A new year in Saskatchewan...

** These photos took us a few tries, but it was lots of fun to try and get the numbers right with the sparklers on New Years eve!! :)

Okay, so I realize it's a little late in the year to write a post about the new year given that we are only days away from March but we have lots to tell!

As most of you know, Neil and I stayed in SK for the Christmas holidays. So we had a quiet but great Christmas and New Year.

A friend and co-worker of Neil's was kind enough to let us stay at his place in order for us to spend as much time together as possible. He also left me in great company as I was hanging out with his two fur-children Jack and Annie, a black and a yellow Labrador retrievers.

It was really great to spend time with the Neil and the two doggies surrounded with all the awesome presents we received from our families.

"Mr. Sunshine", as Neil's co-worker shall now be known, may be rough and tough on the outside, but he is nothing but marshmallows on the inside and we are thankful to him and his family for allowing us the use of their place during Christmas. You guys are awesome!!! Thank you!!!!!

This is Jack & Annie :)

This was our Christmas time winter wonderland!

New year's eve brought some freak weather with it and we decided to stay home and avoid the more-than-usual-icy roads. Of course, true to what my mother taught us our whole life, and our special new year's eve traditions, we went all out and had an awesome meal and a beautiful setting just for the two of us. We loved greeting family and friends as the New Year rang in back in Toronto and Ottawa. Being at least one hour behind everyone we know has it's perks as we got to celebrate with them over the phone and afterwards we got to celebrate on our own at midnight here at home.... on Central time!! :)

and after a little bit of champagne, we tried to take a few pictures of ourselves.... we TRIED ...

This last one is the best we could do that night! And we decided that would do for pictures that night as we were laughing uncontrollably!

We were up until about 4am as usual for a New Year's eve, just talking and reminiscing about all the things that happened in 2010 and how happy we are today! :)

We have lots more to tell you, but we'll leave that for another post!

And we'll try not to let another 3 months go by before doing so!

Until then, thanks for stopping by and hope 2011 has as many promising things for you all as we hope it has for us!

Love always,

Veronica & Neil

Our wish for you ...

T.S. Eliot wrote "For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning."

A new year is upon us and what a year it has been! As we've told you before we will be spending tonight in our new home province thinking about all of you.

Our wish for all of you who read these words remains the same. May the new year bring each and everyone of you the blessings you long for and deserve. May you all be blessed with health and happiness. And may this be true for many, many years to come.

Happy New Year!

Much love to all,

Neil & Veronica.

Words to live by ...

"Take a picture and get it framed, plan adventures, stay in contact with those you care about, learn the waitress' name, sleep in, try on a wig, stick your feet in the snow, love what surrounds you and the life you have!"

This is Alana. A year ago today, she was in a terrible accident which cut her life way too short. I met her through my best friend, Brian. He and two other of his (now our) friends grew up with Alana. Neil and I were lucky enough to be in that group of people that would have a chance to meet Alana in her short life, and we are blessed for it.

The words I have quoted are from her cousin, Kim and I have borrowed them to share it with all of you out there. Wherever you are, whoever you are.

That was Alana. She lived life while dancing and "hip swooshing" (a term she demonstrated for Brian and I the last time we saw her) to the beat of her own drum. We should all learn from that.

I went to her Facebook today and saw that all the people who met her, even for a brief moment, have taken a page from her book.

The messages on her wall today, while sad and full of heart ache, are filled with the great memories she created with everyone and it makes me think that she would like that.

Always finding the joy in the little moments. Remembering the good times she spent with everyone right down to the conversations that were had years prior. Always having the exact gift that reflected your personality (she once bought me a purse with an owl on it because the owl was saying "life's a hoot" and she knows that word makes me laugh). More importantly, she stayed in touch with EVERYONE! Something I definitely have to work much harder at next year, I promise. She made it look so easy! That was Alana. She is missed by many.

