It's been a great weekend, and pretty much as exciting as it gets for me here in Edmonton! Friday I had to go return some shoes at West Edmonton mall. I made the mistake of buying footwear online and it turned out to be an annoying headache trying to coordinate the delivery with UPS. I had stayed home all day Wednesday when they were supposed to be delivered, but the call never came. It turns out the driver had forgotten to read the buzz code I had printed on the label and just left without trying. Then they were supposed to come on Friday, I stayed home all day and left post-its in the lobby advising of my buzz code, etc. and the UPS guy didn't buzz up, but somehow got in and came up to my floor! If he knocked, I didn't hear it, I just found another infuriating little brown and yellow UPS note on my door. I stayed home all day Monday, though and they finally came (and the boots didn't fit).

So after returning my too-small boots, I went through every shoe store in the mall looking for another suitable pair (and, yes, it is called the biggest mall in the world). No luck. My problem was I wanted the comfort of Uggs without the overdone-teenage-trendiness of wearing Uggs (no offense to anyone who wears Uggs, but unique footwear is important to me). I really needed boots, so I ended up going to another mall the next morning for the perfect pair in my size. They look something like this:

Anyway, while at West Ed, I decided to walk up to Michaels. I had looked it up on google maps, and it was less than a centimetre! What a nightmare. Trudging through snow (have they heard of sidewalks?) and trying not to slip and break my back. What should have taken five minutes took about 20. I've been meaning to rant about the ice here in Edmonton. I cannot get over it. Walking to school is deathly, and I slip all the time. The sidewalks are pure ice! They sometimes put down little stones but it doesn't really help. I guess that's why I never see anyone over 50 walking outside- it's too dangerous. The roads too get caked with snow and frosted with ice (do you like the cake and frosting reference?) At the end of the walk to Micheals my shins, calves and entire legs were exhausted like I'd been ice skating for hours. Anyway, do you know where I'm going with this? I have been shocked and appalled by this and kept wondering if Albertans are too poor to afford salt or too lazy to put it down or what. Thankfully my roommate, also a displaced Toronto girl, explained that salt doesn't work here because it's too cold (if you're thinking I'm an idiot for not realizing myself, understand that I am the kind of person to be thankful things work the way they do and not ask too many questions).

Anyway, that's one of the reasons I moved out here... to learn about western Canada. I've also discovered it's too cold for maple trees so the fall colours are mostly just yellow. And they don't have rats in the underground train station. This puzzled me for a while, although, as I said, I don't like to ask too many questions, I'm just happy to be in such a rodent and insect free city (they also only have two kinds of birds, which is kind of freaky. I've only ever seen pigeons and black billed magpies:) Anyway, back to the rats. Do you know the story? Rats only ever made it to the border of Alberta in 1950! And Albertans didn't want rats so they set up a border patrol, still in operation today consisting of eight employees, 600 x 70 kilometres and a whole lot of rat poison. So there are really no rats in Edmonton.

Well, it's bedtime due to an important statistics midterm tomorrow night. Therefore you will just have to wait for the Friday night through Sunday portion of my weekend review.