Sunday, October 2, 2011

first day in iqaluit

did i tell you guys that our stuff hasn't arrived yet so we're living in a hotel for the next little while? i can't remember if i did. we're not sure when it will get here and when the movers will get it all into our apartment so the next couple of weeks are a bit up in the air.

anyway, our flight came in around noon today and after we got settled in our hotel room (which is very nice and more like an apartment than a hotel room), we hit the town. we went to the north mart which is the biggest of 2.5 small grocery stores here. it even comes equipped with a tim hortons, but it's more of a tim hortons "express" if you know what i mean. no? well it's a really crappy tim hortons.

cold.

we got some groceries for breakfasts and lunches this week (bananas, apples, carrots, yogurt, one loaf of bread, one package of pitas, a small jar of jam and a small container of peanut butter) for which the total was $66. instead of feeling like that was insane in the membrane, i got really excited about the freshness of the fruits and vegetables. even fresh spinach! my favourite thing! it's very expensive, but if you want to grow up to be popeye it's totally worth it.

after groceries, we walked around the town a bit. there were lots of extremely cute kids running around building snowpeople (and one snow monster with a hockey stick through it's head. it was weird) and tobogganing on any hill they could find. ian made friends with this one juice head who was pushing a giant snowball across the street to her house.


after that, my new colleague emma took us on an AMAZING tour of the city. she drove us all around and taught us a lot about what's what in iqaluit. we were surprised by how much there was to look at. there is also a surprising amount of sprawl here. for some stupid reason i didn't take the camera, but seriously you guys, this place is so beautiful. don't you worry, though, we'll take lots of pictures of everything. after the tour we went for another walk. here are some pictures from that.

everything is written in english and inuktitut. inuktitut is a vvveeerrrrrrryyyy awesome language. it looks cool, as you can see, but it also sounds cool. double threat, english!

a view of the bay (we're on baffin island and iqaluit is on the labrador sea in the north atlantic). the tide is super far out!

this boat just doesn't know what to do with itself. 

a view of part of iqaluit from the beach.

there are bones all over the beach. it's weird. here's one that ian wanted to take home.


6 comments:

  1. Hi Jenessa! I wish you the best of luck and can't wait to read more :) The town looks really cute. Please post about your new job too! But not if it's better than Well.ca (even if the person sitting across from you never stopped blabbing....) xooxoox

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  2. I worked at a North Mart. Only ours had a Burger King Express. If you thought you could screw up coffee & donuts in an express setting imagine what you could do with meat.

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  3. Thanks for keeping us in the loop. It makes it feel as if you're not quite so far away. I look forward very much to following this adventure. Love, shay

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  4. you should really tell that juicehead where to go, pushing that snowball around like that. intimidating the newbies.

    i would really like to know precisely how cold it is. ian is in a vest, and you, in full garb. but it's blizzardy. and there is beach...ish! i am terribly confused.

    keep the pictures coming. this last post was uplifting. and awesome! so great. love yous.

    xoxo

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  5. ian was being a hero. it was about -5 and SO WINDY. the wind is really the ticket to either being okay or wanting to die. the problem with being on the arctic tundra is that it's extremely windy.

    chris, i am so glad you worked at a north mart. there's a kfc express and a pizza hut express here too. catrina can also confirm that there's a kfc and pizza hut express in ecuador. those two shit holes really have a monopoly on remote locations.

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  6. why isn't there a like button for these comments? treeny and jeeny are hilar.

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