So whether you ever had the chance to meet Alana or not, remember...

"Take a picture and get it framed, plan adventures, stay in contact with those you care about, learn the waitress' name, sleep in, try on a wig, stick your feet in the snow, love what surrounds you and the life you have!"

Alana did all those things, and she did them well.

Definitely words to live by...

<3

This is a video of the memorial ride held for her last year with her B.C. family and friends which I borrowed from Heather's page, Alana's cousin and fellow adventurer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZRdyY9Sutc

Our Christmas letter to you...

Hello Everyone and greetings from Weyburn Saskatchewan!

It's Christmas time again and we find ourselves reminiscing about all that has happened in the span of a year.

At this time last year, so much was still unknown for us. We didn't know where we were going to live, we were still in the planning stages of our move while living in two different provinces and we got engaged upon Neil's arrival at the airport on Christmas Day.

At the start of 2010 we finalized and finished our move, solved our housing situation, and Neil was settling into the routine of his new job. We learned it's tough to heat an old farm house in the middle of the Prairies. North winds can freeze the pipes in your kitchen, but then again, after reaching any temperature below minus 20, ANY wind will freeze your kitchen pipes! We learned that deer travel in herds and stare at you from across the street behind the church in the middle of the night (surely plotting to attack). This gave rise to the question of “where do the deer go?”... think about it... there is no forest here.

After a winter of driving 30 minutes each way for a jug of milk, we decided it was time to move closer to civilization. In June we found a great apartment in Weyburn and we were finally able to unwrap and unpack all of our belongings. Here we endured some of the “worst storms” in the Prairies according to the locals who apologized and/or blamed us for the “crazy weather”. It was by all accounts one of the wettest springs and early summers in recent memory... or at least that's what everyone told us.

By August, we had started to settle into our new life, just in time for our first visitors. Neil's parental units arrived and we started to explore the Province. By that time, all the fields were green, yellow and purple with the wheat, canola and flax crops. It really is beautiful out here. We went to Moose Jaw, Regina and Roleau (a.k.a. “Dog River”, the town where “Corner Gas” was filmed”) and had a great time.

We also visited the usual suspects Oungre, Tribune, Weyburn and Estevan which we also visited with La Mama D.P. (Veronica's mom) who came to spend Thanksgiving with us. The d. P. girls let loose and did lots of shopping in Weyburn. And whoever says shopping doesn't pay off should know that a shopping spree in search of Weyburn souvenirs is what led Veronica to her new job!

We started as visitors to a Museum in Weyburn and now Veronica is the new manager!! See? Shopping = job. We also went to Saskatoon with La Mama. We fell in love with that city. If you've never been, you should go. We highly recommend it. We'll even meet you there!

Time really does fly when you're having fun! And so here we are again at Christmas time. We really can't believe it's been a year already! We've had snow since Halloween, but we really don't think about that anymore. Something happens when you live out here. Maybe it's because there is no escaping it, or we're just getting used to it, but we don't really complain about the snow as much as we did when we were in Toronto. There's snow... lots of it and it comes down almost daily, so we bought winter boots (which neither of us had done in many, many years), we put on lots of layers, we have emergency kits in our car and away we go!

So what have we learned this year? What do we know for sure? For one thing, we have learned to practice what we preach and that if an opportunity presents itself, you should always take it. Wrong or right, there is always something to be gained by taking a chance. As we write this letter, we know for sure this is where we are meant to be for now. We miss our family and our friends and we can't wait to see you all wherever we meet. We can't wait for the next year to get going to see where we end up in another year from now! We have caught the bug! The travel bug! It is so much fun to explore new places and to have all your new surroundings be an adventure and we still have so much more to see!! Will we do it all over again? You bet!! Where do we sign up?!! For now, our home is here and we are happy.

