My Haul – Christmas Decorations from Canada!

It’s the first of December! That means it’s the start of advent and officially (if you haven’t already) it is finally time to get the Christmas decorations out!

In the spirit of getting out the Christmas decorations I thought I would do a My Haul post to round up all the Christmas decorations that I have bought since I have been in Canada. I am going to be organizing this post in the order I bought them.

The first decoration I bought was an Adipose from Doctor Who. The Adipose are adorable blobs of fat and one of the strangest Doctor Who aliens ever. I’ve never actually seen Doctor Who Christmas decorations before but when I found this one I had to buy it!

I talked about my collection of Disney Princess Christmas decorations and how Rapunzel is my princess for 2017 in the Haul post about when I bought her in Toronto.

The Starbucks Christmas cup! Does this count as a Christmas decoration? Well it does to me! I have a collection of Christmas coffee cups which I have been gathering for the past few years, this year’s Starbucks cup is the latest addition and one of my favourites.

I love Raccoons, they are my favourite animals. I couldn’t resist this cute little raccoon skiing and wearing a Santa hat.

A Dollarama find! I got a pack of 8 mini disco balls which have ended up going in front of my doll display.

Anna in her outfit from Olaf’s Frozen Adventure, I mentioned her in the haul post from the trip to Toronto when I bought her.

How perfect for me is this Flash Christmas decoration? I knew I had to get him for my Christmas tree as soon as I saw him in Walmart.

I have loved the Peanuts comic strips and the Charlie Brown cartoons for years, Woodstock is my favorite character. Technically this one isn’t for me, Woodstock is destined to go on the family Christmas tree, but he’s too sweet not to include on this haul post.  

Wonder Woman stocking! Probably one of the coolest stockings you will see this Christmas. I knew I wanted it as soon as I saw it.

Another one for the family Christmas tree. My Dad, my Mum and me all loved Zootropolis (or Zootopia as it’s known in North America) and when I spotted Judy Hopps I knew we needed her.

Finally (and appropriate for today) is my advent calendar. This year I have decided to go for the Star Wars one, mainly because it has Rey front and centre where she should be.

Well that was quite a long post! I’ve been collecting all of these for a number of weeks (since the end of September) and I am very pleased with what I have added to my collection of Christmas decorations.

Little Differences

The 5^th of November, back in the U.K it is Bonfire Night. But here in Canada it’s just the Sunday that the clocks go back.

Generally I have been pretty lucky in that I have not experienced home sickness or culture shock. In the run up to going to study abroad I heard so many things about how ‘you will get home sick’ but honestly I haven’t and this far into my exchange I think that it’s unlikely it ever will hit me. However that doesn’t mean there aren’t some little differences which when I come across make me miss home.

·         As I mentioned at the start of this post, Bonfire Night. I want to go see a firework display tonight but there isn’t one.

·         Halloween, yes I had an awesome Halloween but at the same time I did miss going to the Halloween event that I have been to every year at my UK uni.

·         Tea. I haven’t had a single cup of proper English Breakfast tea since I’ve been here because the ones imported from Britain are too pricey and I don’t like the look of any of the other brands.

·         Instant coffee, you can’t buy decent instant coffee over here. As I need my coffee every morning I had to buy a coffee maker.

·         Halloumi, it’s not available in Walmart.

·         Having a full reading week, we don’t have one in the fall semester but it’s nice to have a break.

·         Money, I’m fine with saying dollars instead of pounds and using notes but the coins keep confusing me. This is awkward if you’re at a till when there’s a queue behind you and you’re faffing around trying to figure out what’s a 10 cent and what’s a 5 cent.

This isn’t a list of all the differences between being a student in the UK and Canada or everything that I miss but it’s just a few things that have stood out to me.

My Haul – Star Wars, Superheroes and Tsum Tsums

I’ve bought various things since I last wrote a My Haul post and I thought it was about time that I did a roundup of some of the stuff that I’ve bought recently.

Star Wars dolls are a thing now, this is awesome. However, despite the fact that they launched over summer I have only just bought my first one. This is Sabine Wren (she’s from the TV series Star Wars Rebels), she’s a cool character and she was really hard to find, however I managed to get her for a reasonable price online. She’s currently displayed with my Mulan doll (who I bought in Toronto), Sabine looks like she’s recruiting Mulan for the Rebellion.

I picked up the latest DC Superhero Girls comic from my local comic store. I’ve loved DC Superhero Girls since it started but I think this is possibly my favourite volume of the comic series so far.

