Tag: engels

Introduction

Busy times here. Although life as a supply teacher means you have your evenings off, no marking or prep work, we have found ourselves some friends and hobbies that keep us busy. But in between all that we found some time for another update.

November 9

Judith went for another day of volunteer work at Mildred Hall. I was at Sir John Franklin High, supply teaching for mechanics and fabrication studies. Yup, “car mechanics” really is too general, there are multiple subjects there that all involve a lot of hands-on working. Later that day Judith had the dress rehearsal of the choir for the concerts for Remembrance Day.

November 10

Another day of supply teaching in the shop classes. Judith had her first concert in St. Patricks Church, while I was at the Fine Arts Evening of Sir John Franklin High. Amongst other things, I witnessed the first performances of the different bands that Scott (Music teacher that had dinner with us the week before) conducts.

November 11

Remembrance Day. At 11.00 am we were at the Yellowknife ceremony for  Remembrance Day. At 11.11 am we were silent for 2 minuts, in remembrance of those who fell in wars ever since World War I. A new thing for us, since The Netherlands were neutral during WWI, so we really don’t do anything on November 11 which is about sad things. In fact, we have “Sint Maarten”, which resembles the trick or treating for Halloween here. Later that day I went to Judiths second concert, accompanied by Travis and Robyn. Scott and Carolin were there as well,  but we didn’t see them until the end of the concert. You may have heard the recordings  I made. It was truly nice.

That evening, while Robyn and Travis were still at our place, we got some e-mails and Facebook messages from The Netherlands. As it turned out, Yellowknife was in “Nova”, a Dutch news program that is watched by close to 1 million people. The item was about the fact that 7000 students from Canada will go to the Netherlands on May 4, 2010, for the Dutch Remembrance Day. Amongst them will be some students from St Patricks High School, in Yellowknife (We may have referred to them earlier as “The Dark Side”, since they are the rivalling high school of Sir John). The coolest thing of all was that, if you knew by watching the pictures of the Torch Relay on our blog, you could recognize Judith in the choir singing the national anthem of Canada. Amazing! What are the chances, since we had never ever heard from Yellowknife, let alone seen them on Dutch television!

November 12

Judith went for another day of volunteering, I was in shop class again. In the evening we went out for dinner with Robyn, Travis, Carolin and Scott at Surly Bobs (again, since they have decent food). Afterwards we went to the play at Sir John Franklin, in which a lot of students starred that I already knew. Kinda nice. The play was “Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator” and had several tributes to Michael Jackson in it. Don’t ask how, you should see to believe!

November 13

TGIF! Although, I got to teach Chemistry 20 (twice) and Science 9. Although shop classes are nicer than I anticipated, I loved teaching something I am an expert in! You just feel more comfortable. After school we went for the Elk’s Club, for beer, wine and good conversation. Afterwards Judith and Robyn embarked on a girls’ night adventure, Travis and I had Guinness and a burger at the Black Knight Pub. Guinness and I are never going to become friends though, I am now pretty sure of it. (Sorry Clair) After the Black Knight we picked up some booze at the liquor store and went to Travis and Robyn’s, for some  cider (good stuff), some whiskey (I may acquire a taste for that eventually) and some Grand Marnier. (All in very reasonable amounts for those who worry) Judith and Robyn came home around 01.30u and we were very glad we could crash at Travis and Robyn’s place.

November 14

Out for breakfast! It seems silly for us, but it is quite a thing here to go to a sort of restaurant and have your breakfast there. It beats making it yourself for sure. After the breakfast we went to the Crafts’ sale at the Elk’s, where Judith bought a glass Inukshuk. Kinda neat! We went to Edgar, since we were “rabbitsitting” him. After some food and attention we went on our merry way again. After some late lunch, we picked up some hay for Edgar for the other day and did some more shoppings.

That night we went to Stefan and Susan. We met Stefan (who emigrated to Canada from Groningen, our hometown, 25 years ago) earlier, since he is a friend of Tony (The Snowking). We promised to bring him some black liquorice from the Netherlands and we went to deliver it. We had a nice evening with tea, cookies and nice chat. It is fascinating how people end up here and what they end up doing.

November 15

We slept in and went to see Edgar when we were awake. Really nice and relaxing, which set the atmosphere for that day. I made “stamppot wortelen / hutspot” that evening. (A dutch dish with mashed potatoes and carrots, with meat and onions in it as well) It went pretty well with one of the “rookworsten” (smoked sausages) I brought back from The Netherlands!

