Pub - Burlington, Ontario, Canada

Here we have the Black Bull, a British-style pub. Makes you feel like you're in the UK doesn't it? Except for the minivans and SUVs parked out front. Anyway, I'm not much of a drinker but I like to go to this bar (um I mean pub) when they have Karaoke night on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I haven't been in a while (kids and all), but next time you come to Canada, I will definitely take you. We will sing our hearts out! You're it Carol!

Milk - Burlington, Ontario, Canada

Delicious 1% milk. My family goes through 4 liters of the stuff about every two or three days. (Lots of cereal) Below we have the bag of milk, which comes with three bags of milk inside (for a total of 4 liters). Above we have our milk container, where you keep the open bag of milk. Just snip the corner off the bag and voila! We even have a special milk-cutting device (a fridge magnet with a blade on it) so we don't have to find the scissors every time we want to open a new bag. This is normal for us, but come to think of it, it is an odd way to purchase a beverage. You don't see these containers for juice, pop, water, wine, or beer.

Milk - Edinburgh, Scotland

Here we have milk, one of the most common household essentials in any Scottish home. We drink s *lot* of milk in our house (I looooooove cereal!) and so there are usually two cartons in the fridge at any one time. On the left we have a 4 pint carton of skimmed milk with a missing poster on the side. If you look (not so) closely you'll see how out of date it is. I need to shop lol. The red milk came from Iceland, a frozen foods store, not the country. On the right we have a 4 pint carton of semi-skimmed which is freshly made in Scotland - see the St. Andrew's cross flag? It was bought in Marks and Spencer, a more expensive food store and is luckily still in date.

You're in Jen!

Plug Socket - Edinburgh, Scotland

This outlet, or plug socket as we call it here, is located in my living room. As you can see we have the traditional three-prong connection and unlike most countries we have an on/off switch. As far as I'm aware when it's off no power gets through. I'm always a little spooked with US/Canadian/European outlets in case I get electrocuted. *eeeek*

Outlet - Burlington, Ontario, Canada

Here's one we haven't done. This outlet is located above my kitchen counter, out of reach of my toddler. Most of the other outlets are within his reach, and have recently been equiped with outlet covers because of this incident. Anyway, I assume the three-prong (or two-prong) plug in a rectangular outlet is the most efficient way of doing things. You can plug in two appliances, or use a power cord and plug in an unlimited amount of home entertainment dodads until the area behind your television set becomes a jungle of wires. You're it Carol!

Kraft Dinner - Burlington, Ontario, Canada

I didn't see any big displays this time, but I'd say that no other country in the world has embraced Kraft Dinner (or KD, as it is commonly called) the way we Canucks have. In the first photo we have some of the different varieties available: Three Cheeses, Spirales, Whole Wheat (that one tastes like cardboard). I've also seen a pasta salad version, a white cheddar version, and a tomato version (so there's no need to add ketchup). Of course in the bottom photo we have the original KD (50 cents cheaper than the special varieties), a no-name version (tastes terrible but is half the price), and Easy Mac. That's right, if you don't have the cullinary expertise to boil a pot of water, you can now make Kraft Dinner in the microwave!

Cheesey Pasta - Edinburgh, Scotland

I thought I'd post a fun picture. Kraft Cheesey Pasta. Basically this is one of the fastest dinners you can possibly make - it's macaroni with a cheese sauce. The reason I took this photo while my hubby ordered a create-your-own pizza in Asda WalMart was because I liked the display and I know you can get a Canadian version of this. Usually a product has like a little section of a shelf but there were hundred of these boxes out on display! Mind you, at only £1 it's a bargain! Did I buy any? No. Did I see anyone buy any while I was stood taking the photos? No. Does the massively huge £1 and millions of red boxes make people buy Cheesey Pasta? No. *lol*

You're it Jen!

Rubbish (aka. Garbage) - Edinburgh, Scotland

*** This is the first of many posts from Edinburgh as I moved house. Still commute the 50 miles to work on the other side of the country so I spend just as much time in Glasgow. Most of my posts will come from Edinburgh now but occassionally from Glasgow. Mostly things are the same in the East and West but there are still a million differences. ***

This is my garbage, or as we Scots call it, rubbish. We had to wait a while to get these containers as our new house was newly built and the council weren't forward-sighted enough to supply them. Anyway, here we finally have a photo. Jen, and indeed all our readers out there, I can't apologise enough for the delay. Moving house was crazy and although I've had this photo for a while I'm notoriously bad at updating. Luckily I now have a stash of photos so hopefully there should be no further delays.

In this photo we have a selection of recycling and rubbish containers:

- blue box (with shower cap style cover) for cans, tins, glass jars and bottles;

- blue bag for paper;

- red box (with shower cap style cover) for cardboard;

- charity bag for clothes, textiles, sheets etc;

- green wheelie bin for rubbish.

There are currently no collections for plastic recycling so we just take them to our local public site - 2 minutes down the street.

Most houses also have a big brown wheelie bin for garden waste (grass cuttings, weeds etc) but we're still waiting on ours. When we lived in Glasgow we were in the East Renfrewshire district and they were piloting compost bins which looked like a mini green wheelie bin. If we had to have that as well as all of these there's be no room in the garage or driveway for our car!!

Btw you'll notice how insanely clean these all are... at this point they were totally unused lol.

Garbage - Burlington, Ontario, Canada

I've decided to take pictures of more stuff around the house. Not only is it more convenient for me, but I think it's these sort of quirky things that are really different, and won't be found in any guidebook.

Anyway. The green bin on the left is appropriately called the "green bin". This is where you put most of what I would consider gross garbage: chicken bones, eggshells, used kleenexes, rotting fruit, something you found in your fridge that is no longer identifiable due to large amounts of mold. Every week it gets taken away and turned into compost (supposedly).

