Final Destination: Whitecourt

We arrived in Whitecourt on Easter Monday, and were welcomed with love by the other South African medical couples. The apartment (condo!) that we are renting from our friends is lovely and had been stocked with rusks, fresh food, a freezer full of meat and frozen meals, flowers and chocolates. As a settling in present it snowed, covering the ground and our newly borrowed Ford 4x4 truck with white powder.

The last few days have been taken up with setting up bank accounts, cell phone (mobiles) contracts, land line phone, internet, movie contract and everything else that modern daily living requires. Tomorrow we are going into Edmonton where Craig has his appointment with the College of Medicine, and we will also stop past IKEA (wonderful place!) to find new furnishings for our new home.

Our new condo:

Snow on our first night - borrowed truck, left hand drive: poor Craigy!

Edmonton - pick-up trucks and neon

Executive Royal Inn



West Edmonton Mall



Our four hour flight to Edmonton was thankfully uneventful, just tiring. We arrived at the West Edmonton Executive Royal Inn hungry and tired, still on Toronto/Dubai/Cape Town time, only to be told that the money we had paid our travel agent had not reached the hotel! Not the fault of our lovely travel agent - it had got held up at some agency in between.

Gazing out of our hotel room window, after a burnt Pizza Hut dinner and giant Pepsi (the tempting glass of wine was so much more expensive), the only thing we could see was neon fast food signs and car headlights. Travel, always wonderful in retrospect, can often be dispiriting and isolated. It was only the next morning that we realised that our hotel was also surrounded by surburbia - brand new identical housing estates that hadn't had any lights on the night before.... Freaky. But the West Edmonton Mall (biggest in the world when it was first built and full of lovely clothes) was amazing. A combination of American and European high street stores, the occasional designer store, many department stores and the largest roller coaster and indoor water park in the world serves to part you from your money while you have fun. Horrible and garrish from the outside we were so pleasantly surprised when we walked in! Retail therapy really does work...