Random

This is going to be a little random, but I thought it's about time I put up some of my favorite pictures from the last month or two... While those are downloading, some thoughts from this morning...

I got up this morning knowing I had to go to work for a mandatory course. According to the Iqaluit Forecast, the temp was supposed to be about -5C, which is positively balmy for this time of year. Of course, a glance outside cleared up any ideas of "balmy" and I realized it was somewhere near blizzard conditions, with snow falling and wind blowing. Stepping outside was a bit of a shocker, cause the wind was coming UP the hill, which it rarely does. That also meant walking straight into the blowing snow... I couldn't open my eyes without getting snow in them! Bright idea: sunglasses also block the snow. So I popped those on and, bam! instant visibility. Of course, as soon as I started walking with those on, I hear a honk from a vehicle that's approaching me. There's a friend offering a ride to work. Ahhh, so nice!

Also, once I was done at work, and was setting up to have some lunch, I realized I could read again!!!!! You see, when I'm SUPPOSED to be studying for a course, a few days before the course, I won't let myself read anything but the textbook. And I was REALLY itching to start a new book. So I'm quite content now! Anyways, pictures are finally downloaded....

Here's a little welcome to Iqaluit. It's placed on the road towards downtown from the airport, as that's the main way to enter town, unless you own a snowmobile or dogsled. The three languages on there (Inuktitut is in both syllabics and roman lettering) is how all official GN (government of nunavut) emails come to us. And the order of languages is random, so you have to scroll down until you find the section of the email you can understand.

This is from today. I'm very glad I stocked up on milk last week. There's no 1% left here. And I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of it disappears in the next 24 hours, unless they restock soon. And the yogurt? Those containers you see on the far right of the picture is all they had left. There's about 6 feet of completely empty shelves to the right of that, and that's every shelf top to bottom. But I know we have it better than communities further north.

Here are a couple of pictures for the "only in the north" category. There are some kids in town with child-sized snowmobiles. And they're not cheap. Anyways, I saw this kid doing circles around the play-structure at the school. Yes, the structure is made of wood and has old tires attached to it. Brings back memories of my school days :D Oh, and in the first picture, can you see the giant satellite dish in the background? That's how we get the signals for all our phone-lines and internet. Not sure but I think there's a different dish for the cable signals.

I couldn't help but post these pictures. Sometimes the sunset makes the sky look like it's in flames! I love it!

Here's one from a few weeks ago. See the massive number of black spots in the picture? I looked out the window one afternoon about an hour before sunset, and the sky was covered in ravens. I don't know what was going on, but there had to be a hundred wheeling through the sky, as far as I could see. The light was too low and they were moving to fast to get any non-blurred pictures. But it was a sight to see!

And this one... has nothing to do with Iqaluit. Other than the fact that there are no trees here. And I miss those. On my trip to Winnipeg in January we had a lovely bout of hoar frost that lasted all day... I LOVE when the trees are iced like that.

Well, I'm off to read a book.