Extreme Gas Prices

Gas prices finally came down a bit on the weekend.

In Montreal there are two common extreme sports that just about everyone practices. One is jaywalking. The other is buying gas. It's an art to buy gas at just the right price in Montreal because the fluctuations in prices are huge. The trick is to time the empty tank with the bottom of the gyrations in price. If you miss it by an hour, you're out of luck because the price has shot up 10 cents or more per litre.

A graph (thanks to GasBuddy.com) of gas prices in Montreal over the last month demonstrates the volatility of prices.

But in Edmonton prices tend to be much more stable. The price drop on the weekend was the first change in about 3 weeks or so. Here's a graph of Edmonton prices over the last month.

The only trouble with price stability is that people were getting pretty tired of paying such high prices and were ready for the correction when it came. And then a 4 cent drop was so welcome, no-one really complains much about the fact that gas prices are still pretty lofty. At least by Edmonton standards.

Here's a graph with both Montreal and Edmonton on it for the last month.

So if it's excitement one is after, extreme gas buying isn't an option in Edmonton.

And almost no-one jaywalks.

Wheels!

My car arrived yesterday! So, after I got the call saying my car was in Edmonton, I took a cab way out of town to a rail yard, to pick it up. It took two weeks for my car to make its 3000 km journey, like a latter-day Paddle to the Sea, and here it is in Edmonton, none the worse for wear, though a little dusty (to say the least). I wonder what stories it could tell?

So now my collection of keys is almost back to normal. (I should be getting office keys on Monday.) And I have managed to drive in Alberta for the first time. 

So where to go for the first official trip? Where else? The West Edmonton Mall.

Most people have heard of the West Edmonton Mall, but seeing is truly believing. It's humonguous. We strolled from end to end, checked out Chinatown, wandered down Bourbon Street, watched people skating and swimming and climbing and playing on the water-borne bumper cars, browsed in a couple of shops. Mostly we were there simply to gawk, although I'm sure we will return for some serious shopping at some point. Probably we'll become regulars at the large Chinese grocery store there. It's much bigger than any back in Montreal. Bigger than many general grocery store in Montreal, in fact.

It's funny: we used to live about 15 minutes from the largest shopping mall in Eastern Canada; now we live 15 minutes from the largest shopping mall in all of Canada. The big difference between the two, other than the size, is the non-shopping amenities here in Edmonton. More than just a place to shop, the West Edmonton Mall is also a place to spend the day (or longer if you stay at the hotel.) I don't know how many days we're likely to spend there; we're really not big shoppers. But it was fun to visit.

And it was gratifying to see that I can get around my new city so easily by car. I feel pretty well oriented, even though there is still a lot to discover. But that's part of the fun.

Retail Paralysis

On a couple of occasions I have found myself in a foreign country needing over the counter medication and have found it rather time-consuming to decide what exactly to buy. First there is the problem of different names for familiar ingredients. Who would have guessed that acetaminophen is called paracetamol outside North America? Then there is the problem of unfamiliar brand names. What criteria to use to decide whether to buy Madame X's or Doctor Y's cough elixir?

Now, I'm experiencing the same thing when it come to buying groceries and drug store items in Edmonton. I'm in the same country, but I may as well be overseas. And the problem is exacerbated by an abundance of choice. There are no fewer than four grocery stores within reasonable walking distance from home (and as the car hasn't arrived yet, we're definitely walking). The trouble is that they're all unfamiliar. One I've visited a few times before in Atlantic Canada, but it's also the farthest and seems to be the smallest, offering mainly an upscale urban selection. Still, it does have some nice products and offers frequent flier miles. Another store I've heard of before, but have never visited. It seems to be the biggest and offers a good selection of products (plus, if only we had our car, it offers a discount on gas if you purchase a certain minimum amount of groceries.) There are too many possible criteria, some of them quite arbitrary, by which to choose a store. And the same is true of the three or four drug stores in close proximity.

But having chosen which store to shop in today, then there is the problem of unfamiliar brands. Which brand of milk should we buy? How do we decide? And there's some sugar with an unfamiliar brand name, but a familiar-looking package. Turn it over. Yup, it turns out to be made by the same company as the brand we used back in Montreal, but using what must be a Western brand name. At least with that information the choice is easy.

All of this, plus the unfamiliar layout of each store, makes shopping a much longer process than usual. We have to stop at just about every item and spend a minute or two trying to decide which version to buy. Store brand? Local brand? National brand? What looks promising? How do prices compare? It's far from an exact science to make each decision, and the criteria vary each time. We probably look like deer caught in the headlights to other shoppers, as we slow their progress.

All of this will pass, of course. Within a few weeks we'll be familiar with the store layouts and the selection of brands, and shopping will once again be a quicker process, as we become capable of finding what we're looking for. But for now, it's a learning and discovery process. Part of the latter is finding new and exciting regional products, like Saskatoon Berry jam. (Yum!) Who knows what discoveries still await us?