Tag: update

Aurora Chorealis Christmas Concerts

I am very excited to tell you that the Christmas concerts I did with my choir, Aurora Chorealis, yesterday and today were great! Bas shot some (video)recordings and photos, and we will post them soonish.

However, before I go to bed, I want to tell you that you should all tune in tomorrow on http://www.cbc.ca/listen/.
Go to: Live Streams: Radio One – The North -Yellowknife. (Part of) my choir will perform live tomorrow morning between 7 and 8 am (which is 3-4 pm / 15.00-16.00 uur in the Netherlands) and I will be there as well (which means I have to get up at 6!!!). So… off to bed for me now! 🙂

Introduction
It’s been a long time since I (Judith) wrote an update.  Of course, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t agree on what Bas was writing, but I didn’t want to work on the computer as much, due to some RSI-pain in my arm and back. Fortunately, my arm is feeling a lot better now.

Two weeks have gone by since our last update. However, we did put up quite a few pictures, so you should be able to know what’s been going on here in Yellowknife. We are still having a great time and enjoying every minute of this experience.

Volunteering
I volunteered helping out ‘my grade 2’ students two mornings a week. It is so much fun to be able to help these kids with their reading, writing and math. It makes me feel useful and it gives me a reason to get up early (6.45!) .

Dark days
Most days this time of year, we feel like sleeping in, because it isn’t getting light until about 10 am and it is pitch dark again at 4 pm. Short days, but we try to get outside at least once a day to get some fresh air and sunlight.

Choir
As usual, I had my choir practice on Tuesday nights. We are now practicing for our two Christmas concerts. We will perform at ’the Ledge’ (the legislative building) tomorrow and the day after (December 15 and 16). If you are in the neighbourhood, make sure to come by 🙂 It starts at 7.30 pm both nights and it will be good!

Christmas lights and Cookie Exchange
 Thursday December 3rd, we went to see the lighting of the Christmas lights at City Hall. The mayor delivered a short speech and lighted the big tree and lights around City Hall. Quite a nice sight! Afterwards, we took the bus to the Monkey Tree, a restaurant we had been the week before and met some nice people. They told us there would be a ‘cookie exchange’, so Bas baked ‘speculaas’ (a typical Dutch cookie) and we exchanged our cookies, while drinking beer/wine and eating burgers 🙂 It was fun! After that, we went over to Robyn and Travis’ place to watch a tv show all four of us like, which they recorded.

Saint Nicholas, dogsledding, Christmas Party
Saturday the 5th of December, Saint Nicholas (Sinterklaas) Day. In the Netherlands we celebrate this by giving each other presents (actually, the ‘anonymous giver would be Saint Nicholas and his helper ‘Zwarte Piet’) and this year Sinterklaas found our house in Yellowknife: we got a package in the mail which we opened. Thank you Sinterklaas! 🙂

In the afternoon, we went dogsledding! This is a really cool Northern Experience, which we both enjoyed very, very much. We will definitely go again (and take potential visitors!). Well, you’ve seen the pictures. I don’t think I can add to that in words.

It was a full day, because in the evening we went to the Christmas Party of Sir John, the highschool where Bas is working. The day before, he had actually just worked at the other highschool (St. Pat’s) for the first time, but hey, we still consider Sir John ‘our school’ 🙂 It was really a fun party, with good potluck-food (see pictures of Bas’ hutspot), wine, dancing and celebrating. A good way to be involved in the school and mingle with the other teachers!

Work
Bas has been working an average of 3 (full) days a week so far. Mostly at Sir John’s, but he’s on the sub-list for the Catholic Schoolboard (St.Pat’s) now as well.  On the days that he doen’t get a call to work, he will usually go to school anyway and voluntarily help out.

I have been working quite a bit lately for some of my Dutch clients. How wonderful it is to have e-mail to send documents back and forth!

