Sal Tlay Ka Siti

So I’m back in Calgary (aka “the disco bed”), flying out to Salt Lake City today (that is, if Westjet or Delta or whoever the fuck I’m actually flying with today will finally let me check in - apparently during the seven million times they changed that flight after I booked it, they started producing duplicate bookings for me and so now I seem to have multiple seats and the system can’t handle it…) and I can’t believe the first country’s already over.

Before I talk about that, though, there’s one topic that’s been bothering me all week: why aren’t cinnamon and maple syrup more of a thing in Germany? I feel like they should be. I’ve taken to slathering everything I eat in maple syrup this week. Especially my cinnamon swirl bread. (When I didn’t have fun with the pancake machine at my hotel. I mean, a PANCAKE MACHINE. You press a button, and a minute later, out comes a perfectly browned pancake. WHAT??) Today, my waffles came with strawberry cinnamon cream cheese. My car snack this week were Cinnamon Bun Oreos (and suddenly I like Oreos way more than I usually do). We should definitely make this a thing at home. I don’t think I can go back to living without cinnamon in everything I eat.

Anyway. Canada pulled out all the stops on my last day yesterday and put on its sunshine pants (well, mostly, but sunshine for all the parts that mattered), which of course meant I had the urge to stop EVERYWHERE I’d already been again, because of course sunshine pictures look better than cloudy pictures. Which means the five hour drive from Jasper to Calgary took me approximately ten. Ah, well. I’m only here once. And after elk, elk, more elk, some bighorn sheep, and even more elk all week, they even pulled a bear (a black bear to be exact) out of the hat for me at the last minute, so I’d know all those bear warnings aren’t just publicity stunts. I missed the turn-off for a waterfall I wanted to go to (I don’t even know why, I indicated, I was on the right lane to turn - and then just blew past it anyway. Guess I’m starting to get a little tired here…), had to turn around somewhere, came back around the corner, and there he sat on his butt, in the middle of the road. So naturally, I slammed on the brakes, took about five seconds to comprehend “Bear. There’s a bear sitting in front of my car. Camera? Camera!!” But until my camera was up and running he had ambled into the woods. (The woods I had to walk through 2 minutes later I might add…)

And lo and behold, once you can actually see more than 10 feet in front of you, the Icefields Parkway is a really pretty route to drive. Snow-covered mountains everywhere, waterfalls, glaciers and larch season is still going strong despite the snow, so yeah, that definitely made up for the shitty drive up. After that drive, by the way, it looks like Banff and Calgary got all the snow, while Jasper actually didn’t in the end and it’s a veritable winter wonderland here. Jasper got the cold, though. My highlight were the -8°C yesterday (even though the -2°C plus the hurricane-force winds the day before felt colder somehow...). I mean, I was prepared for cold, but I wasn’t actually prepared for THAT much cold (and to think, last Monday I could walk around without a jacket for most of the day). So I’m kinda hoping for a few more degrees in the U.S. Would be nice to NOT have to wear my whole wardrobe at once for a change.

By the way, fair warning, the next Asian that walks into my shot to take heir 7th million ridiculous selfie is gonna get bludgeoned with my tripod, I swear to God.

Also, if you didn’t get the reference in the post title, go watch Book of Mormon. Do it. You won’t regret it.

Alright, I'm off to catch my airport shuttle. Keep your fingers crossed I actually make it to the U.S. today...



UPDATE:

I think today officially counts as the first whiny wanderer day. I blame being tired on being somewhat overwhelmed with everything today, but so far, the U.S. and I haven’t really gotten off to a good start.

So I did eventually make it to Salt Lake City, but of course, in typical Nicole fashion, it wasn’t exactly straightforward. After about 15 minutes of the Delta agent trying unsuccessfully to print my boarding pass, a second person had to get involved, and then of course - and those of you familiar with my TSA adventures can get ready to laugh now - it turns out I was “randomly selected” for SSSS. (If you don’t know what SSSS is, let’s just say it's a big fat lie that people are“randomly selected” to go through that - which kinda explains why probably 80% of the people usually subjected to it are men from Middle Eastern countries). So my boarding pass got put in a bright orange envelope, I got my very own TSA agent to take care of me, all my belongings got special “SSSS” flags and then we basically went through EVERYTHING. Thank god I learned during that great experience in Hamburg a few months back that you should always have your devices powered when you fly, because I had to turn on every single device with a battery in it. Phone, computer, cameras, you name it. Fortunately they at least passed on the extra thorough pat-down. But I swear, there’s a conspiracy going on here. How do I keep ending up on these lists???

My new rental car is also driving me to tears right now. First of all, that thing is a cruiseliner. My little Canadian Ford Fiesta could fit twice into that car. I couldn’t find anything. Not how to adjust the seat, not how to turn off the damn seat heater (and it might not be the height of summer here, but it’s definitely not cold enough for me to constantly get my butt roasted), not how to work the damn handbrake. And then my GPS wasn’t working and I had to guess my way to my hotel - which included a pretty busy Interstate and me not being able to really see anything, because - you guessed it - the mirrors weren’t my friends either. YouTube has kinda helped me out on most fronts now, so let’s hope tomorrow’ll go a bit better where the car is concerned. Or it’s gonna be a long 10 days. I already break out in hives when I think about having to drive through L.A. next week.