November 16

Judith had another day of volunteering. She got two drawings of the kids she was working with, which was really nice! That evening we went by Alan and Allison’s, to deliver a token of our appreciation for Alan picking me up at the airport when I came back from the Netherlands (yes, we should have done that earlier, but we forgot to bring it (Halloween) or we just forgot (all the other days)). Nice evening, nice conversation, very relaxed.

November 17

Like November 16, I was in Mechanics and Fabrication studies again. The guys are welding under my supervision now, although they all know what to do and I have the help of a TA (Teacher Assistant). I try and have them to do hands on stuff, which makes them more happy than the paperwork they would do otherwise. But at times, especially today, with all the stuff around “Skills Canada”, with guests from all over the Territories in our school, you really search for things to do. Today, with two supply teachers and 4 classes of kids in one room, we had no other option than putting in a DVD of “The fast and the furious”. It feels like capitulation, but one can only do so much. Another choir rehearsal for Judith that evening.

November 18

This morning our coffeemaker died. I was trying to make coffee before I went to school, but it wouldn’t. Closer examination by Judith confirmed it: it had died. We have to wait until tomorrow to get a new one and are at the mercy of instant coffee. Good thing though we rent furnished, since our landlord will bring a new coffeemaker tomorrow.

Today was the first day of shopping for groceries for my birthday party on Friday. We still do it in a kinda Dutch way, having people over for drinks and food. It seems I will get little to none presents, since that is not common here, but most probably people will bring enough booze for the rest of the month December. After buying the groceries, we went to the post office to pick up a parcel that was addressed to me. It turned out to be a really nice quilt, hand-made by my aunt from Abbotsford. It already conquered a nice spot on one of our couches.

Conclusion

Reflecting on what we have done and accomplished so far, we feel lucky and proud. In only three months we managed to build a new life in Canada, with hobbies, friends, a job, volunteer work, a nice place to live and a lot of essentials one needs for a life in the North.

Introduction

Another week has passed with a lot of fun things. I have worked on 4 out of 5 days, Judith has been very busy on choir stuff, I have had a cold for nearly 4 days now. So for the past 4 days every night I opted out on writing a new update and went to bed early. Judith is still having troubles with her arm being affected by the not so ergonomic desk and chair here, something we’re working on to improve. She is the main person behind posting pictures and everything and I have a nice piece of paper with some notes for this update written by her, but I am mainly doing the clicking and typing.

October 28, part II

After writing the update we gave Scott and Carolin a call and went over to their place. I got to meet Edgar, their enthusiastic, energetic and cute rabbit. He was hopping around the room. We talked a bit, played some Beatles Rockband; very nice and relaxing. Although I was a tad bit sceptic about Rockband / Guitar Hero and more games like that, it was enjoyable to do. Not sure if I could play it as often and much as the games I have played so far, but it was better as one would think after seeing the Guitar Hero episode of Southpark.

October 29

Quite uneventful. I went to school to pick up notes and instructions for subbing on Friday. I did some prepping for that, we had dinner and I went to bed early.

October 30

When I walked into school that day I was in for a surprise. Nobody told me that like 80% of the students and nearly 50% of the staff would dress up for Halloween, 1 day before the actual Halloween. But yet, there it was! At moments like these, one feels like a tourist :-).  Applied Mathematics 10, Applied Mathematics 20 and Science 10 were the subjects I taught that day. Applied Math really doesn’t have too much too it. It’s like or a tad bit lower in level than “Wiskunde A” at a level close to  “HAVO 4”. A lot of kids weren’t there  because of Halloween.

Science 10 had almost all kids present and it was the class I had to prepare for the day before. I received some notes on the topic “Energy” on Thursday with the request to find a nice way passing them on to the kids. Since I couldn’t get some materials needed for a “placemat” activity, I ended up teaching it in a frontal instruction, in which I did try to keep them thinking actively as well by firing questions at random, doing some votes, advocating your choice, etc etc. It was fun and after I was done it turned out we (or rather I) had been talking about Energy for nearly 50 minutes. I did not realize it before because the class did not “feel” like a Dutch class after being in a frontal instruction for like 50 minutes. Especially if you realize this was the last period they had before weekend, before Halloween. Good kids they were!

After school we went to the Elks. Not as busy as usual, since quite a few teachers were in Edmonton for a teacher conference. It was very nice though! Talked a lot to different people. Afterwards, we were in a small group “leftovers” that went to Surly Bobs for some dinner. (See pictures below). We were invited by Travis to come over for some more wine, which we did as well. Turned out to be an evening with more wine and good conversation. A tad bit unlucky on the cab again, we had to walk to the main road to catch a cab home. At moments like these you realize a cellphone would be nice.

