Harassment at Mcdonalds

I broke down today and joined the Mcdonalds craze that seems to have a hold of this city.  The lineups to the registers inside as well as the outdoor walk-up window remind me of Tim Horton's back home.  In a desperate move for food at a late hour before starting the overnight shift at work I hit the walk-up window and placed my order with the fewest required words possible. 

After a few practice runs in my head of what I needed to say to order what I wanted I was ready and as long as the McEmployee listened to me there wouldn't be a problem.  Today, however, I got the guy who felt like throwing some questions into the middle of my practiced order.  He completely caught me offguard and I lost my focus so after taking a  moment to come up with a response to a question i didn't understand I gave up and told him I don't speak Russian. 

He knew a bit of english and his translation of the question turned out be 'boy or girl?' I started thinking.....

1)  I thought my gender was obvious enough
2) When did asking your gender become part of the ordering process?

I felt emasculated but refused to answer his question and simply repeated my order in a deeper voice.  That seemed to work. 

I realized later that maybe he thought I ordered a kids happy meal or something where the toy that comes with it is gender specific.  This makes the most sense to me but still not sure how he would hear me order that as the Russian pronunciation of Big Mac is ..wait for it....Big Mac. 

Medical Mythbusters

I had to visit the med clinic the other day for a vaccination and I inadvertently went through a round of Russian Mythbusters. 

Myth:  It's only a vaccine, it will be easy
Fact:  no, it won't.    BUSTED

Myth:  The doctors don't speak english but the receptionists do. No need for a translator.
Fact:  Three receptionists, no English.  Always hire a translator.        BUSTED


Myth:  If the doctor hands you a thermometer and just to make sure on where it goes you point at the thermometer, then at your mouth and doctor nods her head to confirm, then be confident that's where it goes.
Fact:  The thermometer goes in your armpit.  Where were you on that one translator???  BUSTED

Myth:  Be concerned of where that thermometer had been before you put it in your mouth.
Fact:  yes, be very concerned.     CONFIRMED

Russian Lesson of the Day

If you find this sign informative you are not allowed to use the bathroom in my apartment.  

Russian Lesson of the Day

There's really no point to bumper cars....unless they have guns

Today's Menu

Dave:  What salad do you have today?
Cook:  Carrot salad
Dave:  Oh, what all is in it?
Cook:  Carrots
Dave:   That makes sense

The ultra complex carrot salad

Paradiski - Les Arcs

My recent snowboarding vacation took place in the southeast corner of France, the Peisey-Vallandry ski area of the French Alps. I took the train from Paris on a 5 hour trip to the closest town, passing through Albertville on the way.  Albertville, for those who don't remember, was the host city the 1992 winter olympics.  Many of the events took place outside of Albertville and I was passing through this area in the train it was easy to see why.  There were many towns located not far from each other to access as much of the Alps as possible.  As it turns out the resorts I was staying at, Les Arcs, was a spot used for some of the skiing during those olympics.  On a side note, Canada collected only 7 medals (2 gold) that year compared to 26 medals in 2010 including 14 gold.  I had the absolute pleasure of travelling to Vancouver last year and enjoying a part of the olympics with great friends but that's a whole other story involving the Molson Canadian Hockey House, multiple Team Canada hockey jerseys, twizzelators, taquitos, getting filmed on national television while belting the Canadian anthem and strolling the Vancouver streets in costumes like this....

ya, it's a one-piece

Like I said, it's a whole other story but I'll get back to my vacation.  The resort I was going to be boarding at had an elevation of 2000m which turned out to be key as much of the snow on the lower resorts had melted and the ground could be seen.  The weather was wonderful, possibly a little too warm but since I'm barely a better boarder than some one of those cocky 7 year olds whipping by me on the hill, I didn't need pristine conditions.  There was a fair bit of fresh snow that fell during the week so all-in-all I had nothing to complain about. 