Last weekend (December 12 and 13)
On Saturday, we did groceries together with Travis and Robyn (and their car… which made life easier for us! Imagine us walking to the grocery store at -40 Celsius, which is not even that bad, but this way we could stock up on some things and buy lots and we didn’t have to carry it back home! Also, we could go to a larger grocery store than we usually go to, which is further away though). Then, at night Carolin and Scott came over for dinner. Bas cooked tomato soup and nasi (an Indonesian rice dish) with chicken sate. Dessert was deep-fried bananas! We also had a lot of fun playing Monopoly and a card game.

On Sunday, I had another (extra) choir practice from 1.30-4 pm and Bas was preparing dinner. We had Travis and Robyn over for ‘boerenkoolstamppot’ (mashed cale and potatoes) with ‘rookworst’ (smoked sausage) which we had carefully kept for the occasion. As starters we had mushroom soup with freshly baked bread and left-over chicken sate with peanut butter sauce and deep-fried bananas. Travis provided us with a delicious dessert; crème caramel!

Temperatures
I have had a few comments on the fact that we seem to have such nice meals here, but what do you expect? We definitely need the energy, as temperatures are dropping! We are experiencing real winter now. I will never complain anymore about cool temperatures back in the Netherlands, because now I am used to -30 and below! The coldest we had so far, was last week with -41!  But we do not find it that bad, as long as you are prepared for it and dress for the occassion (parka, snow pants, balaclavas, etc.). We actually enjoy the cold, crisp, fresh air and the nice warmth inside 🙂

Flying back…
One week from now, on Monday December the 21st, we’ll be in the plane to the Netherlands. We will spend two weeks with friends and family over Christmas and New Year’s. I am looking forward to seeing everyone back home, but I am surely not looking forward to travelling. Such a long trip, a jetlag, two weeks running around, a long trip back and another jetlag… oh well, it is for a good cause, as I am not allowed to stay longer than 6 months in Canada as a tourist (even though Bas has a work visa and we are married, I am still visiting Bas….), so I can renew my stay in January for another half year.

Concluding
Well, I guess that’s it for today. We’ll keep you posted!

Introduction

12 days it has been since our last update. Shame on us. Of course we updated some pictures, but if we keep updating like this, we’ll end up with long stories every time we update. Like you saw in the last update, I have been supply teaching a lot, which is only partially the reason why we did not update earlier. But enough self remorse, on y va!

November 19

Judiths morning was spent volunteering at Mildred Hall. Although the kids are not always as sweet and adorable as she initially thought, she stills enjoys it a lot. Then again, she is sure that she will not very likely pursue a teaching career. Some people thought she would possibly turn over to the less paying, more stressful and demanding side of the job spectrum, but I am happy she will continue doing what she is good at. Talaria Communications is still doing well and having an average of 10 hours paid work per week. Not bad at all and combined with my salary it should be suffcient to pay the bills.

November 20

The day of my pre-birthday party. 🙂 In the morning I had to work, the afternoon I spent cooking and preparing. I started a bit late, which caused us to be late in the Elks’ Club. Fortunally, Travis was prepared to pick us up. So after a few drinks and a few more invites, we went back. Some last preparations before the crew joined us. We had invited more people than we did at Judiths birthday, since we knew more people, and we had quite a few people attending. Enough to get the room filled and vibrant. I made meatballs in peanutbutter sauce, pizza with home made dough, patatas bravas, “kruidcake” and my goat cheese “bonbons”. Accompanied by lots of vegetables, dippings, chips and what not more.

I got some nice presents as well: a cheese grinder, Monopoly, chocolate bonbons, beer (Heineken and Grolsch), wine, moose jerky, moose sausage, a nice pan and more kitchen stuff Judith bought me, a fur hat…… Nice! But the biggest present was of course the nice evening.

November 21

The day of the Santa Claus parade. We already posted some pictures, but like the “intocht van Sinterklaas” (the arrival of Sinterklaas in NL) this is a huge event in Canada. There were a lot of people (well, a lot is relative of course, but half the population of Yellowknife was there). When the actual parade went by, it was somewhat less impressive than the amount of people that gathered would make one suspect it would be. But still, it is all about the experience. (That phrase starts to become our motto)

After the parade we were invited at Travis and Robyns place, for perogies, moose sausage and a real home-made to yours truly self addressed birthday cake! So nice! The food was delicious and the birthday cake, unbelievable!

