Lattes and never ending breakfast cereal!!

Well this is my first post. Having a blog is a whole new adventure in itself. We'll see how we go, but I'm excited. I've been in Canada now for a week and having a grand old time. I ddin't sleep at all on the plane. I ended up meeting some interesting people but I think I've only just caught up on the fact that I didn't sleep for 32 hours. It was nine degrees celcius when I arrived and I was thinking "oh boy, this is summer, get me a coat!" But thankfully it has warmed up and the other day I think I even may have got a tan in 23 degree weather. Yesterday however my friend thought it was so hot that she wanted to go out and get an air conditioner for her upstairs. I'm looking forward the the hotter weather.

I am loving hanging out with my beautiful friend Cheyenne, her baby Taylin and her husband Mike. Mike studied and lived in Australia for a while so he sometimes acts an an interpreter for words like bogan, daggy and capsicum. Because Mike and Chey are living in a little shoebox of a house I am staying with Chey's parents Mitch and Beth down the road who are incredibly gracious and generous but who also like to bag me out a heap (all in good fun). Lois seems to me a new nick name for me over here.

Mike & Chey and Mitch & Beth live in a small town called Linden (about 600) people. It reminds me alot of Boort. Mitch and Beth live on a farm on the prairies with a big red barn. It is beautiful. It is mostly green paddocks as far as you can see with the biggest sky you will ever see. I can not tell you how big the sky looks. Its beautiful!

One of the biggest challenged here is getting a soy latte! I love soy lattes, I love the taste of soy milk with coffee... mmm mmm! In Australian I would most likely have one a day. Not here. I think its funny that in Australian you can go to pretty much any cafe and order whatever you like; skinny milk, regular milk, soy, low fat soy, rice milk ect. Here everyone drinks just black coffee (I think they add milk or cream). I had quite a dilemma when I went into the coffee shop in Linden. It went something like this "Hi, I'll have a takeaway coffee please, do you have soy milk?" "No" "no worries, I'll have a latte then thanks". She then gave me a cup and pointed me towards the percolated back coffee (looks like tar) and at the same time started making me a latte on the machine... what would I do with two coffees. the lingo is so confusing.

The other day we had a blast on the farm. There is a swamp across the road with lots of mud. I was surprised how excited I got about being in mud. I guess thats what being in drought for so many years will do. Mitch owns this 4 wheel drive doom buggy type thing that is so much fun. We took it to the swamp and had a blast. We got very muddy and bogged heaps. Mike's friends bought their four wheel motor bikes (they call them quad-bikes) and tore around the farm in those as well. We ended the day with a wiener roast (kinda like a small camp fire) and cooked deer smokies (sausages) and ate s'mores (cooked marshmellows and melted chocolate inbetween sweet biscuits).

I am really fascinated by the food here. Its not too different but at the same time it is quite different. I could literately spend hours wandering around the supermarket looking at all the different brands and food. Plus is takes me twice as long to read any packaging because what is written in English is also in French and it seems to take my brain a few moments to figure out which one is english. What I love the most in the cereal aisle! If you know me well you will know that I LOVE cereal. The cereal aisles are heaven, so many more types of cereal. I want to try them all!!

The two big things I've noticed and the food I will miss the most is lamb and pumpkin. Canadians don't eat any lamb and you can't really buy pumpkin in the supermarket. They seem to use pumpkin for sweet dishes like pumpkin pie or pumpkin muffins. Weird! I will miss roast lamb and roast pumpkin! Maybe at Halloween I will be able to find myself some pumpkin!! I plan to make a meat pie, hedgehog slice and anzac biscuits for my Canadian friends!

Its been so lovely just hanging out with Cheyenne and her family here and doing country bumpkin stuff. I think there may be some gopher hunting and many trips to the mountains to come. Those of you that have read this whole post, I am impressed! I promise that future posts will not be as long as this one!!