I'm still alive, I swear!

I am still alive, even though my lack of blog posts seem to indicate otherwise. I'd like to say my inactivity in the blogosphere is due to my activity in the real life-o-sphere. Sadly, I can't. Since my last post, I've done a lot of knitting, a whack of sitting around, some kickboxing and, oh, I climb a 9000 feet mountain.

Fairview Mountain. Yup, I climbed that. 

View from the top.

Such an amazing view!

Gorgeous!

See, I was really there!!

I guess the biggest highlight of the past week would be that today, I officially started my career as a teacher! Honestly, it was a little anticlimactic since all I did was a lot of hovering around and attending a meeting with my school board. I say hovering because with my contract, I'm more of a full time sub than a full time teacher so although I reported to my homeschool today, I had no prep or anything to do.  But I met some maritimers (for those who don't know, maritimers are from either New Brunswick, PEI or Nova Scotia) at the school board meeting which was great, because I don't actually know anyone here in Calgary and it's always great to see some people from back home. Sorry for the lameness of this post, I'll work on making things more interesting in the future!

Sometimes google baffles me

So a few years back, I decided to google "platypus". Why? I have absolutely no idea. Probably due to some random conversation I had with my friends. Now, before you start wondering, I do know what a platypus is.

This is a platypus.

Ok, that image came up when I google "platypus" today. However, 4-5 years ago, here's what came up as the first image of my search:

Is it a Pear or a Bearguin?

Isn't that just the saddest, most depressing looking "animal" you've ever seen? I also find it terribly cute and I wish it were a real animal so I could have one. It's so gosh darn CUTE!! But clearly someone wasn't thinking straight at Google that day.

Also, you gotta love the ingenuity of Google. Try writing "askew" in the search bar. What's your reaction?

PS: Scientists should totally consider crossing a bear with a penguin. I'd buy one.

GHABAHSHALALALA!!!

Since I've been in Calgary for almost two weeks now, I decided I was long overdue for a trip to the Rockies. Considering it's one of the main reasons I decided to come to Calgary (that and the fact that I have a job helps too), I think it's a wonder I hadn't been there already.  

I was kind of angry that there was somewhat traffic on the road because I had to focus on not crashing and not on the Rockies. Urgh!!

Now, on a good clear day, you can see the Rockies from Calgary, depending on where you are in the city. However, since I've been here, it's been mostly smoggy so I hadn't seen the mountains much. Which means I was even more excited to be seeing them for the whole hour and a half the trip lasted.

OMG!! I see some mountains far, far away in the distance!!

Oh, they're looking bigger! 

Getting closer...

Closer...

CLOSER...!!!

GAH!!! I'm at the foothill of the ROCKIES!!!! SO EXCITED!!!

 And then I arrived in Banff National Park, where I bought an annual pass because you know I'll be going there, oh, every weekend...or more. I'm going to become a hiking machine!! Well, that is, if I can find some hiking buddies. Because you don't go hiking alone. Remember that kids. It's not safe. Even more so in bear country.

So in Banff National Park, you can find the town of Banff. 

This wasn't my first time in Banff. Twelve years ago, my family and I left Fredericton, drove all the way to Victoria, BC, dipped our toes in the Pacific Ocean and drove back home. Along the way, we had many stops, Banff being one of them. So this quaint little town is at the foot of Cascade Mountain, which you can see from pretty much anywhere in town. So we're talking a big mountain here. The kind that has little patched of snow on top all year long. But somehow, during our stay, my mom, my brother and I decided to nickname it our pebble. That's right. This big huge chunk of rock will forever be known to us as Our Pebble.

Cascade Mounain. Also known as The Pebble.

 The nice thing about the Town of Banff is that it has a lot of shops. Little shops that seem random. Like a shop from this little company located on PEI. Which is kind of funny because PEI seems to be awfully protective of their company and only have a handful of shops located off the Island. One of which is somehow in Banff!

If you hadn't guessed it yet, I'm talking about Cow's!

For those who don't know, Cow's is known for 2 things:
1. Their ice cream, once voted the world's best ice cream
2. Their goofy shirts that make parodies of popular social things
e.g. Mootube, Finding Nemoo, MooMoo Lemon,...

Of course, Banff is all about the moose. I still haven't seen a real one.
Why does nature hate me? 

I didn't actually try out this place. I just loved the name. 

They even named a street. Seriously??

 So first thing I did when I got to town was to go to the information centre to ask about hiking trails that are safe for solo people. He showed me a map and he said that there was this super popular trail that started near the town. So instead of driving to the trail, I decided to walk, because it seemed close. Turns out the start of the trail was located halfway up the mountain and there was on site parking. Too bad I only realized this once I got there. So I ended up walking an extra 2km to get to the trail. And it was an uphill 2k. I now had another uphill 2k to do if I wanted to get to the top of the hill. Me = feeling kinda dumb at this point.