We will be spending Christmas here as Neil has to work over the holidays and so we will certainly be missing the sights, sounds and smells of past holidays spent with family and friends, missing you all terribly and wishing to see you soon! :)

Our wish for you this Christmas is to take nothing for granted! May 2011 be full of your own adventures and may you see all your hopes and dreams come true.

Merry Christmas and a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year to you all!

Lots of love from the Prairies,

Neil and Veronica

Of course, we couldn't leave our Christmas letter to you without a few pictures of Killer as a few people have been wondering what he is up to these days!

So here he is claiming all the gifts under the tree and because we weren't paying attention to him...

...he then decided to claim one of the tree ornaments for himself.

Happy 1st Blogoversary "Long gone to Saskatchewan! ..."!!!

Did we just use the word "Blogoversary"? Is that even a word? Anyway, Blogoversary, anniversary, annually marking of a date, no matter which way you say it, this date holds some importance for us.

One year ago today, I (Neil) got on a plane for the very first time, just like a big boy!
I know now that I don't mind flying, it's just the landing that hurts my ears like hell.

Today marks one year of me (Neil) living in Saskatchewan. Tomorrow will be one year since I started my job. A lot has happened in that time. We got engaged, I travelled more of the country, spending two weeks in BC, drove 2700 kms in February through Northern Ontario and against all odds, did not encounter any bad weather. A feat I am not likely to try and repeat. Incidentally, Ontario is very large. 2010 of those kms were just to make it out of the province.

After 4 months, we escaped our Guantanamo Bay of a house in Tribune and settled in the booming metropolis of Weyburn. We've had visitors courtesy of my Mom and Dad and Veronica's Mom. Explored the province, travelling to Rouleau aka Dog River, Moose Jaw, Regina and finally Saskatoon. Veronica is off crutches, well crutch, we left one in Parry Sound. She has also started a new job which she will fill you in on later.

We've become acclimatized to the province and have already started making fun of our family and friends back in Ontario as we have realized Torontonians really are a bunch of wussies. Don't worry, we include ourselves in that description for when we lived there!

Things I have not gotten used to: saying SaskPower, not Hydro. Calling my hoodies "bunny-hugs" Something very unmanly about telling Veronica that I am wearing a "bunny-hug." The May 2-4 weekend being called "May Long" I thought the 2-4 thing was universal. Apparently Euchre is not a common game here either. What do their high school kids play?

In all seriousness, we love it here and this was the best thing for us.

On the first post of this blog, Veronica touched on some of the unknowns about coming here. There were even more unknowns that we realized, but we made it through and I wouldn't change a thing in the last 12 months.

At home in Saskatchewan,
Neil

On the road...

In my last post, I mentioned that I have a video I took while driving. This was shot back in the winter time before Veronica got here. I was travelling along Highway 18, heading west. Kind of gives you a look at what driving in the winter is like. This drive was alright, but by the next morning the roads were drifted over and I was plowing through the drifts on the road in my rented Nissan Altima wishing I had snow tires.

For those interested, the song is called Shampoo by Elvis Perkins. FM radio stations are limited and crappy here (if I hear OMC's 'How Bizarre' one more time, I'm going to hurt someone) so I found myself listening to and enjoying a lot of CBC Radio 2.

Thankful for his iPod Touch and an FM tuner,

Neil

Land of Living Skies, Part 1

So we had to do a little running yesterday and made our way over to Estevan. For our Ontario friends, that's a little under an hour travelling south east from Weyburn. We threw our camera in the car, as we usually do, and we snapped a handful of pictures to share with everyone. We weren't even in the car yet before Veronica was taking pictures.

As you can see, the leaves are already changing and today the wind has picked up and more and more are winding up on the ground. Veronica has said on several occasions that there is something about the sky here, that it's so blue. I tell her, it's 1. There's nothing here to block your view, and 2. There's no smog or pollution like back home.

So as the sun set, we managed to get some great pictures approximately 10 minutes outside of Estevan.

Here's Veronica's view from the passenger seat.