November 22

My actual birthday! After some calls from the Netherlands (nice!) we went with some left-overs to Sir John Franklin High. Travis and Robyn had plans for the morning and they had to be at school in the afternoon. And they needed lunch! So we brought some meatballs, some french bread, some chives and garlic butter and some goat cheese bonbons! Afterwards we walked back and we took some pictures after quite a climb to the top of the hill next to our apartment building.

November 23

My last day of teaching car mechanics and fabrication studies. Since the teacher I substituted may be absent for quite a while, a more permanent solution needed to be found. That solution presented itself. A teacher with a thorough hands-on experience with cars (yet a completely different Bachelor of Education) walked in on the YK1 office and was immediately sent to Sir John Franklin High. I worked with him for one afternoon to update him. So I am free to work on other subjects again! I cannot say I am sad about that!

November 24

Judith went for another day volunteering at Mildred Hall and to her choir practice in the evening. I went to the Roman Catholic Schoolboard in the morning, to bring my application package there to broaden my horizons and increase my chances of working as a supply teacher on a regular base and perhaps, more in my own subjects. The afternoon I was at home, working on administration of my hours and more. I also installed an obsolete printer we got as a gift. Because the printer was made around 1994, it was quite something to get it working. But, after some perseverance, blood, sweat, but no tears, it worked for both Judiths and my computer. Yay! A free Laserjet printer! Especially Judith is happy with it, since she doesn’t have to rely on me anymore for printing her invoices for customers. She can do it right away!

November 25

I went to École Willam MacDonald Middle School, to introduce myself there and get my name on their list of supply teachers. The walk was a bit further than I thought it would be, so I am not sure how to get there if I should be hired there. On the way back I walked by Sir John Franklin High to find out nobody was there, since everybody had the afternoon off to cheer for the school (Ice)Hockey team. I also found out the Salsa classes that were taught to the students there, which I wanted to see, where not that night, but the night before. Double bummer!

Later that afternoon, I tried to install two Linux distributions in dualboot on the obsolete computer I also got for free. (Ain’t that nice?) Since I brought a book for Linux studies with me for days I don’t supply, I figured I needed to make work on that as well. And I need a testing computer to try stuff on. The studies will result in being able to get two official certificates, so I get multiple benefits out of our Canadian adventure. Since the computer had no DVD drive and I bought DVD’s to install the OS from, I tried a USB install, but the computer did not have USB boot available in the BIOS, not even after I flashed and updated the BIOS as well. Slightly annoyed I had to give up until I got some new parts.

That night I put my bicycle with bicycle trainer in front of the television and cycled for 1,5-2 hours. Judith in the meantime went to the gym she works out.

November 26

Judith was invited for a Rotary Lunch that day, which was very enjoyable. She thought it was really nice to get a taste of the Rotary spirit again, since she was in Rotarian exchange program 13 years ago (also in Canada, yet in Ontario) She got involved in the Rotary reading program, to battle illiteracy in Yellowknife, which is  quite a problem here actually, especially on the aboriginal part of the population.

I went off to get a DVD drive (yes, for free as well) for the computer. I also walked by Sir John Franklin (something I have done all the days I haven’t worked, to keep in touch and hopefully be the first to be considered for supply teaching when a new opportunity is there) When I ran into Pat, who missed my pre-birthday party, who thought out loud about the possibility of going out for a beer, I anticipated quickly to get involved in that plan. So we came up with the excellent idea of going out for beer and dinner. Pat picked us up at our place and we went to “The Monkey Tree”, a bar we hadn’t been before. Since it was B&B night (Beer and Burgers) we were not the only people there. We sat at a table with some people we already knew: a teacher from Sir John Franklin and a girl we met for the third time on a random location (we borrowed her laundry card when we lived for 2 days in Fraser Arms, she is in Judiths choir as well and now we saw her in a third random scenario) Also at the table some new people, which would have a cookie swap the next week, for which I am now invited and will make “speculaas” cookies. The things we get ourselves into, eh? 😀 Anyways, the beer was good and the burgers were free and the company was pleasant. It pays to have initiative!

