Costco in Canada

S and I went to Costco today to get snow tires for the car.  While I guess they aren't really necessary, they are for me, since I grew up in SoCal and my snow driving capabilities aren't the best. I could have gone to Canadian Tire,  but the ladies at E's school suggested Costco because they also install them right away, so off we went.

While we were there, we were told by the helpful tire salesperson that we would remove our snow tires around April.   Yes, you read that right.  There may be a freak snowstorm in April, Nazz says, but you should be O.K.  And you should be wearing long sleeved t-shirts and jeans without a jacket in May.  My most important question was when I would be wearing flip-flops.  He said, "Maybe by late June?"  Then, we will put our snow tires back on our car around October.

Costco is a great adventure.  I was not a big Costco shopper in the states and tried to avoid going for the sake of our bank account. While the $2 hot dog/soda (pop, here) is a deal, it isn't when accompanied by a $500 purchase, eh?

The fun thing about going here, like everything, is the differences. The main one is no alcohol - all alcohol here is sold at the LCBO, so there is no wine and beer section. They have a fabulous baked good section, with apple turnovers, ciabatta rolls, and different varieties of breads.  The cheese is super expensive.  I did used to shop at Costco to get cheaper parmesan and a large wedge here was over $30 Canadian, so no cheese!

I also bought milk.  Milk is sold in bags in Canada, much to J's chagrin.  It caused us much confusion on our first trip to Costco!  Milk comes in a 4 liter large bag, with 3 smaller bags inside.  The smaller bags go in a plastic milk pitcher, available in any grocery store, and you cut the corner off and pour out of the smaller bag in the pitcher.  It is great for my kids, because they can pour their own milk (most of the time!), but I feel like I go through milk much faster this way than with using the large gallon jugs we have in the U.S.

The best difference of Canada Costco, though, is the book section. There were hardly any authors I knew! Hooray! They had a lot of Canadian authors, or international authors, but it was not the same section as the one in Virginia, and I'm looking forward to getting to know more Canadian authors.  For the kids, I found an emphasis on Richard Scarry (is he Canadian?*) and Robert Munsch.  Of course, they did have some popular or familiar novels, because everyone needs to read the unauthorized biography of Oprah by Kitty Kelley, right? Otherwise, I picked up The Sea Captain's Wife and I'm looking forward to my first Canadian read.

*No. He's from Massachusetts, according to Wikipedia.  But he lived in Switzerland for awhile.