My favourite picture, taken from a grid road we turned on to, to take some more pictures.

Here's a short video clip of the above pumpjack in the field. Might not be super thrilling, but these are everywhere and I have been oddly fascinated by them since I got here.

Signing off and watching the skies,

Neil

PS now that I figured out how to upload a video, next time I'll throw up a video from January I shot while driving.

Woah... it's been a while!!!!

So....I've just taken a look back at our posts, and it seems this is our third attempt at posting on a regular basis. In our defense, things have been a little hectic!

It's been 7 months since we "officially" moved from Toronto to Saskatchewan. Wow, time really DOES fly by.

After a second move within the province, getting our first Saskatchewan I.D's, finding a family Doctor, moving to a town where we can go shopping and be back within 10minutes as opposed to a couple of hours, after a visit from Neil's parents, getting our very first Saskatchewan plate for the car and finally getting to travel and see more of this beautiful land, I can honestly say this place is starting to feel like home. We have finally unpacked and unwrapped our furniture and are now moving on to putting up our photos and wall art. Once those are up, it will definitely be home. We're home!! :)

We still miss our family and friends like crazy everyday, but Skype, email, Blackberrys and unlimited long distance plans thankfully make those 3000 kms somehow feel a little smaller and a little closer.

So we'll be updating and sharing a few of the things we've done over the past 7 months, if only because it helps us realize how far we've come in such a short period of time :)

Stay tuned!

Vee

P.S: The picture I've used today is a painting by one of my favourite artists, Salvador Dali. This one is called "The Persistence of Memory" and is the reason behind today's post. I've had this for at least 5 years and never found a proper place for it. I'm sooo excited I finally have a place to hang it and I'm looking forward to walking by and looking at it everyday!

Oh Canada!!!

Happy 143rd Birthday Canada!!!

Canada. From the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word, kanata, meaning "village" or "settlement".

Indeed, my village, your village, our village.... our home.

Most of you who know me have at one point or another heard my rants about how I wish everyone in Canada showed their pride a little louder on this day.

Just in case, for those who don't know me, I will just tell you that I am an immigrant to this country myself, having been here with my mother, my sister and my brother, thanks to my mother's vision of a better life since 1990, and Neil, having been born here, doesn't have to go far to discover his Canadian roots as his mother is an immigrant and his dad's parents were immigrants as well.

My point is, I truly consider this country my home. I feel 100% Canadian. I go nuts on Canada Day!!! I proudly fly the Canadian flag, especially on July 1st!

I am happier still to see the 2010 Winter Olympics have taken Canadian pride to a brand new level....don't you think? I see more flags, more people wearing red and white and even more people with Maple leafs on their faces, their heads, everywhere!!! This makes me sooo happy, as I hoped everyone, come July 1st, would remember the feeling of randomly breaking into "Oh Canada" during the Olympics, and being so proud of having the privilege to be a part of this country!!

Why am I so adamant about this?

Well, in 2001 I went to New York City on July 2nd. (Those of you who've heard my ensuing rant can skip ahead). Basically, I was here on July 1st for Canada Day and then in New York City for July 4th on their Independence Day, and that's when I knew my rants had some merit. Over the years, I have heard people tell me that July 4th is Canada Day on steroids, and that Canadians are not flag-waiving people, but you couldn't convince me of any reason why Canada Day couldn't feel the same!!

Mostly because this is a country that allows everyone to fly whatever flag they want (i.e. World Cups, etc), a country that embraces every culture and every background and yes, I too have done the same during those events, but I have ALWAYS flown my Canadian flag at the same time along with the those of the two other countries I consider a part of my heritage, because, after all, THIS IS MY HOME! - end rant.

It took a few years, but I am so happy to see this change in people. Today I see red and white everywhere! In my town, on the news, on Facebook, everywhere!!!

