Lakeside locution

Today is Friday and it still feels as though I’ve only just arrived in Canada.

On Wednesday night, Pete picked me up from the airport and frove me back to his place. His place, or, strictly speaking, his parents’ place (they won’t be living here until next year) is a large lakeside house. The front door is actually on second floor, where there’s a kitchen, a living room, a small bathroom (unfinished) and a bedroom – where I’m sleeping. Down the stairs you find Pete and his housemate’s computer room, three bedrooms and two bathrooms. Down some more stairs you find the slightly mouldy-smelling gaming room – where I’ll be joining in a superheroes game tonight … as soon as I make a character. I haven’t been down to the lake yet, but from the upper floors it looks like the lawn extends from the bottom floor about 20 or 30 yards before there’s a fringe of trees and then water.

Yesterday, the housemate drove me into Halifax and bought me some lunch at a waterfront restaurant (I chose fish and chips – it seemed appropriate, somehow). We walked up to the public gardens and later went to a mall in Dartmouth – which is across the bay from Halifax, and towards their house – for a smoothie.

Halifax – what I’ve seen of it – has quite an uncityish feel to it – it’s almost more of a large small town. If you see what I mean. The streets had a fair amount of people on them, but they were far from heaving. Nor are the streets very wide, and most of the buildings are relatively modest in scale. From signs and the architecture, it definitely feels North American, though; apparently it’s quite similar to Boston.

And the weather’s been very nice – warm and sunny and not too windy.

Before I switched my laptop on, I discovered that the plug adapter I got at Heathrow appears to be the wrong type. The packaging said it was for use in America, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, but its prongs are closer together and a different shape than the plugs in the house. The prongs have a certain amount of give in them and you can get them into the socket, but obviously I don’t want to force them and blow something up. Or something.