12 Things I most certainly WON’T miss about Canada

1. The bitter, bitter cold. Words fail me, so much do I hate the cold here. It’s the wind more than anything. It’s particularly bad for me since I don’t drive, and so have to walk distances and stand around for what seems like hours waiting for public transportation while freezing winds whistle in through minute gaps in my massive garments and my eyes and nose run involuntarily. No, and No again. I will not ever subject myself to this humiliation again. It nearly drove me to suicide, I joke not. For the rest of my life, I will never again sit in the shade. I will embrace every particle of heat that comes my way, and never complain.
2. Not having any friends. People come and go here; you can’t depend on them, they never have your back, and you have to arrange to meet for coffee weeks in advance. Everyone works too hard anyway to have time, whether they want to socialize or not.
3. Really expensive taxis. They want your pancreas for taking you a few blocks. Can’t they see it’s cold?! Prompt door-to-door transportation is a human right in temperatures like these. I am willing to dedicate my life to this cause, in perfect seriousness.
4. My allergies. They only started this year, and while maybe it’s age and not location, I’m pretty damn sure I would not have come into contact with no pollen back in the M.E. Plus, my defences have been weakened by all this hygiene and lack of parasites. M contends that my immune system is currently engaged fighting my bladder infection and has no more forces to deploy to fight my allergies, but I dismiss this theory. My body is totally not fighting that infection; the doctor called me back in and showed me a long list of all the antibiotics my hardy bacteria are resistant to, which means they’re obviously running shit down there in my bidness. Not that I’m surprised at any weird bodily reactions of mine – I’ve been thrown together quite shoddily.
5. No bidets. A whole civilization is walking around with shit-smeared asses here. Why, and wherefore? I look forward to cleansing my bum thoroughly, and perhaps even recreationally.
6. The lack of shisha places. They have a few here, but it’s not the same. The quality is deficient for one thing, and they don’t have real coal. This bothers me for some reason. They’re also at the far end of the universe.
7. Pro-Israelis. Those who embrace the brutality and crimes against humanity as the exigencies of winning a war, I have no quibble with; those are honest and informed people, and I accept that realpolitik is ultimately how the world is. It’s the ones who deny it, and make no attempt to discover the real facts, that I simply cannot stand. Not that Egypt doesn’t have ignorant people, or those who simply make no attempt to discover any truth outside their blinkered vision; it does, and richly. But I like to choose which kind of ignorance I come in contact with, and I’ll be happy not speaking to another pro-Israeli supporter again. I’m so, so tired of censoring myself on this issue because a good third of the people at my school are pro-Israeli and already eye me askance.
8. No lemon wedges with soup. But we’ve been over that. Also, no garlic paste with chicken shawermas. Abu Mazen – I salivate at the thought. I’m wiping saliva off my keyboard as you read.
9. Hardly any fresh fruit juices. One vacation in Cairo, I went to five different cafes in one day, and had a different juice in each one. Nothing could sate my juice thirst.
10. Last call for alcohol at 1:30 a.m. When everyone knows that is when parties get started.
11. The utter impossibility of getting food past midnight here. You have to search high and low, and stand in line behind hookers. And don’t even get me started on how few places deliver here, and at what astonishingly early hour they stop doing so.
12. Stupid televised sports, particularly lame ones like curling, taking up the space of decent fictional programming.

Wow. I expected more. My bitterness has dissipated with the last snows it seems.

Posted in: Canada