Oh Canada!

So yesterday and today have probably not been all that fascinating for you - my public.

John drove us from Toronto to Kingston, we caught up with the family, did bit of shopping and wandered around Kingston a bit.

Kingston is very nice - on a lake (which gives you water - without that magical salty smell and feel of the ocean) with some nice old buildings, mixed in with some truly hideous seventies architecture. All in all, quite nice, but unless you have relatives here or are enrolling at Queens university - I wouldn't necessarily advise you to add it to your Canadian itinerary.

Tomorrow is THE WEDDING.

So today I thought that I would mention some traps for novice Canadian travellers.

1. TEA
   Canadians do not understand tea. Our well appointed serviced apartment has a drip filter coffee maker - but no kettle. And all the tea is orange pekoe - which I think tastes odd - but my travelling companions think is just fine. So maybe it is just me.


2. COFFEE
   Canadians (and Americans) think that espresso is that stuff you buy at Starbucks. They drink coffee here by the bucket load - but it is filtered coffee with most of the flavour filtered out. The coffee is weak - that's why you can drink so much of it -and will quite likely be served with some kind of UHT cream concoction instead of actual milk.
   If you do find somewhere that serves espresso, don't ask for a long black (they will think you are making racist remarks about a basketball player) or a mugacino - you will only confuse them.


3. MEALS
   Strangely for a country where half the people speak French, the Canadians think that an "entree" is a main course. What we would refer to as an entree, they call an appetizer. I can only think that his was some kind of obscure French joke that the Canadians ( and Americans) have not yet figured out...
   
   And if they serve you a salad, they will expect you to eat it before they serve you the rest of your meal.
   
   And the servings are huge and the sauces are rich. They must practically starve when they come to Australia - poor things.


4. SWITCHES
   I wouldn't want to swear that the water goes down the drain the opposite way - but switches definitely work the opposite way. Up is ON and down is OFF!


5. CHEESE
   The default colour for cheddar cheese here is orange. You can get yellow cheese here these days - but often it is this freaky orange colour. And, of course, tasty cheese - not all that tasty.
   
   
6. SULTANAS
They don't have sultanas here - only raisins. Not a big issue...
Breakfast cereals are weird here too. It is hard to find one that is not lurid colours and it is not uncommon for them to contain marshmallows (no -really)

7. SALES TAX
   Gets added on top of the price on the price tag. And it varies from place to place in Canada because it is applied at the federal and province level. Currently 13% here in Ontario. Which is kind of handy, because you can mostly kind of tip someone the same amount. Unless you actually see your waiter or waitress spit in your food - you tip them 15%. You are also supposed to tip the person who cleans your room but I would never know that if I didn't have relatives here -so just pretend I didn't tell you.