This year, Neil and I are blessed to be experiencing a whole other culture, and a whole other side of this country. Living in the Prairies is already teaching us a lot of things. It is a completely different lifestyle than that of a place that is only one Province away!! And yes, we have had to make some adjustments in our lives and we have found it difficult at times, but the truth is, I wouldn't change a thing! In fact, it only increases my curiosity to explore this country more and more!! I mean, we have only ever lived in two Provinces (actually I have lived in three and Neil in two Provinces) out of this enormous, beautiful country and there is so much more to see!

In the end, the view may change from one Province to another, but the people... Canadians remain the same. And that is why we call this beautiful land our home.

Happy birthday Canada.







P.S: This is a photo I took of how children in my neighbourhood decided to show their Canadian Pride!!

Trina and Elton are getting married today!!

Two of my favourite people in this world are getting married today! They, much like Neil and I, are from two completely different worlds and cultures, yet they are very much alike at the same time. And by the end of this day, they will be Husband and Wife!!!!! Yikes!!

I met Trina just over 7 years ago at work. She was only supposed to be there temporarily, but thankfully for our friendship, that was not the case! We clicked instantly. After all, we had a lot in common. We are both sarcastic and appreciate dry humour, we both enjoy our Tim Horton's coffee, we loved to make fun of the people who didn't necessarily appreciate our kind of people (loud, fun-loving girls) and when we met, we were both single!

We talked about everything, including our now-significant others when we first met them, and now here we are!!! Trina, about to be married in a few hours and I, engaged with a wedding date TBA!! (most likely 2011, BTW).

It is so awesome to have experienced watching her go through all of that in the way I have only experienced with my siblings. What i mean is, knowing someone before they find the person they will spend the rest of their lives with. Witnessing how the person they have chosen will enrich their lives that much more. I have been lucky to see my siblings and a few friends go through this process of becoming some one's partner and I am humbled by it.

Maybe it's the distance or maybe just this blog that allows me to put my feelings and thoughts in writing, but whatever it is has compelled me to share this with all of you. So, in the words of my future father-in-law "toughsky-shitsky" people!! hehehehe

But don't worry, I'm not going to make this all about my "feelings" everyday. I can already see a few of you rolling your eyes or gagging. I could name all of you, but after all, isn't our mutual disgust for mushiness part of the reason we are all friends?

I'll just finish by addressing Trina and Elton with a toast I would have loved to give in person:

First, let me begin by thanking both of you, on behalf of myself and Neil, for the amazing friendship we have shared over the years. Especially for all your support during this past year. We look forward to celebrating this day with you guys for many, many years to come.
May this be the beginning of the best days of your lives together. May you experience all the health and happiness your deserve. We love you both. Cheers! To the Bride and Groom!!! Yaya!!!

Wishing I was there,
Vee.

There's something about the weather...

Welcome to the first installment of our 875 part series about the weather.

Seriously, the last time I posted here, I was going on about the weather. Well things haven't changed much. This time its the rain. It seems to be non-stop nowadays. Go tune into the weather network, I can wait............

See, I told you. Even the tourist guide book talks about the weather. When so much of the industry in this province revolves around farming, the topic of conversation always seem to come around to the weather, but not in a small talk way either. Serious business this weather. Its even prevented some farmers from even getting into the field to seed. Everyone talks about cut-off dates for insurance, have they fertilized, will the provincial government step in and try and get more for the farmers.

So that's part of life here, but on to other things. We love our apartment. We have plenty of space. Thank God we were as organized as we were. It's made things so much easier for the unpacking. We are now at least in a livable state where we are not tripping over boxes. I also love being so close to shopping. I needed to run out for something and I managed to be home within 20 minutes. It's great.

So what else is new? It's been so long since we posted, you'll have to forgive us if we jump around in our timeline of events as we recall everything. There was the month-plus long fog when we got here. The deer. The snow. The cold. The wind. After this post, I will try to put as much down chronologically as possible.