October 31

Halloween! Doing groceries, cleaning, etc etc. No kids came trick or treating at our place, so we went to Alan and Allison’s, who live just around the corner. In the Elks they invited us to bring our candy over to give it to kids that went by at their place. They already had had like 40 kids when we arrived, but at the end of the night, while watching soccer, drinking wine and hearing stories about Halloween when it is really cold (-20C and below) about 100 kids had visited Alan and Allison’s. Judith did a good job on handing out candy! 🙂

Travis forgot he would phone us at Alan and Allison’s, but remembered after he gave Allison a call about something else. Robyn and Travis picked us up a good 20 minutes later and after one glass of wine we went to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show. After we bought the tickets at the theatre we waited at the Black Knights’ Pub to admire the costumes of all the people there. Halloween really is a big thing here….. The Rocky Horror Picture Show turned out to be a cult movie that had a lot of traditions to it. People threw rice through the theatre at the moment rice was thrown in the movie at a married couple, sprayed with waterguns when it was pouring with rain in the movie, threw toast at the word toast and several decks of playing cards were thrown through the theatre as well. Also there was a united response to the characters in the film, like “asshole”, “whore” and “boring!”. One would expect such a thing to fade out over time, but the opposite was actually happening. It was quite a thing to experience.

November 1

Sleeping in! Some more shoppings. Judith went to rehearsals of the choir (sectionals), because of the performance at the Torch relay, later that week. While she was gone I made my own dough for pizza and used the leftovers to make a few tiny breads as well. It turned out to be so much fun! Breadmaking from scratch is really not that hard and the result is very good!

Carolin and Scott came over for dinner and, like the week before, I had prepared well and planned on a nice dinner. I made:

• mushroom risotto with scrambled eggs and lettuce. I would normally use rocket, but it wasn’t available in the store 🙁
• a bonbon of goatcheese, drizzled with honey, wrapped in zuccini which was spread with a thin layer of green pesto, wrapped in prosciutto ham, baked shortly
• 2 different kinds of pizza, one with fresh tomato, pancetta, mozzarella and oregano and one that would be my standard overloaded salami piccante, less picante than normal on request by our guests. Still good though 🙂
• Semi freddo with speculaas served with warm apple compote. Yes, you have to love freezers. 🙂

The bad thing about so much food is it fills you up: we had no space for the delicious cookies Scott and Carolin brought. But it was a nice night, good food, pleasant company!

November 2

Another day of subbing! I did Arts and Car Mechanics. Half a day for one teacher, other half for another. Judith went to the gym in the morning. Huge compliment from the students at Car Mechanics: after like 30 minutes of class with me they finally understood the physics of breaking, something another sub had spend three days on last week. At times like these you do realise that being educated to teach actually matters, something that seems to be disputed by all the “experts” on your average birthday party. But as we used to say: the quarter dropped (kudos for Canada for still having quarters) Because it would be a busy week we did not do much more. We ate the leftovers from the day before (still good!)

November 3

Judith had a choir practice. For me this day was mainly spend relaxing. Looking back at this week, it was the only day I did not have to work.

November 4

Another day of Arts and Car Mechanics. Both are actually fun to teach. Of course, that may be because the Arts class is very nice and the Car Mechanics class did not have too many students and mainly good students. Last choir practice for the day of the Torch Relay! Judiths choir was practising with the kids choir and the official Montreal choir that travels with the torch! I was not feeling too well, so I went to bed early. Start of my cold. 🙁 I made a nice soup from the leftover mushrooms, which was enjoyed a lot, basically cause I yearn for soup when I have a cold.

November 5

Judith went to Mildred Hall Elementary School. At the district Cheese and Wine party, a few weeks ago, when I was in the Netherlands, she met one of the teachers there, who invited her to see a class in Elementary. Judith spend the morning assisting seven and eight year olds reading and doing other things. I slept in, feeling not too well. Around 10.30 am I got a call to sub for the afternoon. After a few seconds of hesitation I accepted, hung up, showered, took a paracetamol and off I went! Pure Mathematics 10 and 20, in the French Immersion program. Quite interesting again. I was abled to help them on the math, so that was quite OK. Some girls were a bit excited, because the 4 day volleyball tournament would start that evening and they were playing. So the last period was a tad bit restless at times.

After school I went home, just in time to see Judith before she left to the Torch relay preparation. That night the Olympic Torch would come to Yellowknife! After some resting and a paracetamol, I put on my thermo underwear and went to the city hall. Standing still at -5C to -10C is not that funny without thermo underwear and I was glad I put it on. Only my feet were stonecold at the end of the night. Walking home started circulation again, but it turned out not to be that well for my cold.

