Bas Siebring's Blog

Tag: update

  • Bas in Nederland/Bas in the Netherlands

    Nederlandse versie
    Even een kort berichtje om te laten weten dat Bas veilig in Nederland is aangekomen. Morgen heeft hij z’n bloedonderzoek, donderdag de longfoto en medische check bij de dokter. Hopelijk gaat het daarna allemaal snel met het visum, want ik zit hier in m’n eentje en dat is nu al best wel saai en niet leuk…. maar ik vermaak me gelukkig wel met studeren, lezen, tv kijken, e-mailen, huis schoonmaken, de was doen, boodschappen doen, koken en wat al niet meer. Straks ga ik denk ik nog even wandelen, want de zon is doorgebroken (het was vanochtend mistig) en de herfstkleuren zijn prachtig. Koud is het overigens ook: zo tegen het vriespunt aan. De eerste flurry (sneeuwbui) is voor deze week voorspeld… ik hou jullie op de hoogte!
    En onder de Engelse versie vind je nog een paar foto’s van de afgelopen weken.

    English version
    Just a short note to let you know that Bas arrived in the Netherlands safely. He will have his blood checked tomorrow and an X-ray of his lungs and a medical check with the doctor on Thursday. Hopefully, all will go quickly after that with obtaining the visa, because I am all by myself here in Yellowknife, which already is quite boring and no fun… however, I am keeping myself busy with studying, reading, watching tv, e-mailing, cleaning the apartment, doing laundry, groceries, cooking and whatever more. I think I will go for a walk in a little while, because the sun just broke through (it was foggy this morning) and the fall colours are beautiful. It is cold as well: just about freezing. The first flurry has been forecasted for this week… I’ll keep you posted!
    And here are some pictures of the last couple of weeks:

  • Update 1 Oktober

    Het is al weer even geleden

    Ja, het is al weer even geleden dat we een update hebben geschreven. We kregen al vragen of het hier allemaal goed ging. we kunnen een ieder gerust stellen: het gaat hier voorspoedig! Er is weer een hoop gebeurd, dus we zullen jullie weer even bijpraten.

    Judiths verjaardag

    24 september was Judiths verjaardag. Ik was al 2 dagen op zoek naar een specifiek cadeau, maar Yellowknife heeft lang niet alles in elke winkel, dus met het aanbod dat er was, was het behoorlijk zoeken. Het lukte me dan ook pas 25 september om een mooi cadeau mee naar huis te nemen. Op Judiths verjaardag zelf zijn we uit eten geweest. De vrijdag na Judiths verjaardag hadden we een klein feestje. We hadden 6 mensen uitgenodigd, mede vanwege het beperkte aantal stoelen dat we hadden. Uiteindelijk zijn er drie mensen geweest, maar wel de leukste mensen die we tot nu toe ontmoet hebben: Pat (de principal), Alan (zie de update over Hay River) en Kirstin (één van de twee scheikunde docenten hier). We hadden al een hoop drank in huis, de mensen die kwamen namen nog meer mee. Voorlopig kunnen we dus nog wel even vooruit. 🙂

    De saté (babi en ajam) die ik maakte,  de pisang goreng, de pindasaus en de meer originele ketjap saus (lastig te maken zonder ketjap, maar erg goed gelukt) gingen er goed in. Ondanks dat je hier veel niet al te scherp (maar wel erg zout) eten tegen komt, kennen we hier toch veel mensen die wel van een gerecht met enige pittigheid houden.

    Wat was het cadeau dan?

    Ik voelde al aankomen dat ik daar anders vragen over ging krijgen. We hadden hier helemaal niks om muziek af te spelen, dus er staat nu een klein stereotorentje voor CD’s, radio en een mogelijkheid om een mp3-speler aan te sluiten. Vooral de radio en de mp3-speler functie worden gebruikt. 🙂 Maar hij bevalt erg goed. Daarnaast had ik nog wat saaiere cadeaus (maar wel nuttig!): enkele bordjes, bestek, een paar mooie schalen en wijnglazen en gewone glazen. De wijnglazen worden ook goed gebruikt door Judith 🙂

    Kaartjes

    Bedankt voor alle kaartjes voor Judiths verjaardag. De een vond zijn weg sneller dan de andere naar ons adres. 🙂 Maar dat heeft wel weer iets leuks, we hebben dagenlang elke dag wel 1 of 2 kaartjes gekregen.

