! There were wigs and dress ups and some sweet dance moves. Jo and Gerad have a sweet set up at their place. There is a downstairs tiki bar, and now I have a new goal in my life! 

Beautiful -> Not so beautiful

Karaoke is better in costume. Fact

The softball tourney actually ran Saturday and Sunday, but I could only make it one day. A bit sad as the Saturday sounded out of control. They turned softball into stumps! Shotgun a beer, and the amount of time it takes to finish it is the amount of seconds you have to spin with your head on the bat. Apparently it ended with a lot of people on their butts! Hilarious. Sadly though at the end of the day we lost in the grand final. This is my first season playing softball so I'm not contributing a lot. Still, I've made it home a few times and got a couple of people out. It's about the best I can hope for! We bought our own gloves, so now it's just work to break them in and make them awesome. It's hard to get used to catching left handed, but I figure I'm better at that than throwing left handed. Also, I throw like a girl. I'm being trained by O'Hara.... Fitzy I feel you would have been much more useful on the pitch than we are. O'Hara's cut shots deliver a bit of a shock down right field but we both need a lot of practice!

Spring, not as exciting as you'd expect

In what feels like forever, the most exciting things in my life have been Boogie, our amazing Anzac Day/Farewell party and the Blazers made it to the final round of the playoffs (only to be ousted by jerky Portland).

I'd love to post more photos from the party, but I'm 90% sure we'd be fired

So, Boogie the Bridge is an annual run held downtown Kamloops last weekend. I did my first fun run in about a zillion years! Well tried. I still can't run 5k, I'm sure that's supposed to be a really easy distance! There is a 5k, 10k and 21k and this year 2400 people ran/walked. All for charity, it was a lot of fun. There's a bunch of people cheering and playing music along the way. I was told that would make it really easy to run, but those people lied to me.

I've always wanted to bite a medal!

Aside from that, Spring has been SLOW. The weather seems to be hit and miss (no smugness), Kamloops is dry as hell (dryer than Cobar, imagine that!!) so there's no lovely flowers and not a lot is really going on. Hence why my blog posts have been about zero. Luckily, life is looking up!

It's playoffs time in the NHL, Alexis and Hal got us tickets and we're going to see the Canucks play! Excited is an understatement. Lets go Canucks!

Next weekend it's a spa getaway, next it's camping with the bears and after that it's LA. So. Pumped! Also beach volleyball has started, we're playing softball and boot camp is outside. Vitamin D levels are on the up and my body thanks me.

Look forward to some way more exciting stories!

Birthday Beer Weekend in Penticton

Do you know what the best part about celebrating holidays/birthdays in Canada? Because we are so far behind (time wise) we generally get to celebrate twice. This works particularly well for birthdays, as you technically age the required number of years the day before your actual birth date. I worked it hard over those two days!

So on Friday in Canada, it was my birthday in Australia and my lovely colleagues bought me cake and sung to me. I also got a huge smiley balloon that is still sitting in my office.

So happy. My balloon and I match!

Unfortunately O'Hara had to work the weekend of my birthday (sometimes a 7/7 schedule blows!), but luckily for me Alexis and Hal invited me to Penticton for the weekend for Fest of Ale. They also took me out for brunch, bought me brilliant "birthday princess" attire and Alexis' parents cooked me an awesome BBQ for birthday dinner.

Now you're probably starting to judge me, as this is the third "alcohol tasting" event I've been to in 3 months, but don't. Fest of Ale is a beer tasting festival that is held every year. They include international beers but the majority are from breweries in BC. Tastings were $2 each, but tickets to the event were only $20. I think in the end I paid about the same as a wine festival. Apparently tastings used to be free, but it turned into such right off that they had to start charging.

There was a kilt... and a princess

Fest of Ale was a bunch of fun. I've decided it's much harder to drink beer for 6 hours than wine. I was suffering from a 6pm hangover for sure.

Again lucky me, I got a THIRD birthday celebration last weekend. We had chocolate raspberry cheesecake. I'm just going to let that one sink in... I really am so spoilt!

Easter at Revelstoke

One hill that we'd heard so much about was Revelstoke. I know a lot of people who say it's their favourite ski hill. Something about having a lot of snow and awesome backcountry runs. They didn't lie.

Some Australian friends from Vancouver had organised a giant house, and invited us to stay for the weekend. Thanks guys! So nice :) I think we counted 17 people all up, with people from Australia (mostly), Canada, Wales, Persia (??) and Norway.