Tsum Tsum lip balms are another thing that’s available. I have quite dry lips and so I use lip balm regularly therefore these are collectibles that are actually useful! I’ve got two so far, Olaf and Dory, however I know there’s more available.

It’s not winter just quite yet but fall is starting to set in and the need for warmer clothing is becoming increasingly apparent. Therefore when I saw that Walmart were selling Flash hoodies I obviously had to get one!

Today I went out to the Thrift Store. Last time I went I found the Supergirl DC Superhero Girls mini doll. This time I found Batgirl! Hopefully when I next go I can find the other three girls released in this collection.

So what I’ve bought over the past fortnight or so. I’m pleased with this lot.

My Haul – The First Canadian Haul

So I think it’s probably time for a haul post with what I have bought so far in Canada. This time I’m introducing a slightly new format for the My Haul posts. For this post I’ve broken it up into which store I bought things from as I thought that might be interesting for my UK readers to see where I’ve been going.

Walmart

The local Walmart is approximately 10 minutes away from campus. As it’s the nearest big shop I have been there quite a few times to stock up on groceries and essentials. But I’ve not just been buying essentials.

The first time I went I bought a DC Superhero Girls fleece throw blanket. You probably know I love DC Superhero Girls and I couldn’t resist a blanket with Supergirl, Wonder Woman and Batgirl on. Plus I’ll need a big blanket when the Canadian winter hits.

On Thursday evening one of my friends and I went out for a wander. We didn’t have anywhere specifically in mind to go and we ended up in Walmart. This time I noticed this Mulan plushie. I couldn’t resist getting her, especially as she’s not wearing the pink dress!

The Comic Store

The comic store here is fantastic! It had a great selection of comics and merchandise, I think it is the best comic store that I have ever been too. I honestly could have spent so much money in there! I really had to restrain myself.

I got a DC Superhero Girls colouring in book. I didn’t bring a colouring in book with me to Canada so I’m glad I was able to buy one.

I also bought this Flash bear! He’s cute and very cuddly. I doubt anyone who knows me is particularly surprised that when I saw him I instantly knew that I needed to get him! I guess his secret identity must be called Bear-y Allen (I couldn’t resist making that pun!)

Dollarama

Dollarama is a bit like Poundstretcher back when Poundstretcher used to be good. It’s got a lot of stuff and it’s very cheap but not everything costs a dollar.

So Halloween is still quite a while off but Halloween stuff is showing up in a lot of stores. This includes Disney Princess Halloween tote bags. Yes, of course I had to buy one!

Old Navy

My favourite cardigans ever are from Old Navy so when I noticed that there was one in the mall I had to go. They have a great selection of stuff and I think I will probably get quite a bit of my winter wardrobe from them.

Today I bought this Green Lantern tee. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen a Green Lantern tee in a high street retailer before! I like the design on this one because it feels kind of subtle.

Piecing Together The City

So I’ve recently arrived in Canada for my year abroad and for me one of the most important things to get sorted (after all the admin stuff) is to start to piece the city where I’m going to be living together in my head.

By piecing together the city what I mean is the way that as you start to get more used to a new city it becomes pieced together in your mind. For example how the university is situated in location to the nearest grocery store and then how that’s located in relation to the main shopping area and the mall.

I’m not sure if I’m just misremembering but it seems as if it’s harder to piece together the layout of a Canadian city than the city I go to uni in back in the UK. It could partially be because I haven’t fully explored all of the city yet. I think there’s also a part of it that’s harder for me to piece the city together because it’s just different from the UK! Definitely the roads are wider than they are in the UK. Canadian cities – a lot like American cities – are laid out in a grid system, this makes it quite easy to navigate.

On Friday a couple of friends and me had decided we want to go to Wendy’s for dinner (we don’t have Wendy’s in the UK so this is exciting to us!). However we’d assumed that Wendy’s was quite far away and given we’d had a long day we weren’t sure about walking that far. But it turned out that the nearest Wendy’s was only a couple of minutes further a long from Walmart which we’d been going to a lot since we’d arrived!

I don’t know if this is a general thing with cities in Canada but here it seems as if the Downtown area is mainly full of independent stores. The chain stores are mainly in the mall and on the street surrounding the mall. This is an interesting change from UK cities where chain stores are increasingly pushing the independent stores out of business and away from the Downtown/City Centre areas.

Also, I have now located the comic store which I am obviously very pleased about!