    School

    Na mijn les heb ik niet echt nog veel andere lessen gegeven, maar wel een practicum ontworpen, een werkblad er voor gemaakt en het practicum gegeven, samen met Ed. Ik ben nu wel een beetje uitgekeken en de momenten dat ik ook wat kan doen grijp ik met beide handen aan. De mensen hier zien me al meer als een vaste waarde, iemand die ze dagelijks zien en er dus “bij hoort”. Erg fijn. Ik ben de laatste tijd vooral veel bezig met het doorspitten van een reader over werkvormen en aan het nadenken over hoe ik die kan toepassen in reguliere en inval lessen.

    Visum

    Ik kan eindelijk aan jullie vertellen dat het papierwerk er door heen is! De papieren voor de medical check zijn opgestuurd naar de Stephensonstraat en ik vertrek zondag 4 oktober naar Nederland. Ik zal dan in sneltreinvaart de volgende stappen gaan uitvoeren:

    1. papieren op halen
    2. naar de dokter te gaan
    3. een medisch onderzoek ondergaan
    4. de formulieren per expres op sturen naar Wenen
    5. Wenen stuurt dan confirmatie naar Berlijn als alles goed is
    6. Berlijn stuurt mij m’n visum
    7. On y va! Bij de douane in Canada kan m’n visum dan geactiveerd worden!

    Maar ik ben waarschijnlijk wel enige tijd in Nederland. Judith blijft in Canada, om het fort te bewaken. Ik hoop zo snel mogelijk terug te kunnen, want ik had hier al zeker de helft van alle dagen kunnen werken. We vertrekken dan eind december weer naar Nederland, voor een week of 2. Judith mag hier namelijk maar 6 maanden blijven, dus we moeten even het land in en uit, zodat ze weer 6 nieuwe maanden krijgt. 🙂 En dan zijn we mooi met de kerst in Nederland. Hier gaan namelijk ook heel mensen naar het zuiden, naar familie in de provincies, dus Yellowknife zal wat saai zijn rond de kerst. Na oud en nieuw vliegen we weer terug.

    Tsja

    We werken hier allebei erg hard. Judith heeft nog steeds opdrachten en heeft al weer een aantal LOI hoofdstukken ingestuurd. Toch moeten we maar proberen om iets vaker een update te schrijven, want als jullie je zorgen gaan maken, dan doen we iets niet goed. De volgende update komt dus snel!

  • Update September 18 until 22

    Hay River

    Judiths last update mentioned we were going to Hay River (although that update was in Dutch). We went with the outdoor soccer teams of Sir John Franklin High to support them, and, of course, to see a bit more of the Northwest Territories. We had quite a luxurious weekend, since we didn’t have to drive with the school bus with all the students, neither did we need to sleep on a small and thin matrass on the floor in the school in Hay River. Rather than that, we went by car with one of the teachers, Alan, followed by a huge trailer with all the bags and equipment of the kids, and did we sleep in a hotel. We didn’t bring any matrasses or sleeping bags from home, so the hotel seemed like the option to go for. As it turned out, we could have borrowed them from Alan, but since we already had reserved the hotel, we sticked with that. What a punishment, eh? 😉

    Hay River is somewhat like a 5-6 hour drive from Yellowknife. Alan promised we would see a lot of wildlife, but the gods of nature thought 1 bison would suffice for us. Apart from that we had a wonderful trip, a nice picknick on the way getting there, beautiful weather, stunning sceneries. We will upload a whole bunch of pictures shortly. Be aware: we have about 400 pictures, so it may turn out to become quite an album, even after picking the nice ones.

    About the  soccer (in Canada)

    When we arrived, the boys had to play immediately, so we unpacked quickly and went to the field. Soccer in Canada, or football, is becoming quite popular and it is quite a popular sport at SJF High. Our teams had the most players on it. Some communities even had to send mixed teams in order to get enough players. This has more to do with the amount of people living in those communities than the popularity of the sport. However, since it is winter for 7-8 months a year here, the season in which outdoor soccer is played is rather short. The indoor season on the contrary has a lot of teams, players and matches. Indoor soccer here is played with 5 players; 1 goaltender and 4 field players. The influence of indoor soccer was clear on the field.