Snowman and sun, there's nothing better

Now Easter weather in Australia, could learn something from the weather in Canada. It was ridiculously nice. T-shirt and shorts in the sun good, though I know a lot of you won't believe me. This was only 2 weeks into Spring, so I am hanging out for an incredible summer. You guys in the southern hemisphere got one, it's now our turn. So some really fantastic weather over the previous few weeks meant there wasn't a huge amount of snow on the hill, luckily a fantastic season prior ensured there was good snow out there it was just a little harder to find.

It's snowing!

Our snowboarding skills seemed to experience exponential growth in the last few weeks of the season. I am hoping that it's like riding a bike, and the start of next season won't be like the start of this one. We went up for a day during the week before Easter with one of O'Hara's friends from work. He had us doing double black diamonds (steep as F), and showed us some amazing runs that we hadn't been able to take advantage of before then.

Standard jump shot

So when our new friends told us about an amazing run at the back of Revelstoke where you had to hike up a small hill and drop off a mini-cliff, we were slightly nervous (for me mostly about walking up a hill) but agreed. As you can probably tell, we survived and had a fabulous time. I fell over a stack, probably only managed about 5 turns, got ran into, experienced a deep burn in my thighs and failed significantly at a jump.

Your snowboard should be under your legs...

It was really nice hanging out with a big group of Australians again, it kinda made me homesick as there seems to be a certain vibe with a group like that. Our drive back was lovely and we found some cool places to enjoy the sun and Greg's birthday. I can't wait for summer!

Grraaww

Twelve Months in Canada - What I don't Miss from Aus

This weekend marks 12 months since we first EVER arrived in Canada. It was our first time being in the Country and we had no idea what to expect. We were told we would be cold 24/7 (lies), that Canadians are just like Australians (lies) and that we would love it here (fact).

I'd like to think our first year has been a resounding success. Everybody loves us, the move was completely smooth and work has been just perfect. HA! I kid! However looking back nothing has been so difficult we've looked at jobs back home, there's been no (out of the normal) tears, and we've most definitely had a positive experience.  We've met some incredible people, made friends that we will have for the rest of our lives, had new experiences with friends from home and managed to catch up with some of our friends in North America. A resounding success I think, though maybe not from the first reasons listed.

In honour of the country that's hosted us for the last 12 months, here's a list of 6 things I do NOT miss about Australia.

1. Bogans
Now Canada has rednecks, there is no denying this. However I am yet to see a "Fuck Off We're Full!" sticker on the back of anyone's car. The worst racist/ignorant comment I've heard was from a British cab driver who said he moved to Kamloops from the UK because there were too many coloured people in England. Lovely!

2. Always buying last seasons fruit
You would think since we have such a huge agricultural business that you'd be able to buy true fresh fruit and veg at the supermarket. I lived in Tasmania for 18 years, and could never work out why it's so hard to get a good apple.

3. The evil rich people and radio shock jocks
These people make me sad, and embarrassed to be Australian. Gina Rinehart in particular, who thinks poor people are all lazy drunks. I'm pretty sure you worked SUPER hard getting that inheritance. Eating most likely..... It's like their only focus in life is to become richer, no matter the cost to their families, friends or reputation.

The radio shock jocks have no place in an intelligent society. Laws, Sandilands and Jones I'm looking at you. You pander to stupid people and give them justification for their ridiculous views. GO AWAY!

4. Unexplainable high prices
This same thing happens in Canada, there was a Government inquiry and they found out one of the main reasons is that suppliers aren't negotiating better deals because "Canadians are used to paying more". I'm pretty sure the same thing happens in Australia. Why on earth is a jar of moisturiser in Canada $50 and in Australia $85? No legitimate reason I guarantee.

5. Politics
Our current government is a joke, the opposition is a joke. Every so often things that I'm actually proud of happens (carbon tax, NBN etc.), but I'm sure none of it will last.

6. The flies
This is a country thing. It's a bad country thing. It's almost like those bastards enjoy drinking insect repellent. If/when the drought kicks back in, the first things that will come back strong will be the flies.

Spring Time is Tax Time

We've been keeping a low profile recently, when O'Hara has had days off we've just been going up to Sun Peaks and chilling in Kamloops. We've been meaning to head to Banff for about 2 months but are terrible friends and haven't made it. The one positive, we've doubled the days needed to pay off our seasons pass. You'd think we'd be epic snowboarders by now, but sadly no.