Afterwards, I installed Debian and OpenSuse on my test computer. It took me quite some time and I went to bed at 2 am. That was the exact same time Judith got up to call a customer in the Netherlands. Without much luck, though, the chap had no time so they made an appointment to call again at Monday, noon for Judith, 8 pm for him, since he “would have more time in the evening”. Luckily, Judith had to make some more calls (insurance, new contacts and another business call). But that is the risk when you go abroad and continue working for Dutch customers. 🙂

November 27

It was a day of no classes at Sir John Franklin: there were parent-teacher-interviews. After school hours, we went to the Elks’ Club, where Robyns pre-birthday party started. After a few drinks, some cake and some more drinks we went to the Black Knight Pub, for burgers (yes I know, again, two days of burgers in a row, shame on us). The evening ended in the Monkey Tree, which at night is a bar where one can dance as well. After a bit of dancing, juice and ice tea we went home.

November 28

We were brutally woken up by our phone. I was too late answering it. After listening to the voicemail it turned out to be Travis. We had promised (on Facebook) to go the crafts’ sale of the organisation he works with, which works with mentally challenged adults. If I just used an incorrect term, so be it; not too long ago we could still call them “idiots”, nowadays, the designation for these people seems to change every week. Regardless of all that, they were a happy bunch of troopers and it was really enjoyable.

We continued going to a sale in St. Pats (the school) and then to yet another one in some home for the elderly. The afternoon ended by going to the old town, to two galleries and Weaver & Devore. One of the galleries we certainly visit again, since we saw nice stuff to bring home. We had some lunch and went off for some groceries. Later that night Robyn picked us up to have dinner at their place. I brought the dessert (crêpes with custard with Grand Marnier). Travis had prepared a delicious moose stew. We had an enjoyable evening, watched some television and played some cards. After that, we brought Judith home. Robyn, Travis and myself went to see the movie “A Clockwork Orange”, which started at midnight in the theatre. It was better than Judith told me, since she did not feel like seeing it since she saw a play with the same title which she did not enjoyed that much. After the movie, Travis and Robyn dropped me off at Ciara Manor, where I crashed into bed next to Judith.

November 29

A lazy Sunday. Up late and I spent the afternoon toying around with the fresh installations on my test computer. We did some groceries and I made my own bread again. It was the third time I made my own dough and I am getting quite good at it. I made three ciabattas out of my dough. While they were rising a second time, we went to the Salsa classes I wanted to check out. We had been unlucky since the first class I was sort of ill, the second class Judith was not feeling well and the third class we forgot to go. Our luck hadn’t changed, because after our 15 minute walk, it turned out the class for that night was cancelled. Later on, it even became clear all remaining classes were cancelled as well. There goes another of the already few opportunities of dancing in Yellowknife. 🙁

The ciabattas were risen and baked immediately after we came back. I made a nice bacon-mushroom-omelette to put on the bread. It was truly one of the best meals we have had so far in Yellowknife, a good end to a nice weekend.

November 30

Judith had to call the customer she called last Thursday. Finally she got the answers on the interview she prepared, so she could start working on the website texts for this company. She also had a translation job to finish, so she had a good day of working. I went to school to help out in Ed’s class, like I did before I had the work permit. The students were pleased to see me again. After some thorough questioning they were OK with the fact that I had been in other classes and not in theirs, since they understood the financial motivation of that choice ;-). It was nice to hear them say they enjoyed me being there though. I was by myself with the students the last 15-20 minutes of the class by myself, since Ed had to leave early for a meeting. Nice! 🙂

Concluding

I can only imagine the length of the text I just wrote. Updating more often gives smaller amounts of texts, I am aware of that and so is Judith. Still we fail to update more regularly. But then again, we do update you guys and I’d say you get a good idea of what we’re doing here, what we’re experiencing. I do hope that makes up for the long lengths of texts we produce from time to time!

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!