    Let me be short, rather than explaining everything that I saw on the field in full detail: the boys team, with quite some egos in it, had the tactical level of an average team of 11-12 year olds in NL. The boys all wanted to be striker (which you would expect in a team of 6-7 year olds, in which you learn that there is no “I” in team and that all positions in a team matter). But, since the other teams kind of had the same tactical views and striker issues, and SJF had by far the highest individual qualities, the boys had a walk-over tournament. They won all their matches, with at times quite some impressive numbers. The intent of a  Dutch saying that applies to this, would quite literally translated state that “In the land of the blind, a cyclops would be their king”. Still, the fight they put up at times and the fact we were there to support them made non of their matches boring.

    The girls team however played as a team and made quite an impression on me, with at times nice play and nice goals. On average their matches were by far more enjoyable to watch. They had quite some competition but managed to win the tournament as well.

    Showers, wind and cold

    On Saturday we had severe showers and windy conditions in the afternoon. After the match of the girls we were soaked. Not a single fiber of clothing on our body was dry. Alan had some rain jackets and rain coats on the truck, which made it possible for him and myself to see the boys’ match. Judith went back to the hotel for a hot bath, since the combination of  rain and wind really cooled us down badly. Alan and I went there after the match to enjoy a warm shower as well. (No complaints from him there about our hotelroom, since the showers in the school were cold 90% of the time 😉 ) We went back for dinner (which was provided for us, since we were supervisors) and went to a local bar for wine, whiskey and Grand Marnier afterwards.

    The trip back

    It seemed the gods of natures wanted to get on good terms with us again, because our trip back to Yellowknife was a true safari. We saw:

    • about 40 bisons
    • a wolf (pretty rare to see them on the road this time of year)
    • a black bear, which crossed the road about 50 meters in front of the truck

    Pictures will be provided. But it was truly awesome. Bisons are magnificent beasts, especially the lone big bulls we encountered! The bear was spectacular to see, running quite fast after he spotted us.

    Alan

    During this weekend, Alan was our tourguide and told us a lot about the history of the NWT, about where he had lived and taught, about the wildlife, about soccer…. We had a great weekend, which was for a huge part because of his efforts. So far we’ve encountered so many people that took time to show us around, tell us stories, show genuine interest in us. It is great! Todat (Tuesday) he invited Judith and me into one of his classes, since he had a guest speaker, the NWT Commissioner, who also is an Elder. He turned out to be a enjoyable person, gifted speaker, with a lot of stories and experiences he shared with the students. Despite the fact it was the fourth and last period, running from 14.05-15.30, he almost had the complete attention of the students for the entire time. Quite an accomplishment.

    I got to teach!!

    Monday, I was in the Chemistry 30 class again. Quite hardcore chemistry, which was fun. Ed (the teacher of this class and vice principal) and I found some topics the kids did not master fully. And he proposed, since I suggested an approach for next class, that I could do it. So my Monday afternoon and most of Monday night I spent doing some research (I had never taught this particular topic in chemistry before, since it is at a higher level than I normally teach) and making a cool slideshow, which combined a small lecture with some peer-instructions and drawing assigments in it. The drawing was because this part of organice chemistry involved 3D structures of molecules to determine the different effects of different 3D structures on physical behaviour of these compounds.

    For my more chemical educated friends: it dealt with the effects of London dispersion forces in all organic compounds, the dipole-dipole interactions and steric hindrance that may come with (cis/trans) isomery, with a focus on the influence those have on boiling and melting point of a compound.
    For my less chemical educated friends: it was cool, I managed to bring them from not knowing how to predict some behaviour of molecules to a point in which almost all could do so. I also used way cool 3D images of molecules.

    I got an applause, need to get rid of that soonish since I want to be a “normal” teacher, not some guest speaker / attraction, but to be honest: that was quite nice, as was their attitude during my small lecture. I even got some students approaching me afterwards saying they enjoyed it and found the 3D models to be really, really insightful. I think it is understandable I had to restrain myself from not skipping and dancing my way through the school. Before the class I had the regular “first-time-teaching-after-a-holiday-nerves” and some nerves since it was my first time teaching in a language other than Dutch. So I was glad I was able to do it and on top of that managed to make a good effort in doing it.

    Good efforts open doors

    My first time teaching didn’t go unnoticed. Some reactions / effects:

    • Ed: “Nice, the 3D structures did clarify a lot, nice to see you said quite a few things I already said and somehow felt they didn’t see the importance of. You repeating it puts an emphasis on it, so they see it is really important.”
    • Science department head: “Yeah, I already saw a handout of your slideshow. ” (I have no clue how?!) ” I didn’t know you were in for that. If you want, you can teach in more classes.”
    • Principal: “Nice! We can use as a sub you when Ed needs to go to a convention!”

