The Adventure Continues

Just to let you all know in only six months time our blog will make a slight change as we will be exploring a new Country.  That's right everyone...we are moving to Canada!  Trevor and I have been thinking very hard and long about what is next for us and after much deliberation have decided that Canada is unequivocally the place for us!  We have loved adventuring in England and have so much more we want to see and so little time to do it all in.  We plan on packing these last six months full of British adventures so you won't miss out on these.  In addition, we still plan to come back and visit England yearly as it will always be like a second home to us and have a special place in our hearts.  We also plan to visit Amsterdam yearly to attend Trevor's Blender Conference.  So, we will just be expanding our travel area in future blog posts.

Why Canada?

1.) Obviously all of our American and Canadian friends and family will firstly say they may get to see us on more than once every year and a half, which everyone is thrilled about! 

2.)  There is a significant monetary benefit as the American dollar is worth about half the value of a British Pound.

3.)  Cultural assimilation (The process by which a minority immigrant group acquire new customs, language, and ideologies through contact and education in the dominant society) (wikipedia).  Trevor and I suck at this...we are very headstrong Midwest Americans at heart and adapting we have not.  While we can appreciate the culture from a far and love so many things about British culture, we just like it better when we are not a part of it.

Some ways we have not been able to assimilate culturally include the following.

A.)  No matter how much we try, or how innocent the casual Englishmen is, when we get asked "where are you from?" every time we leave the house...even if we are sitting trying to have a romantic dinner we have a 30 minute conversation with a complete stranger about American culture.  Trevor has started answering this question a bit snidely with "we are from Middle Street in Worcester".  We don't mean to come of as rude, however, it's questions like this that make it very apparent that we will just never quite fit in.  And discussing my accent or putting on a British accent to blend in has failed...I have tried!  lol.  fyi...I still...I mean STILL get confused when I go to order a burger and some fries, and when I ask for fries they tell me they don't sell them with the burger, and if they do I have just ordered the wrong thing.  Because, No, I never remember to say chips...and I suck at all the other lingo too, and the British don't appreciate when I am talking about my pants (their underwear) with no reservations in public. 

B.)  The English pace of life tends to run on a much slower basis than the American life style.  For example, all stores close by 5 or 6 pm.  So, if you need or want anything (even just something to keep you entertained) you better go to the pub because everything else is closed.  And again we can respect the British pace as we notice the English tend to be much more family oriented and much more willing to give time off for illness or family. But, unfortunately we can not be those people that wait 2 months to get Internet installed...it would literally drive us insane. 

C.)  Luxuries...and yes...I know how vein that sounds.  I miss certain types of food from back home (even certain cuisines like Chinese can taste completely different from what I am used to).  We are used to being able to find everything we want very easily and know exactly what stores to look at to locate them.  Some stores here we still have no idea what's in them...we were actually once forced to be a plunger from amazon because we couldn't find one anywhere else...still haven't in fact.  Oh....and for the love of everything holy I will be so glad to never have to use the two tap British system again.  Either you use the hot water and get burned or the cold and freeze. 

http://mindyourpeaseandqueues.tumblr.com/post/531131668/15-sinks-with-two-taps

4.)  Canada is BEAUTIFUL and we miss the nature, the fresh air, and the mountains (and skiing).  I mean how could this not be somewhere you could see yourself falling in love with.

http://cdnstatic-2.mydestination.com/library/images/102_1680_948.jpg

So if all goes well with work permits and visas we will see you in Saskatchewan in six months!