I may have mentioned that high speed Internet here is the speed of dial up back home. Knowing nothing about the science behind the Internet I purchased the cheapest and smallest bundle possible from Qiniq. Luckily when you go over your bundle specified amount of "high speed," you don't have to pay extra to continue using the Internet for the month. You are simply down graded to dial up speed... meaning it took me twenty minutes to load this page to write this blog. Let me apologize now for my brief blogging hiatus. I am sorry, it pains me not to be able to keep you all updated and from here on out I will try to keep my 'facebook-creeping' time to a limit.
I came home from work almost every day this week, over come with exhaustion, only to throw my blogging intentions out the window in exchange for some much anticipated sleep!
I mentioned to my store manager the other day that I was feeling oddly tired all the time. He suggested that it could be because of the lack of trees and plant life here. We don't get as much oxygen as we are used to having in the South, which in turn tuckers us out.
I thought to myself that maybe if I adopted some plants it would keep my mind off of adopting babies and stray puppies and perhaps keep my oxygen levels up. Matthew wasn't happy about spending so much of our food allowance on greenery but he gave in and I know he secretly likes the way the plants look in the apartment. It feels a little more like home now.
I have the weekend off again, which is such a beautiful thing! I had big plans for this weekend. There is another mountain that I'd really like to climb, there is a gift shoppe down the road I wanted to visit and I wanted to go play with the dogs at the OSPCA. However, I am not allowed to go out wandering on my own for awhile because the RCMP came in with a warning that a woman had been raped very recently. They say that this type of crime starts to get worse as the night begins to fall earlier. I was also told that this time last year, women were being raped and a few were murdered. The thing around here is, you seldom hear of the outcomes that these things have. No one really knows who is wandering the streets that shouldn't be, and in a city this size, the thought of it makes you shudder.
On a much brighter note, our friend Kayla took Matt and I on a walking tour of the other end of town on Wednesday. Before then we had never walked back out the way of the airport. She took us to the outskirts to visit the Humane Society/OSPCA. Its not a big one like the ones down south and it didn't have a sign or anything outside. It was a simple little blue building with a door that looked like the front door would look on any other house. They had only a handful of cages and housed only dogs. The dogs, all mutts, were beautiful and we wanted to take them all home. It was especially hard to leave one behind. It was the husky-wolf dog who walked me to work the other week. I guess the city found him wandering the streets. The poor thing cried as we walked away. Matt and I are huge animal lovers and have had to practise saying no. We did however, take two of them out for a walk. Both were crosses of some sort. One looked mostly like a little German Sheppard, she was six months old and her name was Jenna. And another puppy looked like he was half husky, and perhaps half lab. He had an Inuktitut name meaning, 'little brother.' So we took one puppy to remind me of my little sister Jenna and one who reminded me of my little brother Brett. Walking dogs right now is not the cleanliest of activities. The last time it snowed, I blogged about it and since then the snow has melted away and it has been raining on and off. The sand sidewalks are mud and coming home from a walk feels like coming home from a day at the beach. I discover the grit of sand in my teeth every time.
We walked the dogs down the road a bit to see a field that Kayla had found where dozens of sled dogs were tied off just behind the air port. The dogs are known to be less than friendly and they get jealous if you show any single one affection. The sight of them was something to see.
The day was a dog day. Earlier that morning Kayla showed up at our apartment with the tiniest little bundle of fur. A six week old puppy who remains nameless for now. His mother is a cross between a German Sheppard, a husky and a lab and his father is believed to be a husky but trust me when I say that there are next to no pure bred dogs in Iqaluit. The puppy looks like a husky and is terribly handsome.
We spent the rest of the day together and he left after peeing on our carpet three times and pooping once.
I am happy to say that twenty minutes before I sat down in my blogging station it did start to snow again. Big white, fluffy flakes. Sadie is loving sitting in the windows and watching the snow fall.
I'm sure the white wont last though, not until it gets a little colder. The locals say that by October last year they had a full ground of lasting snow, we must have brought Ontario's warmth with us.
Other than warmth, some things I wish I had brought from home...
-Rain boots, every single day I wish I had a pair.
-A rain coat to match
-More movies, we brought 65 and I'm learning that you can never have too many movies... sad to say, but hey, it gets dark early.
-More than one razor because I didn't anticipate that boxes would take more than three weeks to arrive (and some were only sent a few days ago) We have yet to see a single box.
-A Brita filter. We are having ours sent up but for the first couple of weeks I was drinking tap water and it made me sick so I wish I had packed it in a suitcase. The water is very hard. It makes your hair wiry and turns everything it sits on a beautiful shade of turquoise. We are now boiling our water, letting it cool to room temperature and transferring it to a jug in the fridge, which seems to be doing the trick.
-Picture frames. I decided not to bring any because I figured it was too dangerous to risk them all breaking in my suitcases. The picture frames at North mart are ridiculously expensive. The cheapest one is seven dollars and its the kind you get at the dollar store that doesn't have a frame.
-Booze, booze and more booze. I am not a big drinker but I already miss the LCBO. If you smoke, I also suggest bringing a carton or two with you. Cigarettes here are expensive. (Although I suggest even more strongly, quitting!) It seems that every person in Iqaluit smokes, all of our friends here do and they all complain every day about how much their habit costs. That's one thing I will never pick up.
-Smells from home. I had to go out and buy air fresheners that remind me of home. I put apple cinnamon in the living room because it reminds me of moms house at thanksgiving. One thing I didn't bring was any perfume or body spray. I even bought different types of shampoo and conditioner. I don't smell normal and I'm having some sort of mini identity crisis.
-Q-tips... packed in the suitcases! My family gave me so many things that I thought I would need before I left, 2500 Q-tips were among them and I packed them away in boxes to be shipped. Ugh, our poor ears.
Things I wish we did before we left...
-Send our boxes! ! !
Things we are working on doing now...
-Switching over to Nunavut drivers licenses
-Obtaining Nunavut Health Cards
-Enjoying days off when you are locked up in the apartment because your boyfriends at work and you cant roam the streets alone...
I hope your days down South are beautiful and sunny and enjoyable.
All my love from Iqaluit
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