But it was worth going there! For sure! It is a very special moment seeing the torch nearing the stage, feeling the arousement. Canada really is proud having the games and that really shows off. Food was available from different stands, including a fundraising stand from Sir John, which I of course sponsored by buying a hotdog. After warming near ther barbeque I positioned myself fairly close to the stage. It took like 45 minutes from that point before Judiths choir entered the stage. I kept warm by moving a bit and keeping my gloved hands in pockets. First Judiths Choir sang Oh Canada, together with the “Fireweeds”, the childrens choir of Yellowknife. After that the Montreal choir joined and they sang the Torch Song, which, in the opinion of many choir members, was a bit cheezy. But it was a good performance, very powerful and it made quite an impression on many people. Afterwards we went to warm up again at the SJF barbeque and walked home. This really was something special to experience!

November 6

Armed with black liquorice I went to sub for Kirstin. That meant I got to teach my own subject. Neat! Judith brought in some paracetamol I forgot to bring during the first 10 minute break (thank you Facebook chat) and it was just fun to teach Chemistry 20 (twice in a row) followed by Science 9. Nice reactions by a lot of the students, because they had seen me quite a bit before, since these were the classes I visited and helped in the weeks I was exploring the Canadian educational system.

We ordered in some food, after I made another portion of mushroom soup. Although I have been quite annoyed by my cold, the soup has been very good. 🙂

Finishing….

If we keep postponing writing updates, stories keep getting as long as this one. I know, I know, I know. And it must have been quite a bit  to read. But we hope you enjoyed it. We surely enjoy being here! Thanks for all the calls, e-mails, PM’s, Skype conversations and what not more. Although we are surely progressing in making friends here, it is always good to hear from friends and family back home and from around the world!

Introduction

A lot has happened again. We had a great weekend, we took care of the last few formalities and I got to teach my first days as a paid substitute teacher. Before telling you all more about that, I feel I need to explain why the majority of posts seems to be in English, since quite a few of our readers are Dutch and the blog is mainly aimed to keep them up-to-date. It has occured to us that quite some of the visits of the website however are from countries other than The Netherlands (close to 30%). And we do want them to be able to do more than just watching the nice pictures :-). So at times we’ll still post some stories in Dutch, but we’ll focus on English a lot.

Friday Oct 23

I was up at Friday around 06.30. Couldn’t sleep anymore. I was in school for quite a part of the day, Judith picked me up around 16.00 to go off to the Elks. I bought the crew a round of drinks, to celebrate the visa and we had a great time talking to various people, including Aidan (not sure on the spelling there), Alan’s son, whom we met for the first time there. We also had a great conversation with Robyn and Travis, who invited us over for dinner. Travis is a professional cook, so we didn’t have to think twice there ;-). Really good food, good wine, good conversation. We invited them over for Sunday to have some “Dutch food”, since as a cook, Travis was quite interested to try that.

Saturday Oct 24

Judith was out for choir rehearsal. I did some shoppings around town, using my bike to get there. That turned out not to be a really great idea, because all the slush and dirt and the fact I did not have a rear fender on my bike made the bag, my pants and my jacket all dirty. I was up quite early again after a night of not too much sleep, since we tucked in quite late with quite some alcohol consumed, so I was dead tired around 16.30u and slept for 2 hours.

Sunday Oct 25

Went out to do more shopping. And, besides knowing better, I went by bike again since the buses don’t go on Sunday’s. Seriously, they ought to shoot the guy who came up with the idea of having stores open on Sunday without the buses bringing you there. Brutal! The afternoon was spend preparing for dinner. Judith went to another choir rehearsal from 16.00-17.00. These choir people are really serious!

A great dinner

Travis and Robyn arrived around 6 o’clock. Everything was cut and ready to be cooked by then. I made the following menu:

1. Starter / Amuse: Pork tenderloin, served on an aumuse-spoon (brought those from NL in my suitcase), with sun-dried tomato, basil and a dill-cream sauce. (yeah, most probably 75% of the people reading has had that dish when being over for dinner at our place 😉 )
2. Entrée: Red cabbage done in two different ways: with marinated bacon (in an Indonesian marinade) and mashed potatoes, finished in the oven. And red cabbage with a meatball and onion sauce, served with mashed potatoes
3. Desert: speculaas semi freddo (A bit of Jamie and a bit of myself there), served with hot apple compote. And hell yeah, that experiment turned out to be really nice. Home made speculaas, which is a Dutch cookie, in a home made semi freddo. Not having a mixer gave me a sore arm, but it was so worth it!