In conclusion, here's a picture of a funnel cloud I saw at work yesterday.




Ducking for cover,
Neil

You only need the last 4 digits....

Hello All,

So, we are still unpacking and putting things into place. The good news is we don't really have much more to go! It feels awesome to finally give all of our things a proper place in our new home.

We are loving our new town!!! All the services we need are under 5 minutes away for which we are thrilled!!! No more driving 50kms. each way just to get groceries!!! woohoo!! :D

However, I promised to talk about all the differences and intricacies we were going to encounter, and here's one of many.

When giving anyone your telephone number out here in Saskatchewan you need only provide the city you live in and the last 4 digits of your phone number!!!

THAT'S RIGHT my dear 416/647 and 905/289 area code friends!! Out here you don't really even need a blackberry or speed dial to remember people's phone numbers! You can simply say " I live in Weyburn and my number is 1234". why? well, because everybody knows Weyburn's exchange is 842!!! That's why!!

Aaaaannnnd, the ENTIRE PROVINCE is under the SAME area code, which is 306!!!

I mean, being Ontarians, when was the last time you remember not using area codes first of all, never mind using the same area code to call your friends in Mississauga, Brampton, Toronto, Scarborough, Ottawa, Parry Sound, Port Perry, etc, etc???!!!

You guys should all see the looks i get when I start giving my phone number anywhere and start with the area code. I can almost see the word bubble on the side of people's heads saying "duh"!! That's right city girl!!!

I have explained to everyone here that it will take some time to get use to
this because Toronto and the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) alone have 4 area codes and even then those four area codes can be local or long distance so there goes another digit!!

Whew! I feel better already!!!

4-digit girl.

Let's recap

So, it's been 4 months to the date since our last post on February 5th. Wow, times flies.

We last left you on the day before getting to our new home in Saskatchewan not really knowing what to expect. Well, a lot has happened since.
We have moved again, this time to a bigger town. Actually, to a place that can actually be called a town, having more than 47 people in it! We, as you can tell, are now finally part of the digital world again (details on that to follow). We have tons and tons of stories about the weather of course as it plays a major part of life in this Province. We also have updates on how I've managed to stay "sane" and how Neil hasn't had to have me admitted into a home for the coo-coo. As well as what we, and most people who are new to Saskatchewan have had to do to actually find a place to rent. The reasons why we had to leave our little house on the prairies in exchange for a 3 bedroom apartment, etc, etc...

We will also be posting pictures to show you what we've seen, where we lived and where we are now. :)

We are in the midst of finally unpacking our furniture and all of our belongings that haven't seen the light of day since last September. We are actually really excited about that! It almost feels like Christmas! We keep opening stuff and saying "Oh yeah.... i forgot we had that!" :) It's kinda awesome. We've also been really lucky in terms of casualties when it comes to our furniture.
So far, there are just a few nicks and scratches (nothing a touch-up pen can't fix) and unfortunately, one of our lamp shades is in really bad shape :( However, considering all of our things moved from our apartment in Mississauga to a locker space in Hamilton, then 3000kms to the house in Tribune and finally to our new apartment in Weyburn!!!
So, all in all we did pretty well! And in no small part due to all the help, muscle and patience of our awesome family and friends who helped us pack and move in Ontario and to our wonderful new friends here in Saskatchewan. So, to all of you who've helped us in any way....THANK YOU!!!! :)

In the meantime, we still miss you all like crazy. Now that we can finally communicate with all of you, we feel you are all a little bit closer to us.

Signing off from under a mountain of half open boxes,

Vero & Neil ;)

We're baaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAACK!!!

Helloooooo World!!

