Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Two loonies in Canada

Well haven't I been lazy with the blog? Yes.

We've been a bit busy I suppose. We've had many an antenatal class. That's taken up some time. The NHS (National Health Service) ones were a bit rubbish, but the NCT (National Childbirth Trust) ones were good. I look forward to the NSA (National Security Agency) antenatal classes as well as the NCP (National Car Parks) ones. Of course these last two don't exist (to my knowledge). I just put those ones down because they were three letter alphabetisations with N as a first letter. It was a joke.

I never finished telling you and the world about our trip to Canada did I. Well most of the details are on Ian's blog (link to the left) so you can go there in a futile attempt to satiate your insatiable hunger for more details of our lives. However, I will add a short description of one thing that happened in Canada that had me momentarily confused.

Ian, Sarah, Anne and I were in Algonquin National Park and I went to the counter to pay the entrance fee for our car. It was $12.

I handed the lady a $20 bill. I knew I had a two dollar coin, so I went to fish it out of my pocket. Before I could find it the lady asked me a question.

Lady: Do you have atoonee?

Me: Sorry??

Lady: Atoonee. Do you have atoonee?

Me: ...

Lady: Or two loonies? Two loonies would do?

I had Ian and Sarah in the car. I suspected they were loonies and thought that perhaps the lady was offering me a discount for having loonies in the car.

Me: Erm...

I found the two dollar coin and handed it to the lady, trying to distract her from her mental talk.

Lady: Perfect!

Ian explained later that a toonie is a two dollar coin. The name comes from slang for a one dollar coin - the loonie, so-named as it has a picture of a loon bird on it.

Glad that was cleared up. The lady could see I was a tourist. Was she just trying to baffle me?