culture shock

It's such a weird thing. I've done a bit of travel in my life, mainly in the Western Hemisphere, but let's just say I've left Canada once or twice. So you'd think I'd be fairly used to the idea of culture shock. I mean, travelling to the US is always an eye-opener, despite the fact that in many cases Canadians and Americans are less than an hour apart by car.

So to encounter some serious culture shock when we moved to Southern Alberta shouldn't have been a surprise, but it was. Canada is Canada, right? We're all pretty much the same, I figured. Except the folks in Quebec, cuz they speak French. And the folks in the Maritimes, cuz they talk funny (well, you do, Ken!). Oh, and people in Vancouver are snobs, and seriously unfriendly, and people in Calgary don't stop for pedestrians... Ok, so my point is that I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was.

Wow, two whole paragraphs and I haven't yet got to the point! The biggest shock was the size of people's families. Most of our friends have one or two kids, and they're done. I have two brothers, and in BC this was a fairly large family. Well, ladies and gents, in Southern Alberta you haven't even started unless you have three kids. We went to BK one day and I sat there feeling inadequate for only having one (at the time) child! Very odd. People talk about 5-children families and don't even
flinch. One lady that Joe talked to when I was in the hospital with Andra had just had twins. Joe said "that must be exciting" and she said "No, not really; it's my third set." Plus she had two (or three? I can't remember) other children. And it's not unusual to be in the grocery store and see a lady shopping with 4 or 5 kids hanging off her skirts. Of course, it IS unusual to see a MAN shopping with 4 or 5 children, but that's another post.

So there are my thoughts for today (actually that was yesterday's thought, I just never got round to posting it).

Here's a link that I found that might be fun: web tickle. I haven't tried it yet, so don't blame me it if is lame!