We are back baby! And we have tons to tell you about!
For now, we just wanted to let you know we have rejoined the digital world and we will be updating you on all our adventures!
So stay tuned and keep sending us your comments! :)

As always, we leave you with Killer's pic of the day as he really, really wanted to get back online and say hello to all his fans! :D

Day 4... Ontario vs Manitoba

First, I would like to share with you what seems to be the theme for our GPS for the past 2 days. Drive 700 kilometers, then turn right!! hehehehe

Our day started out early as we are trying to stick by the advice of the truck driver who took our furniture to Saskatchewan and told us to stick to daylight if we were going to do this drive in the winter. Sundown and the twilight can take much longer when you are driving the twisting and winding roads along the rocky shores of Lake Superior. This, combined with huge signs that say "WATCH OUT FOR THE MOOSE AND DEER AT NIGHT" can make it seem as though the rocky wall on the right is either a Moose, a deer, a female deer... (hehehehe) but i digress.

Pine Trees. Lots and lots and lots of pine trees. Every so often, the scent of pine seeps through the vents and you look around at these endless rolling hills full of pine trees with 3 to 4 inches of snow on each of their branches surrounded by pristine, untouched white snow and you can't help but feel like you're in the middle of a post card. Ontario is beautiful. I know Neil said it last night, but this is something you have to experience for yourself. I could use a thousand words to describe what we've seen in the last couple of days, but I don't think it does justice to how you feel when you realize this is where you live. We would have had to stop every 5 minutes to take a picture in order to capture every moment we went around a bend and said "wow". Maybe I'm a little melancholic for having just left Ontario, but I cannot emphasize this enough - If you live in Ontario, drive up here!!

2010 kilometers. That's how long it took to drive from Toronto to the end of Ontario. Yesterday, we were wondering what today's drive would be like and I asked Neil if the rolling hills and rocks ended as soon as we crossed the border between Ontario and Manitoba. He looked at me and said "I'm sure it's not as though you're on the hills with twists and turns and then suddenly, boom! it's flat. Who knows? We'll see tomorrow!" As it turns out, the answer to my question is, YES. You cross into Manitoba and you immediately go into a 401-look-a-like highway and it's all flat as far as the eye can see!!! It's soooo weird!! It's as though someone said, well - the hills have ended... new province name please!! hahahahaha

And so here we are. In Winnipeg (aka. the Peg!). Officially in the Central Standard Time zone. One hour behind most of Ontario. We drove for about an hour from the border and noticed a few things. First, the highway is weird. Cars merge onto the highway from every which way. From the left mostly! It's kinda freaky. That will take some getting used to. Second, we are glad La Mama got us the GPS. After that first right turn after 700 kilometers, we went through the Peg and it's twisty, and and down streets that go north for 1/2 a block and then west for another 1/2 a block and so on and so forth. We're pretty sure a few Winnipegers cursed at us and our Ontario plates tonight! And that's pretty much all for Manitoba first impressions. We checked into our hotel and ordered room service and realized how close we are to our new home from here. Only a 5 hour drive to our new life!! eeeeeek!! hehehehe

We'll take a quick look at the Peg in the morning and then we'll make our way home. We'll have to come back another day to explore a little more.

So for now here are the main differences between Ontario and Manitoba.

Ontario: Hills, twisty and winding roads, lakes, pine trees.
vs.
Manitoba: dark, flatter and they have weird names and logos for the beer and liquor store!

Okay, to be fair, we've only been here for a couple of hours, so i guess we can't make a final decision based on just this. We'll make better comparison after a few visits.

Tomorrow as I said. We get to our little house on the prairies. We haven't set up cable and internet yet, so you might not hear from us on the blog for a couple of days. We will take lots of pictures catch up with you guys as soon as we get connected!

Meanwhile, know that we are missing all of you already and we will keep you posted as often as possible.

Nighty night from two temporary Manitobans!

Vero & Neil.

P.S.: This one is for Cristoven. We made it to your home town!!!! Max the Moose says hello!!



Oh, and of course, Killer's daily photo:

Here he is waiting to be transported to his hotel room on the luggage carrier at the end of the day.