Ski trips, no matter the age, tend to involve a fair bit of drinking and since I was meeting up with 5 guys from the UK it's safe to say this trip went beyond that.  It helped (or didn't help) that we were staying at a resort that had All-you-can-drink wine and $1 beers.  The quality was terrible but you couldn't beat the price.  The next most reasonable beer was $8 at other establishments so we usually stuck near home for sociables, copious amounts of drinking games including one called 'depth charge'.  If you don't know it you don't want to.  The loser of each game had to finish their drinks, of course, but there were added punishments such as having to wear a horse head to the bar or during dinner.  Don't ask me why someone decided to bring a horse head on the trip.  This was a popular punishment until it caused a little kid to freak out seeing a horse's head on a human body. That will most likely stick with him  for life, I know my traumatic horse story did.  

Due to the effectiveness of the drinking games, the guys from the UK were in top form most of the trip.  This got us into a few interesting situations of almost getting run over by a snow plow, having a pushing match with police officers in the elevator, punching our chalet host, and other scenarios I have chosen to censor. In each of these situations I was the typical Canadian peacemaker trying to keep the Brits under control.  It Seemed I could handle my alcohol a bit better than they could.  Nevertheless, these antics made us quite popular with the local ski staff and wanted to join our party. 

One night, my buddy and I were the only ones that could make it out.  The rest of the crew had too difficult of a time staying awake for dinner and keeping dinner down so we went out for a few beers, a quiet night.  We ran into a couple from Israel and chatted with them for a little while, nice people.  They were staying at the club med resort and they were telling us that it was a party every night with lots of single Belgian girls.  Being part Belgian I thought it was my duty to meet with some people with my heritage so my buddy and I made a plan to go to club med.  The couple told us it's actually quite difficult to get in since the whole idea with club med is it's a package deal and since everything is included the only one's allowed in the resort are the guests who have properly paid for the services.  Also, the couple told us not to go that night since it was getting late and they would be closing down the bar in half hour or so.  At that point, we had Belgium on the mind, so we ignored that last statement and made our plan to infiltrate club med.  My friend, being British, wanted to go with a 007 tactic and I was going with the Mission Impossible strategy but I think our styles clashed as we had three failed attempts at finding a secret entry and decided just to walk in the front door and see what happens.  The security staff at club med should be used as secret service agents since they were after us right away looking for identification, reasons for being there, where we were staying, etc. and forced us to leave as quickly as possible.  As we were told, the bar was closed anyways so our plan was doomed to fail.  A boycott on club med was put into effect after that. 

Overall, It was not a relaxing vacation but definitely worthwhile.

View from the Summit

I was at a local nightclub last night and partway through the night someone decided to show the semi-finals (i think) of Canada vs. Scotland in Ford world men's curling championship on the only TV they had in the club.  An interesting choice to say the least to show in the night club.  As expected no one was watching except for me and it wasn't for my love of curling but noticing that this tournament was being held in Regina.  For those who don't know, Regina is my hometown.  Just as with the diamond in the rough find of the Bryan Adams tape in a Russian work truck, I felt a bit of pride and homesickness to see my city on TV and all the fans in red cheering on Canada in what ended up being a win.  It didn't matter that the Euro/Russian house music was blaring in the foreground.  As the camera scanned the crowd of fans it showed a seemingly endless close up of an older lady, presumably a proud mother, waving her canadian flag in front of her.  The only problem is that she was holding it backwards. You might say that it's impossible to hold the Canadian flag backwards an you would be mostly right but when it has a trim at the bottom that says CANADA but you see it as ADANAC it becomes a bit more obvious. 

This affected me more than it should have at the time and I was a little distraught from seeing my flag being waved backwards.  Thankfully, a nice girl with a barbed wire tattoo on her arm took me to the dance floor and helped me forget my troubles.  After a few basic Russian-English back and forths I asked what her job was and she told me it was a 'secret! secret!'....must be a government thing.