The blue box in the middle is, you guessed it, the "blue box" or "recycling bin". Here's where you put all your newspapers, cardboard, plastic bottles, aluminum cans, etc. It also gets taken away weekly to be turned into, well, newspapers, cardboard, plastic bottles, aluminum cans, etc.

The garbage can on the right is for everything else. I know, you're thinking, what else is there? Plenty, let me tell you. Especially if have two kids in diapers and you live in a municipality that doesn't allow diapers in the green bin even though the enormous megacity just 50 km away (Toronto) does allow diapers in the green bin (which baffles me). This would be fine except that, unlike the green and blue bins, the regular garbage gets picked up every two weeks (part of the local government's plan to get people all gung-ho about recycling). Two weeks is way too long to have festering toddler poop sitting around, imo. I mean I'm all for helping the environment, but seriously.

You're it, Carol!

City Guide Books - Burlington, Ontario, Canada

These aren't guide books in the strictest sense, as they won't guide you to do anything. The first picture was taken at the local big box chain bookstore, Chapters. There I was only able to find one book (the dark green one) that was even about this area and it was about all of Halton (a region which includes Burlington, Oakville, and Milton).

The lower picture was taken at the tourism office, where they sell several different Burlington books, along with golf balls, t-shirts, maple syrup, and inukshuk necklaces. Everything is kept in a locked glass cabinet, which is odd, and makes for a lousy picture. I suppose I could've asked someone to unlock it, but I felt awkward even taking photos. Plus this way you get a glimpse of that gorgeous photographer in the reflection.

BTW: I realize in looking at these books that I know next to nothing about my city and its history. It almost makes me want to get one of these books so I can learn "The Story of Burlington". Almost.

City Guide Books - Glasgow, Scotland

Here we have a selection of guide books depicting the city of Glasgow ranging from cookery to photography to things to see and do. You're in Jen!

E-Postcards - Glasgow, Scotland

Here it is - a postcard from Glasgow. :) Our official tourism site didn't have any (that I could find) so I opted for this one instead. It shows the SECC Armadillo and the River Clyde. It was built in 1995 as the Clyde Auditorium but has been affectionately knows as the Armadillo ever since for obvious reasons. Most recently is housed the Eurovision Dance Contest in September 2008, which up until I searched on Wikipedia, I didn't know. *lol*

E-Postcard, Burlington, Ontario, Canada

Okay, so I didn't take this one. I was looking online for something else, and found that you can now send e-postcards from the Burlington tourism site. As you know, Burlington is quite a happening tourist attraction. There's enough stuff around here to amuse a visitor for at least an hour! (as long as the weather's nice). You're it Carol.

Billboards - Burlington, Ontario, Canada

Ah, yet another eye sore that I didn't notice until you pointed it (or rather them) out to me. Here we have advertisements from Hakim Optical and McDonald's, plus a mystery ad that is facing sideways so that people coming from the other direction can see. And, as an extra bonus for all our faithful blog viewers: hydro towers and telephone poles in the background.

Billboard - Glasgow, Scotland

Right, here we have a billboard advertising some product or another. Usually these are found along motorways and main roads in the city. In this case this was was in the station where I photographed the trains from my previous post. This isn't your usual static board - this one is made up of long strips on triangular boards (must be a right pain to change!) and since I was looking for a board specifically Scottish, my luck was in when I spotted this one.

The first advert is for Scottish Hydro Electric, one of Scotland's main electricity providers. We go through Scottish Power, but clearly their advertising works because I noticed them and I'm not a customer.

The second advert is for Clydesdale Bank which is very Scottish. If a Scottish person has a pile of Clydesdale Bank notes to spend in England (boo!) they look at you like you're handing them a foreign currency. It's legal tender, they're just not cultured enough. =P

You're it Jen!

Trains - Glasgow, Scotland

The brightly coloured train at the front of the photo is a Virgin train which I've never been on. Usually they provide comfort for long-distance rail journeys (mostly to London) and seeing as I use a plane for them... I've never been on one. The grubbier cream and maroon coloured train to the back of the photo is a First ScotRail train which I take twice a day: once to go to work and once to come home. As you can see, they don't have an upstairs (which, as a Scottish tourist on a GO Train, I found amazing!!) so they're always crammed full of commuters like myself.

Trains - Burlington, Ontario, Canada

The two trains on the left are freight trains from the Canadian National Railway (CN). The train on the far right is a passenger train, otherwise known as a GO Train. Lots of commuters take Go trains in to Toronto every morning. Sometimes, Scottish people who are staying in Toronto take the GO Train to Burlington to visit their friends. You're it Carol!

Hydro Tower - Burlington, Ontario, Canada

We don't have electricity pylons, but these hydro towers perform the exact same function. Until you posted that pic, and I started looking for them, I didn't even notice them. Now I realise they are everywhere. Really, we have like whole forests of these things. I can't believe my brain filtered out something so gigantic.

Electricity Pylon - Glasgow, Scotland

Ok so I think this is officially the least glam picture I've posted lol. The good old electricity pylon. I know they're a neccessity but they have to be the ugliest, most imposing structures around, especially sandwiched between houses like this. They generate a buzzing sound which, when I walk past, I'm very aware of so unless the residents of the neighbouring houses have become immune to it, I guess they must be driven crazy! I wonder if they get cheaper power..... You're it Jen!

Playground - Glasgow, Scotland

Here we have a playground in Neilston, just up from my house. As you can see it's deserted because of the weather (check out the clouds) but the teenagers love it at night lol. The grafitti shows that. Sorry it took me so long to get this posted. I actually pass this every other day but it's usually too dark to get out and get a photo taken. My new challenge - go out of my way to get photos for this super happy super fab blog! =D