    So that is so cool! I am very excited and looking forward to more teaching experiences and will keep you all updated! And make sure you keep an eye out for the pictures of the Hay River weekend, they are awesome!

  • Update 17 september 2009

    Alweer een week voorbij!
    De afgelopen week hebben we weer van alles gedaan en de tijd gaat dan toch wel snel voorbij. Alweer een week om! Tijd dus voor een update(je). 

    Open avond SJF
    Zoals Bas vorige week al schreef gingen we donderdagavond naar de open avond van Sir John Franklin High School. Voor mij erg interessant om eens te zien waar Bas zijn dagen doorbrengt en jullie hebben inmiddels de foto’s ook al online kunnen bewonderen. Voordat we erheen gingen, hebben we pizza gegeten bij Boston Pizza. We verwachtten (zo zag het er in elk geval van buitenaf uit) een fastfood-restaurant, maar het bleek een erg gezellig en betaalbaar pizza (en pasta e.d.) restaurant te zijn, waar we heerlijk hebben gegeten. Voor herhaling vatbaar!

    De open avond begon met een toespraak van de principal en het voorstellen van de nieuwe docenten. Er waren helaas meer leraren dan ouders op de avond, dat was wel jammer, maar voor de mensen die er waren, was het leuk om te zien wat SJF allemaal te bieden heeft. Na afloop, toen we met nog een paar docenten over waren, gebeurde er nog wel wat naars: er bleek een driejarig meisje achter te zijn gelaten door haar ouders. Ze werd opgevangen in de lerarenkamer, vermaakt met wat speelgoed en er werd geprobeerd te achterhalen wie of waar haar ouders waren. Uiteindelijk is de RCMP (politie) gebeld en heeft een social worker het meisje opgehaald. Ze bleken haar zelfs te kennen, want het gebeurde vaker. Haar ouders verwaarloosden haar, mogelijk in verband met drugs/alcohol-problematiek, hetgeen hier onder de oorspronkelijke bevolking helaas teveel voorkomt… Thuisgekomen namen wij maar even een borrel… je maakt wat mee…

    Vrijdagmiddagborrel
    Vrijdag werd ik om een uur of vier door Bas opgehaald: hij ging met een stel collega’s wat drinken en ze hadden gezegd dat ik ook moest komen! Gezellig natuurlijk. 🙂 We hebben heerlijk zitten kletsen en bier/wijn drinken en kennisgemaakt met leuke mensen, totdat rond een uur of acht er ook wel eens wat gegeten moest worden. Een paar collega’s namen ons mee naar de Surly Bob’s Sports Bar, een onooglijke bar in het centrum, maar met echt heerlijk eten! Het is weer eens bewezen:  de beste eetgelegenheden zijn de plekken waar de ‘locals’ heengaan!

    Mooi weer in het weekend
    Omdat het vrijdag erbij in was geschoten om naar de opening van de expositie te gaan, waarvoor ik uitgenodigd was, zijn we er zaterdagmiddag langsgegaan. Prachtige schilderijen en beeldhouwwerk van lokale kunstenaars bewonderd en een paar kaarten en een paar hele leuke oorbellen gekocht met kleine ‘inukshuks‘ erin. Verder was het ook tijd voor een bezoekje aan Tim Hortons en de Walmart.

    Zondag was het echt heerlijk weer en zijn we een eind gaan fietsen, waarbij we wat mooie foto’s hebben gemaakt (zie vorige post). Helaas hadden we, zo gauw we stil stonden heel veel last van de muggen, dus we hebben maar hard doorgefietst 🙂

    25 graden – hoezo koud in het hoge noorden? 😉
    Ook maandag was het nog heel lekker weer, zelfs rond de 25 graden! Bas was inmiddels weer aan ’t werk, maar ik ben maandag nog een eindje gaan fietsen en heb het uitzichtpunt beklommen, waar we een van de eerste dagen van ons verblijf ook heen waren geweest (zie ook foto’s).

