20 April 2010

Canucks, Chinooks, and a French Microwave

Wow! It's been a really long time since I posted. I hope everyone is doing well. My family recently moved to Canada, and we've been learning about the culture here.

Canucks. Hockey is King!--Doh!--I can't say that . . . The Vancouver Canucks are playing the LA Kings . . . ummm . . . OK, let's just say that the Canucks are to Vancouver what the Vols are to Knoxville. Most of you will get that. I've also learned that if you watch a Canucks game, and hear something that sounds like "Boooooooo," you are actually hearing Vancouver fans chant, "Luuuuuuu," which is short for Luongo, the name of the Vancouver goaltender who also served as goaltender on the Canadian national team for the recent Olympics here in beautiful British Columbia.

Chinooks. We were given a pop quiz the other day on Canadian culture. I actually got many of them right, but I had no idea what a chinook was. We haven't experienced one, but apparently it is when warm winds from the ocean come over the mountains to an interior plain. A chinook can potentially warm temperatures forty to fifty degrees in a few short hours, before leaving the temps to drop back off drastically again shortly after. They got their name from a tribe of Native Americans (First Nations) people in the region (North shore of the mouth of the Columbia River).

French Microwave. I wrote once about God "breaking my microwave". Well, when my family was exploring our "new," and furnished, apartment . . . the microwave was in French. I thought this was interesting. Luckily it was simply a French label that was easily taken off to reveal the English--the OTHER national language of Canada.

That's it for now. Check out my family's much-more-often-updated blog, chopstickstimes6.blogspot.com.

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