Since Travis knew and liked liquorice, he had to try all the ones we brought with us :-). To all the Uruguayans and other non-Dutch liquorice-pagans: candy does not have to have sugar to be liked! We Dutchies are not the only ones who do! Hah! 🙂

Monday Oct 26

We went out to get a social insurance number and to open a bank account. All worked out well and since I had been booked to sub on Tuesday, I rushed back to school to get familiar with the way the shop classes were run. Interesting stuff for sure, interesting students as well. Leftovers for dinner, which were still good!

Tuesday Oct 27

Subbing! A tad bit nervous I was way too early, since I only needed to sub period 2, 3 and 4. My first class was “Small Engines”. Basically, I paired up the experienced guys with the rookies and they had to tear down Briggs and Stratton Engines, and put them back together. Some of the Grade 12 guys worked on their own projects, but after 45 minutes the trying stuff begun. I kept them in the room, they didn’t kill eachother or broke the stuff in the room. Despite that being basically all they require from me, it didn’t feel too well. Welding class was even worse: the guys did not want a written assignment, they did bad, but I managed to keep them in, keep them civil and had them even complete some questions. Don’t ask how though….. Aviation class in period 4 was a relieve! Decently motivated students, a clear assignment, a short explanation and to the shop we went! Almost all of them finished the assignment and were quite focussed and motivated while working on it. Quoting one of my collegues here I could say they were “Good Teenagers!”

Wednesday Oct 28

Around 09.00 the phone, which was sitting next to my side of the bed, went. If I could sub this afternoon for English Languarge Arts. Since I had no other obligations (duh-uh) I could. At school I found neatly prepared assignments and a clear instruction. The dash 2 class however had work for like 30-40 minutes, which took us (yes, it was actually a heavily teacher-oriented activity) 40 minutes. After that I had to improvise. Luckily I had foreseen this and thought of a solution, which I of course used. After that I had the 30 dash 1 class, so the academic grade 12. This was somewhat boring, yet fun in another way, cause these for sure were “Good Teenagers!”, which were working nicely on the assignment. Easy cash it was, Yoda would say.

Updated!

So, that’s about it! You’re all back on track now! We’ll keep you updated, and yes, yes, yes, we really need to post more pics. Will do soonish!

A close call
While I am writing this, I am just passing the border of Greenland. By air of course. Still 5 hours to go until Calgary, clearing customs and getting the permit, some waiting and then on to Yellowknife. Getting the permit, you heard that right. Although getting it was far from easy and proved to be quite stressful for a lot of people.

The medical tests
The Canadian Embassy in Berlin was the place that processed almost all my stuff for a permit. Almost all, because the medical tests were reviewed in Vienna. A recipe for disaster it turned out to be….. I had my meds done Thursday Oct 8. My blood work was done Tuesday Oct 6. After the results of the blood work and the urine test were in, the doctor that did the procedure send all the stuff to Vienna. This would have been either Friday Oct 9 or Monday Oct 12.

Some clarification needed
That Thursday, Oct 15, Vienna send a fax and an e-mail for further clarification concerning my asthma. It turned out the Dutch abbreviation CARA is really a Dutch abbreviation, so they didn’t know what to think of it in Vienna. The doctor on the other hand did not recognize the request, because those were normally done by mail and had a name written on them. The request for my case only had a file number and was send by fax and e-mail.

Stress
On Monday I e-mailed my contact at the Embassy in Berlin if I were able to go on the flight on Thursday, or needed to reschedule. She assured me it was doable and went to reach Vienna. She e-mailed a disturbing answer: the doctor had not replied to the request made on Thursday. so I went by the doctor first thing on Tuesday Oct 20, since my contact at the Embassy assured me that all would be fine if the doctor would reply before noon that day. After some searching and some apologies, the doctor found the request and some time for me. Really nice and he would fax the stuff right away.

On y va
I decided to go on with the flight, checked in my road bike (yes, it is going to Canada, along with a Bicycle trainer, which allows me to bike indoors, kind of like spinning) and did some last changes to my insurance stuff. Because I am going to work in Canada, I needed a different kind of insurance.

Stress, part 2
Wednesday Oct 21 I should get the permit letter by fax. Judith would receive it, because it is her faxing number and she would e-mail it to me. Nothing arrived, so I e-mailed again to Berlin. After some investigation by my Berlin contact, it turned Vienna could not find the fax sent by the doctor. It was not there.
I replied and explained about my asthma and that is quite common and in my case quite mild as well. Eventually, on Thursday, the day my flight was leaving. I sent the cell phone number of the doctor as well to Berlin and my dad and I went on our merry way to the airport. The night before I received an e-mail that told me not to stress, because they would find a way to make it work. Easier said than done, but I managed to have a good night of sleep.