I was relieved yet pissed to see this sign at the mouth of the trail. 

I'm relatively in shape. I jog and I do kickboxing. I make sure I work my cardio and I also walk everywhere.  Somehow, that didn't matter here. It took about 2 seconds and I was completely out of breath. And I stayed out of breath until reached the top of the mountain, about 45min later.

The view a little way up. 

That is one BIG hotel. It also probably costs a fortune to stay there. 

The view from the other side of the mountain. Golf anyone?

Another mountain. I am in a mountain chain after all. There's going to be
lots of those. 

At the top!!

Proof that I was there!!!

That is one steep trail.  

Yup, that's right. I climbed that. 

Leaving the Rockies...for now.

I think it's pretty obvious that I had a dreadful day. I hated every moment of it. Bahahaha!! Can't wait till my next encounter with the Rockies!!

Fière d'être acadienne!!

BONNE FÊTE DES ACADIENS!!!!

Aujourd'hui, nous sommes le 15 août, une date importante pour les Acadiens. Pour la deuxième année de suite, je ne suis pas capable de me rendre à Caraquet, au nord-est du Nouveau-Brunswick, afin de célébrer cette fête importante, puisque je suis à Calgary.

Pour ceux qui ne le savent pas, les Acadiens sont un peuple dont les ancêtres sont ceux qui habitaient Acadia, la Nouvelle-Écosse, l'Île-du-Prince-Édouard et le Nouveau-Brunswick actuel. Suite à des guerres entre la France et l'Angleterre, ce territoire est devenu la propriété des Anglais. Or, comme les Acadiens ne se considéraient ni Français ou Anglais, ils refusaient de signer leur allégeance aux Anglais. Ces derniers n'ont pas apprécié ce manque de coopération et, par conséquent, ils ont décidé de déporter les Acadiens. Au cours des ans, plusieurs ont refait leur chemin en Acadie et ils sont devenus ce que l'on connaît comme les Acadiens actuels.

À Caraquet, du 1er au 15 août, il y a le Festival acadien. Pendant ces deux semaines, il y a une diversité de concerts offerts par des artistes acadiens et une multitude d'activité visant des personnes de tout âge. Le point culminant du festival est le Tintamarre, une parade d'une heure où le but est de faire le plus de bruit possible. Imaginez, 20 000 personnes sur un territoire d'environ 1km qui font du tapage. Disons que les oreilles cilles pendant longtemps après la parade!!

Alors, je souhaite à tous et chacun une merveilleuse Fête des Acadiens, que vous soyez Acadiens ou non!

How playing ping pong landed me in the back of an ambulance

So I've never been much of an active kid. I remember one time when I was probably around 7 years old where I was playing soccer and I told my mom after the match that I had ALMOST sweated (no idea if that's a word).

Clearly not me after that soccer match

I don't know if being such a lazy kid made it so that I have zero coordination but boy did I end up sucking at sports. I hated gym class because I would try my hardest and suck all the same. On top of that, I usually ended up hurting myself in the stupidest ways.

This is what I looked like playing ping pong.
Except I was taller and I was running after a ping pong ball.

My worst story happened when I was 15 years old. I was in gym class and the sport we were playing was ping pong. Like every other sport we played in gym class, I was absolutely horrible at it. Turns out the girl I was playing against was not much better than me so instead of playing actual ping pong, we spent most of our time running around after the ball.

So at some point, I find myself at the losing end of a ping pong rally and I have to go running after the ball. Again. Being the klutz that I am, I trip and fall as I'm picking up my ping pong ball. Only problem was that I couldn't get up. Why, you ask?  Because somehow I had dislocated my knee. That's right. I dislocated my knee by picking up a ping pong ball.

They even let me take a picture of them!
Ok, well, they weren't exactly that hot...

The worst part is that the hospital is located literally across the street from my high school but since I couldn't move, they had to call 911. And the paramedics weren't even the first ones to come!! While waiting for them, I lived out every 15 years old girls dream : I hung out with four firemen for about 30 minutes!!

By the time I got to the emergency room, I was starting to realize the absurdity of this whole thing. And then turns out the on-call doctor was my old family doctor who is a pretty funny guy. His reaction to seeing me : "Oh, what did you do now?" I told him. He laughed. Hard. I have to say, if he hadn't drugged me up, I would of been laughing too. Instead, I was trying not to pass out.

When all was put in the right spot again, some nurse put this huge brace on my leg that went from my ankle to my hip and she helped me in a wheel chair. As my parents were wheeling me out of the hospital, I crossed path with a few other nurses (most of which didn't even work in the ER) and none of them wasted a beat in asking me if I was the girl with the ping pong ball. I was amazed at how fast the news travelled and also, I figured nurses need all the entertainment they can get so I confirmed their story.

