Week in Review

So, we got our SINs (social insurance numbers) Friday which is the Canadian equivalent to US Social Security Cards. Now we can do things like open a bank account, health insurance (finally get to see if it is as good as they all say) and other random things like get library cards.



About five minutes after getting our cards I got pulled over by the polzi. Apparently I turned left down a street that I wasn't supposed to even though traffic flows both directions. Believe it or not I had a good experience with them and they didn't even write me a ticket. They did let me know that I have to get a Quebec car tag and drivers license by the end of March. If I keep the GA tag after three months of residence our car would be seized and we would have to pay a hefty fine to get it back. So we'll be getting QC tags in the very near future.


We've also found a way to help stem the budget bleeding from our
coffee/espresso/keep up with ella habit. We bought an espresso maker on Friday. We figure after we make 95 espressos it will pay for itself and I think we're around 20 made since yesterday evening. Total crackheads. You have to drink coffee in heavy doses to stay warm and they have more coffee shops than I have ever seen, typically one every block. So the local economy will take a hit now that we're not hitting a coffee shops, but alas what are we to do.


Next weekend we're headed to Quebec City for a daytrip. It is the annual Carnival festival and it happens to be the 400th year anniversary of the city. So we'll get to see ice races, dog sled races (iditirod style), luge racing, igloo city, ice hotel, etc. It should be pretty awesome and we're planning to hit a sugar shack on the way.


Other Random Carnival pics.....

We also made a trip out to Mont Royal to play in the snow today.....
http://www.garytempleton.com/mont-royal/

Our First Snow

This is what happens when you don't move your car and a snowplow comes through....

We got to experience our first real snowstorm this past weekend. It was pretty nuts considering we're from Atlanta and we're lucky if it snows a total of one inch throughout the year. On Friday it snowed an inch in 30 minutes and by the time I left work a good eight inches had fallen. By the time we woke up Saturday morning over a foot had fallen. However, life rolls on here when it snows and believe it or not we went out to dinner Friday night. Don't fret, we didn't even think about driving as we left that up to the local professionals. I thought I had found us a decent Mexican restaurant to try out, but it wound up being fairly terrible which was the first bad food experience we've had here. Jonathan let me know that we are a long ways from Mexico. I can also count on him to give me the voice of reason/common sense on such matters.

Ella and Ally had a big time in the snow, click here to see.

We were supposed to go out for tubing or sledding on Saturday, but it just didn't happen. We opted to stay indoors.

This is a pic from a parking lot. Yes, that is the actual height of the snow. Just crazy. On that note it is supposed to snow crazy amounts Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Who knows, guess we'll just have to see.