Hello World Are you Still Out There?!

Hi All!

It has been quite a while since I updated my blog. I feel really bad about that but I have been busy and just didn't think about updating. This blog I am sure will be long since I am going to let you in on what has been going on with me.


I made it through Christmas! I was so sure that this was going to be the end of my journey in the Arctic before I moved up here. I was going to be the first person in my family not to be home for Christmas. My family sent me presents and bright and early Christmas morning ( we are talking 6 amish ) I was awake. My friend Devi who was also staying for Christmas spent the night at my house so we both wouldn't have to be alone on Christmas , she slept through my Christmas morning Skype session with my family. I have to say that Skype and the Internet saved my sanity during Christmas I felt like I was actually there which was awesome. I got some awesome gifts from my family such as a new Kobo Glo e-reader from my mom and dad, Chapters gift cards from my sisters and Davids Tea from my youngest sister and a Kitchen Aid Stand mixer from my Nannie!  Needless to say she wrapped the mixer quite well and my family has some funny pictures from Christmas of me trying to unwrap it.

After Christmas was pretty quite here in Kimmirut. I spent alot of time with my friends who were in town and on New Years Eve I went to 11pm Church service with Devi and came out to hugs , cheers and fireworks as the Hamlet set off a bunch of fireworks. The Hamlet's firetruck came around and wished all of us a Happy New Year, which was followed by a skidoo parade on the ice!

 

This is my friend Devi and I out on the Breakwater on New Years Eve

 

 

Soon I was feeling the burn out of not being able to leave town. Back home if I got bored with St.Stephen I could go to the city and have dinner and a movie here it is very difficult to do that due to the fact we don't have anything like that here. It is a 30 min and $500 flight out to Iqaluit to be able to do that . I was lucky in early January a friend of mine was going to be in Iqaluit and I could use her discount code and got to go to Iqaluit for three days. All I can say is I know what people who live in the sticks feel like going to the city. After being in Kimmirut for 8 months straight I was really overwhelmed!

Iqaluit has restaurants, bars, exotic food ( I recommend Yummy Shawrma!) and the Northmart.... The Northmart is litterly the Superstore of the North it is the big sister to the store I work in. I could have stayed there for hours! It was so different from grocery stores back here in Kimmirut ! I was able to see the Museum and the Visitors Information center as well as just walk around and see the city!

                                                       The plane trip to Iqaluit!

The bright lights of Iqaluit from the plane!

 

 

This is the Anglican Church in Iqaluit it was recently rebuilt after a fire destroyed the original.

Yup want a double double in Iqaluit it is so possible!

 

 

Iqaluit was awesome but it was also good to get back home. Work has been going good and I cannot complain. I was in charge of the store for about 12 days while my store manager had to go away for a conference and there were no problems.

A great thing that my friends and I have started doing was a book club. So far we have only read one full book and one chapter of our second. We started it as a good way to get together eat healthy and read books and have good conversation which has helped with breaking up the monotony of winter. Right now we are reading Shake Hands With the Devil by Romeo Dialler about the genocide in Rwanda. I have only read one chapter but it is shaping up to be a good book.

Earlier this month I had to finalize my vacation time for this year. One of my work benefits is that they pay for my trip out of the North to the nearest major center , which for Baffin Island is Ottawa. After much humming and hawing over what I was going to do for vacation, was I going somewhere other than back to New Brunswick? I wanted to go overseas to Scotland or down the Florida originally but after talking to my sometimes practical older sister I decided to forgo the large trip this year and go home  and do some smaller trips. I plan on going to the states to do some shopping and to PEI to visit my little sister who is living on the island this summer.

However I am planning a big trip to Scotland and London next year for vacation! I think I almost have my little sister convinced to go. One thing I definitely want to do is go on the train that was used for the Harry Potter movies . It goes from Fort William in the Highlands of Scotland to Mallig a small seaside town  where you can take a ferry to the Isle of Sky.


I am sure I will come up with many more ideas for my vacation before it arrives next year until this New Brunswick I will be back home May 17th - June 13th!

Traveling and Arriving

I have made it to Kimmirut!

This was such a long journey and a very emotional one for me. Monday night I was still not done packing so I went to work on that and inserted a bit of a going away party. My sisters got me a Wii , which made the trip to Kimmirut with me! It took my mom and my uncle and I to get everything all packed and taped. I finished packing about 12 am . I had to be awake at 2am to start the trip.

Getting to the airport in Fredericton we found that one of my totes was over weight by like a pound. So my mom did some shuffling and we made ti work. Air Canada also checked my luggage straight through until Kimmirut which meant that when I arrived in Ottawa I did not have to worry about getting my luggage , what a relief!

The flight from Fredericton to Ottawa was very noisy I was on a small Dash -8 plane. I was able to sleep and that was good. I got to Ottawa and had about a 2 hour wait until I got on the flight to Iqaluit.

The First Air flight to Iqaluit was great, I was in the last seat of the plane and had no seat mates which was great! First Air is really awesome I got breakfast on the plane as well as hot towel, three options of newspapers and a pillow and blanket ... Airline service is still in existence?

So I get into Iqaluit and they tell me my flight to Kimmirut has been delayed due to weather until 3:30. At 3:30 they tell me that my flight has been canceled. I am a bundle of tears at the airport trying to figure out what on earth I am going to do. I call my boss in Kimmirut and then to the Head Office for my company to find out what I am going to do , since they take care of my travel and accommodations.

They decide to put me up at the staff housing in Iqaluit and have someone from the store pick me up. Which was ok. .. So picture this a girl who is BONE tired with two carts full of totes and bags and a cat waiting . I am litterly the only person left in the airport who does not work there.

Melissa came and picked me up and when I realized that she was coming to get me I cried . The stress was crazy. I just wanted to get where I am going and be done with it .

I was able to fly into Kimmirut on Wednesday . We were delayed by about 45 mins due to some fog. So I got all checked in and such and was waiting. Then one of the First Air staff comes over and lets me know one of my totes broke open.... GREAT ... My totes were already cracked and chipped and such so I was not looking forward to this. I did a crazy tape job and got it back on the conveyor belt.

The flight to Kimmirut was pretty, since I was in a Twin Otter you can see all the landscape which was beautiful... bad thing my camera was dead.

Staying in Iqaluit was actually good for my mental health lol. I got all the exhaustion , the nerves, the emotions out of my system so I was able to meet people in Kimmirut without being an emotional wreck.

I am going to close this post for now and I will write more on my first few days in Kimmirut!