Becoming Amish

The north country is slowly turning me Amish. Not because I want to suddenly live without electricity, cars or indoor plumbing. Not because I regularly see Amish buggies driving around.

This is not conversion by choice, folks.

Where I'm from, shopping is what we do. Bored out of your mind with nothing going on? Easy - go to the mall and blow $45 at H&M on things you don't really need but are sparkly and which Vogue or InStyle tell you are necessary to life.

Here, that's not so much the case. Here, there is one very substandard mall. The best it has to offer is TJ Maxx, a store I never set foot in until I moved up here. Most people do most of their shopping at Wal Mart. I am sad to admit, I have become one of them. *Cue violent shudder of terror and disgust.*

To counteract this travesty, a friend and I went up to Canada to go shopping. Yes, the nearest mall worthy of the name is in Ottawa, about an hour and a half away. So we went over for the afternoon.

Walking into that mall was like being born. Waking up from a coma. Or, if you're Amish (and if you are, what are you doing reading this blog??), like ... walking into a mall. Lots of people, bright lights, tasteful Christmas decorations (perhaps a tad early, but I guess they don't have the after-the-last-Thursday-in-November rule in Canada) and real shopping!

Lots of glorious stores to explore. Not just the Gap and Banana Republic and Aldo - exciting in themselves. But Canadian stores that I've never heard of whose names I don't remember, as I've already thrown out the receipts. And a food court. With Chinese, Japanese and Thai. And a French fry stand which sold poutine, which is fabulous and worthy of a post of its own.

It was the first time I've seen a four-lane highway since I went home a month ago. It was the first time I've seen a parking garage since graduation. It was the most people I've seen in one place since graduation. Heck, there were probably more people at that mall than live in all of the village of Waddington, population 900. Literally, I just looked it up. Here, check for yourself if you don't believe me.