Unbelievable, yet true
When clearing customs before boarding the plane, so after the passport check, I received the news that Vienna was OK with the explanation of me / my doctor. I would get the permit number by e-mail, phone and my mom and dad will text it as well. I only need the number to get a permit. I have no clue how it works, but I will just try and be my charming and a tad bit clumsy self. So far that has worked quite well, getting my bike in (that was overweight due to the bicycle trainer) and getting to pay the lowest fee possible for my excess bagage.

All is well that ends well?
We’ll see in about 5 hours how I will do at the customs. I think it is going to be OK. After all, I did all the stuff right and I have a number that should be in their system. The travelling gods somehow decided they would be nice to me. Instead of sitting next to a former hockey player twice the size of the chair, like last time, I have an empty chair next to me. Quite something. Shutting down the laptop again, I may need it later on in Calgary. I will finish this update later.

All is well that ends well! (18.30, Calgary)
I did get the permit. Fairly easily actually. Taping the bicycle box that was ripped apart by some nice cargo people on the airport took me at least twice as much time. I do hope it survives the last part of my flight to Yellowknife. But I went to immigration, gave them the number, permit was printed and attached to my passport.

So, I am on my way to Yellowknife. Finally. No more stress, yet I know that a few more bureaucratic challenges await me there. But I am looking forward on seeing Judith again! Until the next update!

P.S. This update was placed a few days later, I have done quite some things since I returned that kept me from posting it, but that is something for a next update.

The title, a quote from John Milton, says it all. I am waiting. 12 days have gone by since I was at the physician in Groningen for my last test. After the last results came in the physician has send all the paperwork to Vienna, where it is being processed.  When it is approved, Vienna will send the approval to Berlin, where finally my visa (/ work permit) will be made and send to me in Groningen.

What have I been checked for?

Well, quite simply: a lot! My blood work has been done, a chest photo (X-ray) has been taken, my urine is tested…… I have been tapped upon, bend, stretched and what not more by the physician. At least after all this I can say without a shadow of a doubt I am healthy and in good condition. And that I don’t drink too much according to Canadian standards. 🙂 Seriously, one of the three or four questionnaires the physician has to fill out had questions like:

1. How many nights a week do you drink alcohol?
2. How many glasses of alcohol would you drink on such a night?
3. The last time you had an out of the ordinary night on which you drank alcohol, how much drinks did you have on that night? (And yes, they mean how much drinks I has on the last party I attended ;-))

And of course the more logical questions about chronical diseases, surgery, etc etc.

I may have to wait longer….

It’s about 74 hours before my flight is scheduled back to Canada. Rescheduling needs to be done 48 hours before the flight, so the time frame grows smaller and smaller. Scenarios of having to stay longer in the Netherlands have already been discussed and a plan B is already there.

While I am typing…

While I am typing this I had to pause, because I received an e-mail from the Embassy, that took some of the worries away. My paperwork is being processed in Vienna, but it has not not been approved there as we speak. But, the good news was the permit letter will be faxed to me. That will save a lot of time, so I changed the deadline from 17.00u this afternoon (T -4 hours) to noon tomorrow (T – 23 hours). Means the Embassy has 19 more hours to get things done. And hopefully they will, because that will save us a lot of money, frustration and energy. But it is somewhat scary since it is something you cannot control at all, besides sending a lot of e-mails with questions….. (No, they don’t have a phone number, so I cannot stalk them by phone :-))

In the meanwhile

I have met quite a lot of friends and family being in the Netherlands. Having dinner at different places with different people, so I didn’t have to power on the fridge again. It is nice to see them, but I’d rather would be in Canada again, with Judith. As you can see below, she really has done a lot of nice things which I would love to have done as well. So hopefully I will be back soon and not miss anything more of the start of winter in Yellowknife and the cool things people do for us. It is really nice to see we’re accepted and taken care of as much as people in Yellowknife do!

Bike, photos and more

I have been biking a bit here. As it seems I will bring my road bike to Canada, along with a bike trainer to be able to bike indoor. (Kinda like spinning for those who know that). It’s not expensive at all flying my bike in. And when the weather is still good or will become good again I will be able to explore Yellowknife and surroundings by bike and be able to explore over greater distances. We’ll see.

