i forgot!

there were two other exciting tourist-style things about the trip to victoria (apart from the fact that i have now been to victoria and melbourne without leaving the northern hemisphere) - smudge and i were totally close to america. when we went down to catch the ferry we were about ten minutes drive away from the border. it was bizarre and scary. i mean, i have met lots of lovely americans here - one of the people we were hanging round victoria with was an ex-pat and two of my profs this semester are americans, but america as an entity still scares me. (NY is not america, everybody tells me). plus how weird are national boundaries? the idea that we could drive for ten minutes, spend half an hour being hassled by border officials (only a short time as white) and be in a different country? with different money? very odd. realised i've never crossed a land border, which is a very australian thing, i think. might be doing a day trip to seattle some time.

the other, less exciting thing was that i got to use an ice-scraper. haha. you keep it in yr car and use on the windows on winter mornings. this was a mini west coast version. my friends from central canada have a great big one with an ice-scraper on the end and a brush along the handle to sweep away the snow.