There was one good thing that came out of this story. I got to meet Walter. And boy, let me tell you, what a romance that was! I will however keep this story for another time. So if you're curious, keep tuning in!

My guide to Canadian highways

I've been having a hectic week, what with moving into my new apartment (WOOHOO!!) and my dad being in town, so I've been neglecting this blog. I've been working on this post for a while and I really thought it was going to be more entertaining but it's not. I'm posting it anyways because I spent too much time on it.

So now that I've driven from Fredericton to Calgary, I have driven on the Transcanada Highway in six of the provinces. Here is my unofficial guide to these highways.

New Brunswick

By far the best highways. No potholes, no bumps, no nothing. Probably due to the fact that they are mostly deserted and they seemed to be repaved every few years. And the speed limit is 110km/h for most of the province. AWESOMENESS!! The one thing is you are in forest country the whole time.

Quebec

Construction galor. Be prepared to see a lot of orange construction pillars. Lots of traffic, especially between Quebec city and Montreal. And surprisingly, I don't find Quebec drivers to be that bad. And driving through Montreal really isn't that bad.

Ontario

The. Never. Ending. Province. You drive in the middle of nowhere for the better part of three days. Long stretches with no gas station (make sure you fuel up when you see a gas station). When you do see a station, know that gas will be a fortune! The highest I saw was 139/litre. It's a two way the hole time at 90km/h but with a lot of passing lanes so you're never stuck behind anyone for too long. The road conditions are all right and I can't say there's a lot of construction I hope you like trees because you'll be seeing a whole whack of them. Gorgeous drive in Lake Superior Provincial Park. But honestly, driving in Ontario = Longest 3 days ever. 

Manitoba...Clearly someone was
lacking imagination

Yup, that's me driving in Manitoba.

After a brutal 3 days in 90km/h two-way road, what a relief to see 4 lanes and 110km/h!! I felt like even my car was sick and tired of being so slow. By far the worst roads conditions in the country. Felt like I was on a horse (not that I would know, since I never road a horse...). But on the plus side, you're out of the trees and into the prairies!! 

Saskatchewan

Loving this marketing campaign. Whoever
thought of it is a genius!

Honestly, I was enjoying the view too much to notice the road conditions. Growing up in southern New Brunswick, all you ever see are trees, trees and more trees. So going into the prairies is quite a special thing. So to all of you who think prairies are boring, I find them absolutely fascinating. Hundreds of bails of hay on every field = me with big huge eyes (and paying attention to the road of course). The bonus of driving in the prairies is that your odds of hitting an animal are pretty slim. If you can't see a moose in a flat field, you honestly should not be driving. 

Alberta

More of the same, up until Calgary, where you start to see the Rockies in the distance. And then it's hard to focus on the road because I LOVE the Rockies! And then I get chills because I can't wait to drive up to them and go explore them!! I'm a sucker for natural wonders and boy, the Rockies rank pretty high on my list!!



And that's my guide to Canadian Highways. Hopefully I did not bore you to death with my on going commentary of the Trans Canada!

Finally "home"...sort of

So today my dad and I MADE IT TO CALGARY!!!!

Yesterday, we had a big day of travelling. We drove from Winnipeg, Manitoba all the way to Medicine Hat, AB.

In distance, that equals to over 1 000km in a day. Of this:

I didn't take this picture. We actually drove through rain all day.
But boy did we see a lot of hay. Hey! Look at all that hay!! 

Driving through Saskatchewan, I felt a strong attachment to that province, which is kind of weird because apart from spending my 11th birthday in Regina, I hadn't done much in Saskatchewan. So why this sense of pride towards this prairie covered province? I concluded that I felt proud to be in the home province of one of my best girls, the Bernster herself! She probably knew I was thinking of her since I spent most of my non driving time texting her.

But today, this is where we ended up:

That's right. I'm seeing the Rockies in the distance right about now!
Who's jealous?

We got here around 2pm ish and that's about the highlight of the day. Kinda spent the rest of the day lounging in this sketchy feeling hotel. Because we haven't done enough sitting around in the past week, driving across Canada.

So now goes the process of finding an apartment...joy. Anyone up for giving me hints and advice about apartment hunting? Any input is appreciated!

Storm count: I'll say 3.5. We got caught in storms on and off for the better part of the afternoon yesterday but they were never from the same cloud. So I'll give that a 1.5 to bring the total to 3.5. Not bad, considering we almost crossed the country.

Moose count : Zero, zéro, nada, zilch, big fat O. I'm probably the only person in all of Canada who desperately wants to see a moose and who hasn't seen one. I need to do a rain dance. Or a Moose dance.

Why do you hide from me? WHY??!?!?!?!?!