Saturday I biked a bit in and around Groningen and I drove into the city-herd of sheep. They use them to “mow” the grass at certain places in Groningen. We once woke up around 07.00 a.m. and heard and saw the herd passing through the Stephensonstraat, the street we live at. Quite a sight in a city, having somewhat like 100 sheep walking through a street. 🙂 I will post the pictures later today, along with some pictures of Bunny and Elmo, our pet rabbits, who are at our “rabbit-sitter”. I visited Bunny and Elmo last week en took some pictures.

So, I hope I will receive good news withing the next 24 hours and that I am able to go back to Canada Thursday Oct 22. We’ll keep you updated! Take care!

Introduction

It’s been a while since there has appeared a new update on our blog. Eventually we knew this moment would come, since we’re not only in Canada for a nice holiday, work needs to be done. And boy oh boy, a lot did happen and a lot is done.

Moving to Ciara Manor

You may already have seen the pictures, but Monday August 31 we finally got to move to the place we wanted, Ciara Manor. It is a nice apartment, close to the two High Schools, close to the old town and close to the city center. I think we couldn’t have done it better. It has two bedrooms, a nice living area, a kitchen with more than all the tools that need to be there: we even have a dishwasher now. 🙂

Today (Friday September 4) a second desk was brought and a new desk chair. This allows us to turn the second bedroom into an office for Judith, one that takes her out of the living area, which has a nice desk, but also the television. So despite the fact it hasn’t been turned on much the last week, being able to watch tv without disturbing Judith is of course very important.

We are reachable by phone now without a hotel desk. If you want our number, just e-mail us and we’ll give it to you. Same for the address.

Monday August 31 was a stressfull day, since we moved everything by bike. After all, we remain Dutch, eh? Especially going up and down the hill was pretty hard. After 5 bike trips for me and 3 walks for Judith everything was in our new place. We crawled to the Black Knight Pub, got ourselves a drink and a burger, payed for it, went back to home and straight to our new bed. No problems sleeping, for sure!

Visa, work and whatsoever more

Great news here. Despite the fact I could not get to talk to the Human Resource manager of the Yellowknife Education District #1, eventually all that needed to be done is done this week:

• I got a letter to attach to my visa request today (Friday Sept. 4), so I can fill out all the other stuff (was already nearly done anyways). By Sunday or Monday my request should be on the mail from The Netherlands. (Thanks to Ank, my sister, who has been a great help so far in filing for different things in the Netherlands on my behalf!)

• I got a form for a Criminal Records Check by the RCMP: for some silly reason my Dutch certificate was not enough / not needed. I have been in Canada for a total of 7 weeks now (3 weeks last year). Somehow they only seem to be interested if I committed any crime in that period. Silly yet true.

• I got the Criminal Records Check done today (Friday Sept. 4) This means I can volunteer at Sir John Franklin High School. Finally some work to do even if I don’t get paid for it yet!

• I was however permitted to watch classes, which I have done Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (Sept. 2 – 4) Judith accompanied me to the opening of the school year, which was done with all the students and staff in the gym. After the opening Judith went home and I went to see classes. Things are done differently in many ways in Canada, but Friday proved to be a day with very simular things I have seen and done myself in the Netherlands. A relief, to see quite some skills I possess are actually being relevant and used in the Canadian system as well.

Getting things done

As we speak, Judith is a member of the Yellowknife Library. It took two attempts, cause she needed a written proof she actually lived in the address she put on the form. Eventually she got that proof, since paying for the new appartment proved to be hard: with the hotelcosts being checked out on the Mastercard in the same month, we needed to do all kinds of tricks to get the monthly limit raised, so we could pay for the apartment as well.

And of course more things needed to be done:

• a phonecard for long distance calls

• more liquor from the liquor store (darn those prices!)

• figuring out the dishwasher

In between that, Judith got a new translation job, finished another text job and handed in a chapter for her translator course (Marked with a 70%).

