suburban safari

It's windy tonight.

The side of the house is shuddering against the gusts and a tree is scrape, scrape, scraping against the wall beside my bed. Yet another night staring sleepless into the darkness, it would seem.

I'm usually put into an irritable frame of mind by the wind, but not so here in Victoria, strangely. The way it's sweeping up the cherry blossom petals into fluttery cascades makes it a little more agreeable. The town looks as though a wedding party passed by recently. In fact, there is an air of restrained celebration all around town -- the weather is marvellously clear, the flowers are out, the trees are budding and the pale and delicate folk of Victoria are stoically shucking off their clothing. I sound like I'm mocking here, but in fact, no; it's a bare-shouldered whoop of joy at the sight of the dazzling sunshine, and I'm skipping right along with them... just with my jacket on.

Although I've only been here a few weeks, I have known North America forever. The accents, the foods and so on were mostly familiar in some way before I'd been barked at by Passport Control in Vancouver and earned a smudged blue stamp in my passport. Nonetheless, I've been pulled up short in a state of mild confusion more than once since arriving. Take coffee, for example. In the world I had inhabited until now, coffee is issued in 250mL cups, on a saucer and enjoyed hot, hot, hot. If a greater charge to the heart is desired then another trip to the barista's counter is the solution. Here in Canada, by contrast, the lovely bean brew is delivered in three sizes: "Bucket", "Ridiculous" and "That reminds me, I must bath the dog." As someone for whom coffee is only tolerable if it's hot enough to slough skin from the tongue, it's taking some getting used to. For some reason, though, I keep going through the motions on a daily basis.

Grocery shopping here involves an unanticipated level of frustration and effort, too. In familiar surrounds it's an activity which barely rates a thought beyond, "Hmmm, what will I have for dinner?", but for an Australian in Canada? No, no!! The Aussie lass must rethink her entire diet and lifestyle. Cheese has become a dirty, flamboyant indulgence, dissappointing given that I now realise that it was a dietary cornerstone whilst I was still a Brisbane resident. Tiropita -- feta, ricotta, egg in filo -- was a once-a-fortnight standard at Chez Suzette. Oh, happy days. I spotted 300g of feta here today for $8 -- the price for one kilo of the top-shelf stuff at home. So, a lovely slab of tiropita would come in at around the same price as several hours with a high-quality escort. And a pavlova extravaganza had to be abandoned due to an inability to locate greaseproof paper or passionfruit, even the tinned variety. Clearly, some things really just need to be let go if I'm to play Canadian.

No wonder I'm losing sleep.