I bought

A flight to Thailand.
And back.
Yus.

Not Much

I just put a biscuit down on the work top, perhaps a faux pas.  Having picked it up to eat again the tip of my tounge and my lips have gone numb.  I wonder what else was living there...

A winters tale.

So, since I am in Canada in winter I decided to attempt either snowboarding or skiing cause, to be honest, there isn't that much else to do.*  I opted for snowboarding, as the majority I have spoken to here deem it to the way forward.  Verena says I will break my wrists.  Turns out I am not one of life's natural boarders, I spend a lot of time falling over, if I ever manage to stand up at all.  Which is much trickier when both your feet are strapped to a bit of slippy plastic...
In other news, I watched 'Black Swan' and am very angry about it.  I sat right through to the end waiting for the twist because I heard it was trippy and would mess with your mind. Turns out it's just a rather mediocre depiction of someone dissolving into madness, with a lot of unnecessary imagery to guide you on your way and destroy all subtlety. And Natalie Portman touching herself.
Go and see True Grit, it's much better.

*Although Andy's Austrian flatmate often points out - we are in Canada, we have no reputation to uphold - WE CAN DO WHATEVER WE WANT.  We decided against pooing in the street, though.

The sands of time dissolve with every breath you take

Ok, so it turns out I was never really that fussed about Paraguay.  The flight being cancelled has not really phased me in the slightest (of course there is the small matter of what to do with the glitter glue, pipe cleaners, coloured pencils and 453.6 grams of plastic beads I bought to donate to the project.)  But when it came down to it, the only reason I could think of for wanting to going further south than I currently am was because I had told people I was going to. 
Cue a string of texts from my rather super family telling me to follow my heart.  Which was great, and not just because it reminded me of this song.
So I spent a week looking into how much it would cost to go to Japan, Antigua, Jamaica, Barbados or Mexico.  And I tried to join up to WWOOF Mexico as I thought - 3 weeks working on a sunshiny farm?  Yes I can do that, what larks.  But apparently the 1 to 5 days the organization claims it will take to approve a person's membership (so you can actively start pursuing such sunshiny dreams) is more like 7 days and counting.  I'm rapidly running out of weeks, and flight costs are climbing.  Stupid Mexicans.  And I can say that because I don't work for the BBC.
So I'm fairly settled on staying put.  Canada has Andy, after all.  And I can learn to ski  (or snowboard) here.  The next time Chicago gets snowed under I SHALL SKI TO PARAGUAY.

Snowpocolypse

Long story short
Chicago + snow = no connections to Paraguay for Bee.

Not untill the 7th, apparently.  Due to the cost of the flight, for three weeks I am disinclined to bother...
Not when you can fly to Mexico or Jamaica for 300 pounds.

There's no Canada like French Canada (not a statement I am qualified to comment on)

Text (paraphrased) to Ali 7.11 am British time 11.11pm Canada time: I'm in a cowboy bar with lots of old people.  It's horrific. (I'm not sure if I thought to mention the red spandex trousers)
Response from Ali "A cowboy bar?  Is that code?  Do you need us to get you out of there?! I will send the chopper.xx"
Apparently there are quite a lot of cowboy types, if not so much here in BC, in Alberta.  I was surprised to learn this (having thought cowboys were largly restricted to the more southern states of America, and that Alberta was mainly full of lumberjacks.)  What a closed mind I evidently had... 
A right royal night oot here differs from one in the motherland.  Mainly in that drinking seems frowned upon.  Buying a drink is tres expensive...  You can't really do it apart from in specialist shops... Bars seem full of sober people, and all close pretty early.  Walking around though, it's not at all uncommon to catch the scent of weed drifting through the air, any time of the day or night.  I am reminded of the Bill hicks chat (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1HtfQZXl6U)  Maybe that's why everyone in Canada is so nice.

I have been a bit at odds with myself over the past week.  Kelowna is not big, and as a non skiier/snowboarder at this time of year there's not a massive amount to be done.  There's the highway - a big neon strip of retail that zooms right past the town centre without stopping to say hello.  Andy took me along it, to 'VALUE VILLAGE'.  Sadly not literally a village, it's an odd mash up - TK max size/layout but the shelves brim with second hand items.  Like the biggest charity shop in the world.  Expet not for charity, just for the pure, unadulterated VALUE. 
More town centrically, we went to the museum of natural heretige, which seemed to encompass the natural heretige of not only Okanagan, but had displays for the WHOLE WORLD.  Which I had not anticipated.  One Canadian specific thing I did learn about was the 'OokPik'  Innuit word for Snowy owl, apparently a popular souvineer that I have yet to see apart from in this museum...

We also went on a windy walk up a hill full of sleeping bears. Kelowna is still pretty when viewed from above, You can't see too far and wide though.  Lots of hills in the way.  But then they are, probably, why the skiing here is so popular..

Paraguay in but 2 days.  I think I would be exited now, if it didn't take so very long to get there...

Sound Canadian Advice

"Spread the word, not herpes.  Learned that at my Grandaddy's knee."