http://blogs.bootsnall.com/inuitandepidurals A Medic goes to Canada Sun, 24 May 2009 22:47:03 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Have just come back to my old blog at random and discovered it{s still getting hits. These may be random spam bots but for any real live people who are wondering what I{m up to, I{ve moved my blog to www.melbourneishome. Come and join me on my ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/inuitandepidurals/moving-on.html As part of my pre-trip planning I bought a Teach Yourself Spanish book, complete with two CDs of dialogues. I diligently worked my way through the first three chapters and felt ready for some real life practice. Talking along with the voices on my ipod is not quite the same, ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/inuitandepidurals/spanish-the-problems-with-teaching-yourself.html Every email, every SMS, every facebook update from home, is telling me about Melbourne's heatwave. Thanks to the internet, I know that as I write this at three am Melbourne time its still 28 C. I'm sure it's awful, I'm sure no one is sleeping and every ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/inuitandepidurals/canadian-tips-for-dealing-with-melbournes-heatwave.html I've been trying all week to write about the fog that is enveloping the city but it seems to be enveloping my brain as well. Sometimes, a picture really is worth a thousand words, I certainly like this better than what I've been writing. http://blogs.bootsnall.com/inuitandepidurals/photo-monday-kits-beach-in-the-fog.html We should have guessed. We should have guessed when we got an email saying the room wouldn't be booked until each of us had provided details of our air tickets into JFK. We should have guessed when the next email arrived saying we had to pay for the ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/inuitandepidurals/everyones-your-friend-in-new-york-city.html Awoke today to a still white world and wondered. New Year's Day holds promise that other days simply can't and beneath that blanket of snow, lies the endless possibility of renewal. And I realise over the last couple of weeks of living in this unfamiliar environment how it has ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/inuitandepidurals/reflections-on-new-years-day.html There is an oft quoted urban myth about the Inuit having four hundred words for snow. This week in Vancouver, I have learned a few of my own. First, and most importantly, we have "skiable". Then, a close runner-up, we have "photogenic". The rest, are all ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/inuitandepidurals/snowstorms-in-vancouver.html Request denied. Request denied. The rejected individual is absorbed by the crowd which surges forward, each person desperate to plead their case. Only a thin cord physically separates the "haves" from the "have nots" but it is easy to imagine the chasm which truly exists. The "haves" saunter ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/inuitandepidurals/its-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-christmas.html