How To Avoid Dying in Canada

So, it’s a tad cold in Canada at the moment.  Nothing we haven’t had to weather before.  It happens from time to time north of the 49th, and mostly we live through it.  It’s a matter of knowing to stay inside, or dressing properly if we have to go out.  On the one hand, we complain amongst ourselves about the ridiculousness of living in such a climate.  On the other hand we love the bragging rights it gives us - especially when it comes to impressing people who can’t imagine that 40 below zero even exists.

The lucky Canadians plan winter holidays in a warmer place.  The truly lucky manage to pick their holiday dates to coincide with when Siberia sends Polar Vortexes over the North Pole.  That way we can sit on a beach, under palm trees, and brag about how cold it is at home.  It’s like winning the same lottery twice - we can speak with real authority on the subject of bitter cold, but we actually managed to miss it this time around.  The locals are either in awe of us or don’t believe us.

This year we really took cold avoidance to the extreme and decided to not just go to a southern clime, but to the Southern Hemisphere.  No Mexican beach for us this time around.  No Belizian bed and breakfast.  No Arizona desert sun.  None of that sissy five hour flight in the same time zone thing for us this time; no sirree!  We upped the ante to a three hour drive to a three hour wait in an airport for a three hour flight to another airport where we waited ten hours for our sixteen hour flight to the Land Down Under.  There were also several time zones involved; I lost track.  We lost a whole day of our lives, but that’s okay, we get it back when we go home.

It’s been a few days now.  There are days and nights here, just like at home, and our bodies will eventually adjust to the new rhythm, but in the meantime we notice being exceedingly tired or hungry when no one else is and wonder what time it is at home.  The adjustment to the +40 temperatures is progressing, as well.  Neither one of us has keeled over from heat stroke, so that’s a win, for sure.

We’re working on re-establishing our ear for the Australian accent.  It’s trickier than you think - they use the same words as we do (mostly) but it’s not always easy to catch the right meaning.  Up the difficulty level with softer children’s voices or the speed of tv announcers and we end up missing the gist of what’s being said.  We’ll get the hang of it in time to go home and have to tune back into the Canuck accent.

But while this trip does keep us safe from freezing to death, Australia does present us with its own set of dangers.  The grandsons have been going about singing a little ditty that goes something like this: “Redbacks, Funnelwebs, Blue-ringed octopus, Taipan Tiger snake, add in a box jellyfish, stonefish, and the poison thing that lives in a shell and spikes you when you pick it up.  Welcome to Australia!  You might accidently get killed”

We’ve seen none of these national treasures so far, staying in a modern urban home as we are.  I think what they’re really trying to do is prepare us for next week when we go camping.  It may turn out that we would rather suffer from frost bite over snake bite.