Leisure, lost lures, found lure, dancing and dancing lights

Of course we managed to have some leisure time as well. We went to a nice dock with huge lava rocks next to it on Sunday. Judith did some sunbathing while I caught a Jackfish. Sadly enough he swallowed the lure so deep, I had to cut the line. Lost lure #1. 🙁 I promised myself to get better equipped with a mouth opener and a longer pair of tongs. Bought those and a new lure (despite the fact I still have quite a few) and Thursday we went to the same place again. Another Jackfish hooked, but since the dock was occupied, I was forced to fish from the rocks. Hard to scoop the fish and some waves of a passing motorboat threw the Jackfish on the rocks. A mighty blow from its tail snapped the lure from my leader, and after a short pause, just a few meters away from me and even less from the shore, the slough shark glided back into the slough. Lost lure #2 🙁

Somehow, a conversation with one of the men on the dock commenced. A nice old chap, who had lived for years in Yellowknife, Hay River and even some places down south. He was born in Yellowknife though and his daughter lived in the house that had been in the family for generations. We both saw something blinking just out of the shore on the bottom, and believed it to be my lure. After a few attempts it turned out not be my lure, but another one, with two leaders still attached to it. I got to keep that one :-). James, the old chap, partially Metis, Cree, Fench and what even more, managed to get it out with his rod and a huge lure, which I should really buy, since it seems to be the lure on the Great Slave Lake. After a few more casts another boat approached the dock and caused us to go home.

Tuesday and Wednesday were evenings that were build around So You Think Can Dance Canada. Great show, great dancers. We really enjoy it. Also dancing were the Northern Lights. Sunday evening we saw them the first time. No luck with the videocamera getting a good movie of it. We tried to see it again Monday, but when the alarm of the clock sounded at midnight, we both were to tired to get out of bed.

On Thursday we tried again, with more luck getting out of bed. We walked to the point where the Ice Road to Dettah starts in the winter and found some Japanese people with the same intention as we had, armed with photocameras and tripods. Silly suckers tried to get a better picture using flashlight. *sigh* We tried a few settings on the camera and managed to get a few good pictures, despite the aurora being not that impressive as it was on Sunday or as it will be soon. We’ll make more pictures then, promised!

Concluding

We have done nicely this week. Lots of things accomplished and we’re very happy with our new place. We’re close to the point to actually be able to receive guests (guest bedroom!) but be aware that it will get colder soon. We’re looking for places to buy good winter clothing already. The scenery remains beautiful, stunning and more of that, so it will be worth your while visiting us in the capital of the North!

Yesterday morning we got up early to be able to move to our temporary apartment before check-out time (11 am at the hotel).  After breakfast we started to pack the last things and move them – me walking 2 times with suitcases, grocery bags etc. and Bas riding his bike with  large backpack on 3 times. After we had everything transferred to the apartment, we took a shower at the hotel (taking advantage of the use of towels there) and checked out at 10.50 am.

We were a bit tired, so the afternoon was spent relaxing and organizing our stuff. Somebody put ‘free plants’ on the doorstep of the apartment building, so we took two nice plants (basel and parsil), which we can nurture and use now. At noon, Bas called the principal of the school he’s hoping to work for from next week on, since she had asked him to do so. They arranged to meet at 5 pm at the Black Knight’s Pub downtown, to have a drink and a chat. I was asked to come over as well, so the principal and I were able to meet too,  since Bas already met her on Wednesday at the school.

It was great meeting her, she is a very lively personality and it was very easy talking with her about everything and anything. Bas and she had some pints of beer while I had a few good glasses of white wine and orange juice. The drinks were accompanied by some snacks (nachos and chicken nuggets) which was good, because after a while we had quite an appetite.  We had a great time and she assured us that she’s going to help Bas with whatever he needs to have done to get the visa, as she really wants him to work for her at the school. Actually, she asked me to apply to become a subsitute-teacher as well!! I don’t think that’ll be a good idea, but it surely indicates that I made quite an impression on her as well, don’t you think?! 🙂

At about 8 pm there was live music at the pub, and we enjoyed listening to the guy singing some Irish folk songs (yeah, Clair, that’s right, Irish music in Yellowknife!!). The principal actually knew the singer, because his wife had taught at the school last year. She also knew some other people at the pub, so we got introduced to some other Yellowknifers, which was really nice.

At around 9.15 pm we called it a night and went home. Actually, we got a ride back to our apartment in the principal’s huge SUV 4-wheel drive, and she offered us that we could use that car whenever we would like…. wow! Maybe we’ll do that some time!

As we were dead tired, we decided to go to bed at 10 pm and we actually slept about 11 hours! So, we feel a lot better today. The only things we’ve done so far today is shopping for groceries and – as I am writing this – we are doing laundry across the hallway at the laundry room. It is very convenient (way more convenient than going to the laundromat at the other side of town!!) The only thing was that we didn’t have a laundry-card, but I asked one friendly neighbour and she lend hers to me and of course I’ll be paying her back the amount that cost doing the laundry.

I will put up some pictures of our new apartment later, but maybe we’ll move again tomorrow or Tuesday to the 2-bedroom apartment we want to stay the rest of our time in Yellowknife. So, we’ll keep you updated on that!