My local contacts spent a lot of time teaching me the speeding rules and what is the limit of being utterly screwed and for all of that I'm very grateful. The lessons were much appreciated though momentarily forgotten at times.
The thing nobody warned me about was my horrible experience with the food back there.
When we moved here a year and a half ago, it took me a few months to start eating here. Everything everywhere tasted awful because of the bad ingredients and I swear I could taste the hormones and antibiotics in meats. I still can not drink anything else but non fat organic milk and that my friends is about 2 times more expensive here than petrol. Canada brought back this problem.
My minor issues with headlights have been documented with the precision only I manage to achieve as can be seen here but on the first part of my journey those were bad in a way I did not see happening even after having (was going to use the word seeing, but that was a bit strong) my first wildlife encountering.
Sure, my beloved bank made being in petrol stations a hobby which I hope I won't return to, sure the names of the places were planned to keep people out. Sadly those become minor issues compared what I started to call in my head The Curse of Tara not long after leaving Vancouver.
I'm taking back my high evaluation of her now since I'm sure she did it on purpose. She took me to a night market as told before, a great part of the Asian food culture there. Since she didn't see me eating much because of her slowness she thought I hated it, when the problem was the usual mom problem of eating faster than the speed of light. Except one thing she gave me, all textures were excellent and even when we were on a damn market, an outside market, the feeling of being home was there.
If you don't know anything about Finnish food culture, here are a few quick lessons.
* We kick our kids ( male) out of the house when they finish high school to army and they all go nicely since the food made by mom is so bad. I remember looking at my plate when living with my parents many, many times thinking this will surely finish me off. The female ones get an education fast to get the financial means to get food in the table and to buy a cook book. The women are smart so they lose their ability later in life just to get the pups go away when the time comes.
* When I moved out of my parents house, I had one set of forks and knives, a spoon, a puppy, a frying pan, puppy food and a cook book my first grade teacher gave me as a present (she came to dinner to my parents house once, and I do believe she as an educator wanted better things for the next generation). My first attempts in being an independent adult were so bad, the puppy who followed me to the states later shared her food with me on nights when I actually wanted to go back to my parents to get fed.
* Finns never use any spices and the textures are usually mildly or very disgusting. I still remember the first time I had this weird thing called Jalapeno.
On my way to Calgary I seemed weirdly hungry all the time. At first I thought it was Tara not feeding me properly, but after a few hundred kilometers I realized there was a pattern. It seemed weird to walk out from a petrol station without having at least an apple in my hand, next thing I knew was I was stopping (for 45 minutes every time since the bank kept shutting down my accounts) to get some milk, ice cream, hell once I bought a 350 g or something of cheese and ate it all on my way to the next stop 100 km away.
When I hit Calgary, after driving almost 45 minutes with a mere snack within my reach, I got it. Tara had cursed me with taste again. That sneaky tiny thing got me in a few hours back to eating like a lunatic and things started to be quite desperate when I hit Saskatoon. The man behind the handle M4TW took me out for a breakfast, and got enough milk into me to last for hours. By lunch time when we met again, I swear to coffee (not canadian, that's still shit) I did not know Ukraine exported anything else but bad news about tiny nuclear accidents. After he gave me a short introduction to their food culture, a few atom related news from the past will not get in my way while exploring more of their delicacies.
Now you see a pattern. Now you know why the headlights become an issue. It is truly hard to spot the next place one can get food when your lights are not bright enough and also, the only option for me to cover any miles was to do long days, with multiple fuel (and not just for the car) stops.
Just before Thunderbay while eating a truck drivers dinner his wife had packed for him, I realized this was becoming a big issue. Before hitting the border I had to face the fact that if I was to see Wyoming again which was my dream drive for this trip, I needed to come up with a way to handle my minor food related issues again, and not a damn thing I will write here will explain to anyone how bad it got. I was doing 8 meals per day after Vancouver, and a few snacks in between. If I say I was on five liters of milk routine it would probably be quite correct.
Here all tastes the same, it's bland mixed with badness and there is no place in Canada where the ingredients are not better. Even the food on a truck stop is worth every penny, and I assure you, I did my testing on this too.
I was in Canada for 6 or so days, and I didn't fit into any of my clothes when I reached the border.
When I returned home I was 4 kg's under the weight I left with ( hubby dearest weight me since the last time I apparently lost too much weight so in order to go again he set up parameters I had to meet) because all I could eat on the road was chicken wings, wings, wings, wings and WINGS. Those sauces hide the bad taste well enough and while eating at the mother pace ("thanks, can you just go and charge me for this straight away, since I tend to eat faster than the speed of light") they are not that terrible.
I see you three reading this shaking your heads, you all think I'm full of shit. Well yes, I was then (don't analyze that one please, it would give too much meaning to all those photos with potable potties) but here are my pics from the states outside Wyoming:
Now, at home I'm on Jalapeno diet again. This photo could've been taken at breakfast, lunch or just now, at dinner since apparently all I do for me are these:
 |
| The awful plastic thingy is filled with coffee, the only thing that is better in America when compared to Canada. |
I merely want you all to be aware, eating abroad has risks we can't calculate or prepare for.
Anna
(and really, it's all her fault. it just is.)
No comments:
Post a Comment