One thing that has been nice about hanging around Kamloops has been the weather. I think I've acclimatised to some extent as I'm not nearly as cold as I was when I arrived last year. I haven't needed gloves or a beanie for at least a month. We've also seen double digits over the last few days which has been awesome. I'm starting to get super smug about the fact we're going into summer (suckers). While Australians were posting their wonderful sunshine photos, here it was cold and dark and I was homesick. Now that daylight savings has started, payback is about to commence. Be prepared southern hemisphere, it's going to be brutal!

Here comes Spring suckers!

Sadly, this means it's tax time here for us. As we only submitted our Australian one about a month ago I'm feeling a little ripped off. ALL tax returns are due here on the 30th of April, so no slacking off for us unfortunately.

Taxes here are confusing for us. As far as I can find on the internet, Canada and the US are the only countries that have completely separate taxes in each province/state. This also means (as far as I can find) these are the two countries where taxes aren't included in any sales prices. I think everyone has that awkward moment when they first travel to the US or Canada when they have the cash for their purchase, only to be told at the register they're 5-15% short. It's almost impossible to get rid of small change.

I've learnt to appreciate that paying Employee Insurance (in case you can't get a job or go on mat leave) and Canadian Pension Plan (forced payment but not like super) could benefit us. If I get pregnant here I can claim maternity leave even though I'm not a permanent resident or citizen. It's dead money for O'Hara and any expats on a work permit, as you are required to be working at the place specified on you visa. Luckily we opted for me to be a spouse visa rather than my own work permit, WIN!

While I find it pretty annoying that EI and CPP are separated out and Canada claims it has really low "taxes", in Australia you pay for the same things in the overall tax rate but expats on a 457 visa are not entitled to any of the same things you are here. Canada, you win this round. We've just got to get pregnant and have a baby while we're here and get our EI back!

One thing that is a total scam however, is the fact that everything that the company pays for as a "benefit" (gym, healthcare etc.) gets added to your taxable income. So you pay nearly 50% anyway. BUT when your claiming deductions, you only get 10% back.... shady!

This is not a pregnancy announcement. Repeat, this is NOT a pregnancy announcement!

D is for Dangerous

Everyone is so convinced that Australia is a death trap. You've heard it before, "every living creature there wants to kill you". This is true to an extent. However, I am completely convinced that at least in Australia you can generally avoid such terrifying creatures if you wish.

In Canada near death experiences are at every turn. Whether you're crossing the road, camping, hiking, driving, doing snow sports, or crossing frozen lakes it's a matter of life and death half the time.

Deathly Weather

We've worked out Kamloops has a relatively mild winter, this can't be said for the rest of Canada however. Think you can survive outside for long when it's -30 degC? Unlikely! I hope you like frostbite, frozen lungs and hypothermia because that's what will happen. If the cold isn't enough, feel free to add some freezing rain or fog, wind chill or a blizzard. Check it out all the ways the weather wants to kill you at CBC, love!

Apparently avalanches are a thing here as well. This weekend there is an "Extreme Risk" or something because of the pineapple express (I'm just as confused as you are). The highways have to get closed every so often for avalanche control. Crazy!

Terrifying Creatures

How may you die by an animal in Canada? Let me count the ways.

• Brown and Grizzly Bears
• Wolverine
• Cougars
• Orca
• Rattle Snake
• Elk
• Polar Bear
• Moose
• Recluse Spider

I can't really complain about snakes and spiders in Canada, Australia is obviously worse. However, I maintain I would much rather be bitten by a Brown Snake than a Rattle. I figure while the venom may be much more toxic, the fact that browns are Elapidaes and often do dummy bites totally works in my favour. I can control my lymphatic system much easier than my heart!

Elk are mean and will attack if you're not careful, Moose are generally just dangerous road blocks though I have heard stories of them going after you if you bug them too much.

The amount of camping and hiking stories that have given me chills, is a zillion times higher than the number of people I know who have been involved in a shark attack. This may be due to the fact that you usually don't get a lot of warning with shark attacks, or maybe there are just a lot more carnivores wandering the bush in Canada!

Lethal Driving

Since winter is on the way out, it seems like driving in the snow and ice was just a bad dream. Sadly I know this isn't the case, and really it's the most dangerous part of Canada. The roads and driving conditions are only made worse by the Canadian drivers. This isn't a grumpy expat comment, Canadians have told me on multiple occasions that Canadians suck at driving. I've never corrected them. I mean, would you correct a Victorian when they said people in Victoria couldn't drive?

Living on the edge everyday. It makes Canada such an exciting place to live!