Happy April Fool’s Day, everyone!

I’m not going to pull any pranks for today (via the magic of the internet?), because for literally every year for my entire life, my father has begun the day by pulling the old, “Did you see the deer in the backyard?” trick on us. It didn’t matter if we were living in Quebec, or Winnipeg, or Sackville, it was always the same question. I’m ashamed to say that in my perpetually gullible state, which was only amplified by the early morning confusion of my sleep-addled brain, I’ve probably fallen for this stupid trick about 20 times. That’s not a really great learning curve. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had sent me an email this morning asking me if I’d checked my rooftop terrace for some signs of deer, since we don’t have much in the way of a lawn here.

I know today is not a real holiday, but I told Mink she should just not go into work and give her excuse as, “What? No one goes to work on April Fool’s Day in Canada – it’s all part of the joke!” But mainly the lesson you have to take from this pointless story is that I have a day off today, which is awesome. Hooray for working shifts at a bar, I guess? Also, we are going to Budapest for the weekend and meeting an old friend there who is flying in from Geneva, so adventures will abound. Photo proof to come next week.

This post heralds the coming of spring!

As a Canadian (I know, I write this a lot — but leave it to a Canadian to be writing about weather in the first place, eh?), I have been led to assume that it is normal for tempestuous winds to blow through your pitiful spring jacket for all of March, for melting snow to be only somewhat of a sign that spring will eventually reach our hemisphere, and to hope that maybe this year, there won’t be a freakishly large dumping of snow for my last exam (set in mid-April, no less). Let it be known that this is not so! It doesn’t have to be this way, Canadians! It’s going to be 17-20 degrees all weekend in Vienna — and in Budapest, which is what I’m more concerned about at the moment. There are flowers on the bushes and leaves are budding robustly here – unlike in Sackville, where some years it’s June before I see wimpish leaves struggling to regenerate themselves I think to myself, “Oh yeah, that tree’s not dead, it was just sleeping!”

Everyone tells me that the spring and summer in Vienna cannot be rivaled, and my mind will literally implode from the sheer beauty of everything around me on a daily basis – this is maybe a teeny bit of an exaggeration, but not by much:

Take off your jackets, Wieners! Spring has sprung.