A little visitor

Look who was waiting for me after work!


I walked through the backyard fence door, and who do I see but this little one! She (I'm sure it's a she, as a male adult rabbit seems impossible. The only male rabbit I've ever heard about is Peter Rabbit, and he was still young.) was hanging out by the fence next to our stairs, but dashed a couple feet away when I walked in. Oh, I love how rabbits twitch their noses.

Visitor!!!

For the last five days we had a wonderful visitor - Sonia! She was on Spring Break, I had just completed substitute teaching, and John took the weekend off from studying, so we had lots of time together! We girls headed to Golden Ears Provincial Park for some hiking. Most of the park was closed due to the effects of a windstorm, but we did find some open trails. Of course one trail was blocked by a waterfall created by all the rain, but we had fun!


Of course Sonia wasn't going to take our word for it, so we had to have another OREO taste test. She considers the American Oreo creme to be creamier than the Canadian.


Now Sonia LOVES LOVES LOVES the ocean, so we had to spend some time by the water. When we went to Stanley Park, it was sadly pouring, so she and I had to head to White Rock and its great pier. Despite the chilly wind, we had a fabulous time. Here's Sonia on a bottom deck of the pier.


When it's just two of you, sometimes you have to take your own group photos.

Durian

Our dear friend Sonia is visiting! One of the things we like to do together is visit Asian grocery stores and try new foods. At the store a few days ago I saw Durian Wafer Cookies. A friend of ours considers durian to be so good that she calls it "the fruit of heaven." We had to try them!

Well, besides being known as "the king of fruits" in some parts of Asia, it is also a fruit that is banned from being on public transportation. Why? IT STINKS! We got in the car after making our purchases, and I opened up the wafers. The durian odor immediately overtook us.

This is how Richard Sterling, a travel and food writer, describes the stench: "...its odor is best described as pig-[poop], turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock."

Despite our gagging and coughing, we still planned on trying them. We each ate one, and to be honest, we didn't enjoy them. Being one who doesn't like to throw away food yet doesn't like her suite to stink, I put the wafers in a Ziploc bag when we got home and stuck them outside on our stairs. They were, of course, completely forgotten. The next morning we discovered our wafers had been tasted by some outside friend. (Can you see the hole?) Yet the friend only ate half a wafer! The stink is so strong even an animal can't manage it!

Taste Test 2009

As mentioned in another post, there were suspicions floating around Langley that Oreos are different in Canada than in the United States. Due to a wonderful birthday gift of Spring Oreos from my parents, we were able to put them to the test!


In order to be fair to both countries' entries, we took both kinds to our home group for a taste test. Both varieties were Double Stuf, yet only the American Oreos had the fun spring colors. Here are the main comments the home group taste testers made:

	Canadian Oreo	American Oreo
Cookie	crisp	soft, melt-in-your-mouth, crumbles easily
Creme	extremely sweet*	smooth
Twist	difficult, yet possible	twists so easily you'll be doing it all night long

*One taste tester said the Canadian Oreo was at least 3x as sweet; she wasn't able to finish the cookie it was so sweet!

The victor of the Taste Test 2009? The American Oreo made by Nabisco! The loser? The Canadian Oreo by Christie.


Here we are enjoying an American Oreo blizzard for my birthday!

Life in Canada, Part Three

So while I've been lying around all day, I kept thinking, "Really? Are those all the differences that we've noticed up here compared to down there? There must be more."

Here are a few that I thought of:

1) Not only are the graham crackers in the cookie aisle rather than the cracker aisle, there is very little in the entire grocery store when it comes to Mexican food! I'd never thought about it until now, but Americans eat a lot of Mexican food, and not only in the places that have many people from Mexico residing there. Anyways, we do have plenty of choice when it comes to Asian food!

2) The funniest pronunciation we've come across is for the word decal. We say decal, you know DE rhyming with ME and CAL rhyming with GAL. Well, Canadians say decal as if rhyming it with Jekyll of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Weird. It's the one word someone has said that I've not understood.

3) There are a lot of gates around these parts. Nice houses that have property also have gates. Maybe not a fence, but a gate.

4) The funniest thing is BCers and snow on their yards. They don't like snow on their yards. We've seen many people shovel snow off their yards! It snowed on Wednesday morning and when we returned from school/work that afternoon, our neighbor's yard was sporting green grass while her neighbors' lawns were still pure white. There was also a very straight line dividing the yards. The "missing" snow was on the road in front of her house.

Sick for Nine of Fifteen

That's right. One of us has been sick for nine out of the last fifteen days.

It all started two weeks ago. Despite feeling perfectly fine the day before, I woke up with a high fever. I had to go in to work in the morning as there was no one else to be with the students, but I was relieved at noon. The rest of the day was spent on the couch, but I woke up feeling wonderful the next morning.

The next week was John's Reading Break (a.k.a. Spring Break). On Monday John was not feeling well. He never really had a high temperature, but he felt so weak. Plus, he'd be wearing layers upon layers of clothes and a winter jacket, yet he'd still be shaking. He still wanted to get work done, though, so he'd end up going to the library - and then taking a nap. This lasted for four days. What a disappointing Reading Break for him...

This past Sunday we went to church feeling great. Three hours after arriving home I had a high fever again and was not feeling good. I rested and relaxed, trying to recuperate since I was starting a substitute position at Trinity Western University on Monday. Went to class on Monday, taught (which went well), but half an hour later almost fainted in the teachers' office area. Ugh, not the first impression one wants to make. Almost had to be wheeled out in a wheelchair, but they couldn't find one, so I got to rest and then just got escorted out by a security guard. Was sent home and have been basically lying on the couch since then.

Any ideas of things to do while lying on the couch? I'm bored out of my mind.