All Hail...no wait, snow…and now rain.

You’ve got to love weather!! On Thursday (24th) I got in the cab after work and it started to hail. Small hail, but lots of it. Then waking up Friday morning, there was snow on the ground. Enough to turn things white, and make it feel cold, but don’t worry, by Friday night it was raining buckets and melted most of the snow away. It has pretty much been raining ever since. All I can say is THANK GOODNESS I brought a water proof jacket. I was walking back from the grocery store tonight and my jeans and shoes were soaked. There were billions of droplets of rain coming off my hood, not to mention the water gathering in the grocery bags. I guess this is what I need to get used to.

Thursday night our client was hosting a “quiz night”. This is where they ask/answer trivia, usually at a pub, and have a good time. So we decided to show some spirit and put in a team. Together with our co-workers we managed to put two teams together, ours was named “Team Immigrant” - 4 Canadians and 1 South African. The other was compiled of Brits. There were many problems standing in our way at this quiz night. First of all, everyone here is so into these trivia games that they are all very good at it. Secondly, we were a team of foreigners attempting to answer predominately UK Trivia...uh...right. We gave it our all but failed miserably. I think the only topic we did half decent in was naming songs that were being played backwards. I guess I should have paid more attention to Coronation Street while I was growing up. And If I only know who was the captain of the football team that won the 1983 title... stupid me. :) We didn’t come in last, BUT the team that did (whom only had 2 people and started late) bailed out before the results were in. Turns out we were next in line, and had to make the walk of shame down to the front of the room. Good side: we got a prize!

Friday night was quite an experience for me. We were heading out for supper, with no specific place in mind and came across a great Italian restaurant...a different on from the last. We then made our way to a hotel that Lenita had been staying in before we got these apartments, to try their “Sticky Toffee Pudding” dessert. This dessert is very very popular here, and I had yet to try it. Well now I have and oh my, was it good!!! The main part was a cake, but has the Toffee as the ‘icing’. This toffee tastes much like fudge, or more specifically “Sucre a crème”....mmmmmmmm

After peeling ourselves out of the chairs, we started making our way back to the flats. Unfortunately I still tend to look the WRONG WAY when I am crossing the street, and since pedestrians have absolutely no right of way...I was almost run over. It was a definite panic, deer in the headlights moment. Luckily I came to and ran off the road, just in time for the car to come whizzing off a round-about and miss me. Yowzazzzz!! We decided to celebrate my ability to dodge cars, by stopping at this little pub very near our places that had a sign announcing live music. Great! We walk in and it is a room the size of my living room, and there are 20 people in it...including us. The first thing we notice is that it must actually be Karaoke night, because there is a tiny disco strobe light and a guy singing into a mic with music playing off some karaoke looking machine. Oh Boy…were we wrong! This was the live music. This guy had a whole gig going, turned out to be a great signer, just had a bit...no a lot...too much of the cheese factor!! We met an old drunk man whom seemed to make friends with the 3 of us and the rest of the ‘locals’ were crazy, actually I think they all worked there...interesting.

The other major thing that happened on Friday was that we rented a car. We have all been taking cabs to and from...well everywhere, and it’s getting a bit ridiculous. So we now have a car. Don’t worry...I am NOT the driver! I strongly feel that I need to know which way to look when crossing the street before I attempt to get behind the wheel (on the right hand side of the car) and drive (on the left hand side of the street). We took it for a cruise on Saturday out to a town called Lumsden. Lenita has family that was born there, so we thought we’d check it out. It took about 50 minutes to get back to Aberdeen…but 3 hours to get there. We got lost...multiple times...finally found a place with a map...got lost again, then made it to Lumsden. Lucky for us, by the time we got there it was pouring rain and the sun was setting (The sun sets here by 4:00ish…talk about depressing!!!) We took some pictures, went to the next town for supper and made our way back. It was really nice to get out of the city. I tried to take some pictures of the country side, but when you are going 60 mph, it’s a bit difficult.

Hope all is well with you! I’m over the half way mark, and will be home soon enough!

Take care!
Shay-Anne




This was "Team Immigrant" at the pub quiz night...



Here is an attempt to take a picture as the coutry side was whizzing past me. Actually this was taken on one of the sections were we were lost...good things we got lost!




A picture so that I can study how the heck I would drive one of these...ahhhhhh....