    Aurora Chorealis!
    Ik keek erg uit naar dinsdagavond, want toen ging ik een kijkje nemen bij een koor hier in Yellowknife, het Aurora Chorealis :), een koor met ongeveer 65 leden van 20 tot 80 jaar oud, heel gezellige groep. Het was erg leuk, maar ze hebben wel een heel ander repertoire dan popkoor Funism, haha. We hebben dinsdag namelijk een Requiem geoefend (in verband met een optreden op Remembrance Day), een Schots volksliedje en een soort ‘praise the lord’-lied, maar dan in het Swahili! 😀 Na Remembrance Day (half november) gaan we kerstliedjes doen voor de kerstoptredens en ik geloof dat we in april ook een optreden hebben,  ik weet nog niet wat we dan gaan doen.. Ik moest  trouwens (schrik!) vooraf een stemtest doen met de koorjuf (mevrouw Nightingale, echt waar! 😉 ) Zij zei dat ik een heel brede ‘voice range’ heb en daarom wilden ze me wel bij de sopranen hebben. Daar werd ik geplaatst naast een vrouw, die zich voorstelde en aan mij vroeg waar ik vandaan kwam.. toen ging ze verder in het Nederlands… haar vader bleek Nederlands te zijn en ze had zelf ook een jaar in Alkmaar gewoond… tja, de wereld is weer klein! Maar goed, het zingen was erg leuk, dus volgende week ga ik zeker weer!

    Hay River
    Morgen gaan we een weekendje weg! Er is een voetbaltoernooi voor scholen ‘in de buurt’, dat georganiseerd wordt in Hay River, ongeveer 450 km hier vandaan (hemelsbreed is het dichterbij, maar je moet helemaal om het meer heen rijden). Bas en ik gaan mee als vrijwilligers! Het was nog even spannend, want ik mocht alleen mee als ik ook een criminal records check (verklaring omtrent gedrag) had laten doen, want anders mag je niet met kinderen werken hier. Die heb ik maandag meteen aangevraagd en had ik gelukkig gisteren al binnen! Ik heb er veel zin in en zo zien we ook wat van het landschap hier!

    Regen?
    Maar ik verveel me sowieso niet hoor: ik heb nog wat werk te doen en verder kan ik lekker verder met mijn studie. Ook heb ik tijd om te lezen (ben zeer blij met mijn library card!) en heb ik vandaag het huis maar eens grondig gepoetst 🙂 Zometeen lekker eten en vanavond op tijd naar bed, want het is morgen vroeg dag (om 8 uur op school verzamelen). Hopelijk klaart het weer vanaf morgen wel wat op, want de laatste paar dagen zijn wat fris en grijs en grauw (vooral vandaag, het miezert al de hele dag…).  Tot volgende week! 🙂

  • Update August 31 up to and including September 4

    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!

  • Update August 29 and 30

    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!

  • Update August 18-21

    Introduction
    Time for another update again. We’ll try and make some updates in English every now and then as well, because otherwise our foreign guests only get to look at pictures without the story behind some of the pictures. It may seem I (Bas) am doing a lot of the work on the website, which is indeed a tad bit the case, because Judith has been pretty busy on work for Talaria Communications. So we do discuss what to put on, but I get to write all the stuff, but as soons as she has more time Judith will add some stories to our weblog as well. And a last general issue: If you have problems watching our photos, check the post “About watching photos”, below this update.

    Tuesday August 18
    Judith did a lot of work on a translation job. She also went to do the groceries and managed to make a nice photo of the “Donair” place. We were puzzled by it on our first day when Judith had a “Donair pizza” with “Donair sauce”, which supposedly was sweet. We of course know Döner (kebab) in the Netherlands and we figure this should be the English / Canadian way of spelling it.
    The Dutch / Germans and the rest of Europe may be spelling it wrong as well of course (we don’t use the arabic writing either), but somehow I have more doubts with this Canadian way of spelling it. I keep thinking “We thank you for flying with Don-Air” and “You thought Nike Air was cool, now try Don Air, they rock even more!” And of course we have garlic saus and / or “scherpsaus” with it. :-). The Canadian Donair sauce to me tasted like Vietnamese springroll sauce, which of course is very good as well. 🙂 We definitely need to go there some day to taste a Dürum Döner Kebab, or whatever equivalent they have of that.
    To go on on the different way of spelling / saying things, we knew the cheeses from “La Vache qui rit”. Suprisingly, in this bi-langual country these cheeses are from “The Laughing Cow”. Most probably the English Canadians won’t buy it otherwise, since they may think it’s from those (presumed arrogant) Quebecois.
    I went to the schoolbaord of the Yellowknife Education District #1 and to the Yellowknife Catholic School Board. Goal: acquire information and application packages to work there as a substitute teacher. This seems to be the solution to stay in Canada and get a job. Subs are used a lot. The eyes of the woman behind the desk at the Catholic Schoolnoard even began to shine when I mentioned I actually had a Bachelor of Education and 7 years of teaching experience. They still needed some subs and later on we heard that a lot of subs used didn’t even have any degree in education.

