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| "Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing." -Helen Keller
So, time to start preparing for post-grad trips, with all
the money we saved during college ;) Here's the plan: fly to Spain,
hike or bike across S. Europe, stopping for some sightseeing in Vienna
and N. Italy, then continuing on to Turkey. Here's where my mom takes
out the aspirin; we want to follow the silk road all the way from
eastern turkey to western China (and btw, the itinerary's copyrighted,
so if we meet you on the trip, we're suing you and taking the camel)! 
Now, there are a few difficulties on the way, besides the
obvious fact that some of us didn't save during college. For starters,
there are only two over land routes; one goes through Iran (a no-no for
a couple of us on the trip), and the other one goes through friggin'
Chechyna! Just for added fun, we may also have to go through Kashmir on
the way to Tibet. Of course, if we do that, we might as well just add
in N. Korea and Colombia to hit all the hotspots of international
terrorism/tourism.
Anyway, things are still going great in Calgary. I just got
an extension on the internship. I'm kind of like the intern that won't
go away, at this point. I'm surprised they want me to stay on for
awhile, after the little faux pas I made last week with the Consul
General. He's talking with me and the Econ Assistant in her office, and
we're discussing a couple of cables he would appreciate me doing. We
get on the subject of a project analyzing the Muslim community in
Calgary. "I don't want DC thinking 24,999 out of the 25,000 Muslims in
Calgary are terrorists, says my CG. Not realizing he was Moslem, I
quipped, "Yeah, all except that one imam you see sponsoring the Gay
Pride parades every year." ACK! Figures. I should've known, his last
name is Ahmed. Lol.
Of course, I didn't feel quite so bad when the next day, Mr.
SuperMoslem invites me out to a wine and cheese festival, in the middle
of the day, in the middle of Ramadan!! I guess hypocrisy knows no
borders. (If you're reading this, Dean Wilson, Torrey Moe, or David
Snyder, I didn't go :) | | |
| I JUST GOT AN EMAIL FROM THE MINISTER OF ECONOMIC AFFAIRS IN OTTAWA! I suppose technically, I'm probably breaking some security rule or something by posting while on a Dept. computer, but it couldn't wait til I got home. It's been a great week. First, I got a lot of compliments for a Canadian oil report I sent out (thus the email), then I got to celebrate the Canadian Thanksgiving out in S. Saskatchewan. Farthest I've ever been from a Starbucks in my adult life. We stayed in a town of about 100, with one church and two bars. Super hickish, but fun people. The family I was staying with raises deer and elk for hunters down in Utah. Saturday morning, I go out with Holly's little bro, and go coyote hunting on fourwheelers. We shot three!!! It was completely surreal: driving for hours on the incredibly flat wheat fields, with no sign of civilization (wheat fields don't count) for miles...While Canadians may still be eh-holes, Canada itself rocks!!
I found this little exercise on Carol Browning's blog:
Go into your archive.
Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
Post the text of the sentence.
Mine:
"Anyway, Canada's awesome."
Work's slow today. I discovered Excel documents have a maximum number of lines: 65,536. | | |
| WHY CANADIANS ARE EH-HOLES
NO. 1 reason: Their national symbol is a cross between Americans' two
most feared adversaries: The highway patrollman and the British
Redcoat.
I declare today National Shove a Hockey Puck down a Canuck Throat Day!!
I hear they're now using Canadians in place of rats for medical
experiments. They do this for two reasons. First, the scientists don't
become as attached to the Canadians, and second, there are some things
that even rats won't do.
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| I had a wierd experience this week. I'm at this reception,
chillin....or whatever interns are supposed to do at these things, and
I get in a conversation with this Asian dude. We hit it off pretty
well, and we make a date to go out to lunch or something next week.
It's not until I get back to our consulate that I'm told he's the
friggin vice-consul from China!! Jerk didn't tell me that. So yeah,
that could be an entertaining meal...Apparently I have to sign a waiver
type thing before we go out to eat, and I have to log everything that
goes on. Not like I know anything interesting, other than where the CG
likes to hide the expensive creamers, but you can never be too careful
with those deng commies. ;)
In response to a couple of comments:
It's hangin Junior, it's hangin.
to Josh: Yeah, I'm going to post more. I want to make my site more like
your awesome one, except maybe a little more PG (all that Greek and
Roman nudity isn't appreciated by the Xanga censors ;).
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| Time for one of my extremely rare xanga posts...
My life has been a bit of a blur lately. I never would've thought six
months ago that I'd be living in Calgary now, interning with State. It
seems like whenever I get all comfortable somewhere, after a semester
of school or after a summer home, I get yanked away again!
Anyway, Canada's awesome. It's felt a little bit wierd to go from
living at a pastor's house to staying with a roommate whose religious
background can be demonstrated by our last conversation:
Roommate: "Who are the Amish again?"
Me: "I think they're Methodists."
Roommate: "Oh, I thought they were German."
It was hard to snicker at the person. My condescension turned to awe,
however, when I went into the laundry room for the first time and saw
where my roommate had built a Tower of Pisa replica out of Bacardi
Silver boxes. Cool.
Anyway, roomie's pretty awesome...in many ways. ;)
We get along pretty
well. The rest of the Canadians are nice, but I get the impression that
they're a lot more reserved than Americans. They're friendly on the
surface, but it's harder to break into Canadian groups than it is into
American.
One funny thing I've noticed is the roads. They're friggin
huge! The residential roads are like the size of our highways! Oh, btw:
It gave me quite a shock the first time I tried to cross one of their
supersized highways last week; every single car stopped and waited for
me to pass! On the highway! (Apparently, pedestrians ALWAYS have right
of way). The power to control immigrant visas is nothing compared to
the power to stop whole lines of traffic with a single
look.
:)
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