Bieber, Bruce and Barbossa

Whenever I "stori" with any locals about Canada, I am sure to make it clear that we are an Independent country; as in we are NOT part of the United States. I have to admit that we are indeed North Americans but then I again have to stress that we are NOT  Americans, (just to make sure they understand the difference!)

I need to apologize to all my Canadian friends though. I'm afraid that after I've made sure that everyone knows the difference between Canadians and Americans, I go on to talk about Canadian weather. By the time the conversation is finished, no matter what I all say or explain, I pretty sure the only thing they remember is that  Canada gets really cold. Oh, and the other thing I leave them with is that Justin Bieber and Celine Dion are from Canada. So, now Solomon Islanders are under the impression that Canada is a frozen tundra with a really bad taste in music. (Which I suppose, is actually a decently accurate description of some parts of the country...)

Little fun fact for you; "brus" (pronounced like the name 'Bruce') is the pijin word for fart. Yup, that’s right! Fart. So if your name is Bruce and you want to visit the Solomon's, you may want to consider going by a nickname during your stay. Don't ask me how they came up 'brus,' maybe there was a guy named Bruce back in the day who had a gas problem?

Another fun fact; there is not a single traffic light in all of the Solomon Islands. Naturally, that makes crossing the street a bit of an experience. And when I say 'street' here I DO mean a paved highway with quite a number of vehicles speeding by.

Driving here in general is a bit of experience here in itself. Traffic laws can be best be summarized by a quote from a favourite movie of mine; in that they are "more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules." It's not total chaos by any means though, people just calmly steer out of the way or slow down when necessary. I haven't seen any road rage here, people screaming and flipping the bird at each-other, well, at least none of the locals. If you do see any negative reaction to stupid driving, it will more often than not come from a weatman!