Steaks and sporrens

We visited one of Regina's 'Celtic' restaurants. Celtic is when they couldn't decide between the Scottish and the Irish and decided to go for some sort of hybrid. This one is called The Knotted Thistle. There are humorously named burgers and something called Irish nachos (amazing).

Amongst the Celtic faux-stained-glass windows and Irish music you can also find waitresses dressed in teeny-tiny kilts, knee high socks and sporrens (see sneaky photo below). Delightful I'm sure if you're a middle aged male with vague Scottish roots. Not so appealing however, if you're female. Unfortunately, scantily clad waitresses are a common theme here in Canada - I don't know whether these dress codes are enforced by the managers or whether they choose to dress like this but I think it's a real shame that shorter skirts = bigger tips.

David had the 'William Wallace' burger and I had the steak sarnie, which was all open-faced and yummy...

(That big dish of brown stuff is a lake of gravy, just for dipping chips/fries in!!!)

Love the stats

The Stat holidays that is! (I have a terrible sense of humour)

There is a stat holiday (bank holiday to the Brits) EVERY MONTH in Saskatchewan*

January - New Year's Day
Feb - Family Day
March - Good Friday
May - Victoria Day or "Queen's Day" - To celebrate the British Queen
July - Canada Day
August - Saskatchewan Day
Sept - Labour Day
Oct - Thanksgiving
Nov - Remembrance Day - to commemorate WW1 and WW2, all we get is 2 minutes silence!!
Dec - Christmas Day

*Apart from April and June.

So, despite the poor holiday allowance that you get over here compared to the UK (15 days instead of about 21). You do end up getting a boat-load more bank holidays, hooray!

Plus, on occasions like Labour Day or Canada Day, Regina usually has a bigger market downtown, loads of amazing food trucks (see below) and there's sales in all the shops. Much better than at home, where everything shuts down and everyone ends up meandering around Tesco.

Regina's finest

Before leaving the UK, David and I did a little research into eating out in the area. And to our surprise, the foodstablishment ranked at number 2 in the entire city, was Milky Way Ice Cream. How, we thought, is it possible for a place that only sells ice cream to top some of the cities, 'full-service' restaurants?!

Well now we know.

If you're planning a trip to Regina, Milky Way is a must-eat. They serve every kind of ice cream imaginable, in every format you can think of - soft serve (whippy), hard serve (scoopy), in a cone, in a cup, drizzled with sauce and nuts (a praline), blizzards (McFlurry style). I think they actually serve hot dogs as well, but I doubt they get much of a look in. They also do weekly specials, last time we went it was "Banana cream pie". Delish.

Confessions of a Slurpee addict

I love Slurpees. I love them in Grape flavour (which you think is going to taste like raisins or wine but is actually kind of blackcurranty). I love 7up flavour. I love Sour Cherry flavour. In fact I seem to love just about every flavour when it's stirred into crushed ice and decanted into a plastic cup. APART FROM ROOT BEER. I HATE ROOT BEER.

You can get Slurpees - which are "Slush Puppies" to you Brits, from any gas station (petrol station) or 7 Eleven (a glorified One Stop or Londis, without the alcohol of course). They come in 3 sizes and are usually no more than $2. Bargain.

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My bad.

So, it turns out that I just cannot bring myself to blog. at all. Sorry about that folks.

However, I have just read my friend Emma's amazing new blog and decided it was high time that I got my shit together and wrote something on here, so THANKS EMMA!

We've been in sunny Saskatchewan for almost 3 months now. It still feels like a holiday, due to fun things like free refill soft drinks and complimentary tap water in restaurants and because the weather has been like the Mediterranean coast.

We have come across some British/Canadian translation issues, here's some of my personal favourites...

1. Canadians do not understand when you refer to a time as "half" something, e.g. "half 3", they often misinterpret this as half of 3 or half an hour until 3. This can lead to some scheduling issues.

2. "Fags" is a derogatory term for homosexuals, not cigarettes. Do not shout it loudly in public.

3. A "queue" is "line up". For example, "Hey, did you see the line up at Subway?"

And here's a picture of the giant Saskatchewan sky...