    Wednesday August 19
    I started out with getting all the forms needed for a Dutch Criminal Records Check and to apply for a visa. I chatted with a cleric at the municipality of Groningen. Ank (my sister) even made a phone call to them later on, but we managed to get all the information we needed.
    It all takes a lot of time and one gets into a lot of Chicken-Egg paradoxes. For the sort of visa I wanted to apply for you need a valid job offer, but to get a valid job offer I needed a Scoial Insurance Number, which I could get after I got a visa. So in the end I will apply for another sort of visa. Quite a bummer, because I could have applied for this sort of visa back home. Would have saved me a lot of problems, being not in the Netherlands at the moment. However, with help from Ank and maybe some other people I should do ok in the end.
    I still have quite some time to get it (as you may know we have a deadline for getting a job at October 5th), but I am not allowed to work in the meantime. I do however plan to do some sort of “co-ops” on all schools I may work as a sub to see how they do things, get a hang of working in a Canadian schoolsystem. It would be good advertising for myself as well, to show I am dedicated and serious. Apart from that it will be quite an experience to learn a lot from. I will keep you updated.
    In the meantime, besides from working on the translation jobs, Judith called the bank she is with. She already emailed them twice, asking them for a solution on her electronic banking problem. Her bank sends her texts with codes which she needs to enter to complete transactions. However, our cellphones don’t work here (Rogers please make sure you start to set poles here!!!) so she cannot do any transactions. Two e-mails and a lot of frustration (I will get myself another bank with “Random Readers”!!) did not do the job, 3 minutes on the phone did. Slackers at the e-mail desk!
    After that succes, Judith went on and send yet another e-mail to the xs4all, our Internet Service Provider back in the Netherlands. In June 2009 we figured out that they had not completed the termination of our contract at Judiths old place (June 2008), where Jitze (Judiths brother) had used it after she moved out (like 4-5 years ago). We had payed their fee for over a year while not having their services anymore! The phoneline used for the DSL connection was shut down June 2008 as well, so it was complete rubbish on their part. Next to that we switched contract for our current DSL connection, and from June until now we have payed a lot of double bills, since they charge us for our old contract, our terminated contract (multiple times) and our new contract for the same month as the old contract. They totally went beserk. If no answer / solution has been reached on monday, we may get our bank to get all the payments back. überslackers!
    We went to the Frostbyte cafe. The place where it used to be was empty and they moved, accordingly to the guy at a computer store closeby. We got some vague directions and went on our merry way. Asking again brought us to the actual place, where a lot of guys between 15 and 30 were playing World of Warcraft fanatically. We got the documents for the Criminal Records’ Check scanned and went back home again to e-mail them to Ank.

    Thursday August 20
    After some work for Judith and some more things to sort out for Bas, we figured it was nice weather and we should go for a canoe trip on the lake. We packed some lunch and around 11.00u we arrived at Tony’s place. We packed our stuff in the canoe and off we went for a trip. We set off towards the Great Slave Lake (remember, the old city, N’Dilo, is in the Yellowknife Bay) and way before reaching the lake we made a corner around the last island. From there, we crossed the bay and continued along the shores on the other side. When one of the islands close to Joliffe island came close, we left our path by the shore and went to the island, where we got out of the canoe, ate a bit and did a bit of fishing. We continued our way, back to the shore across the bay and went on until we found another nice spot to have lunch. It seems like we had no problems at all, but landing the canoe and getting out proved to be more challenging at times than the story thus far implicates. 🙂
    We continued again and canoed in a straight line towards Joliffe island, the large island in the Yellowknife Bay. Wind had picked up and produced quite some waves, which made us move in lines that either more or less faced the waves or moved more or less with them. Challenging at times, but we managed to cross the lake towards the island. From there we used the cover of the island and canoed around it. Last stretch was against wind and waves again, but around 14.30u we arrived at Tony’s dock. We met his wife, who was just back from a two week canoe trip, which put our effort into some perspective. 🙂
    We had a nice chat, she had worked at the Catholic School Library, so she could tell me something about that school. After that we went home.
    That night we went out for dinner at the Wildcat Cafe. We had wild game sates (delicious) and while Judith a stew with various sorts of wild meat, I had a Buffalo rib-eye. We were seated next to two Australian people, who had done quite some travelling during their 50 years of marriage. We exchanged some stories and had a very pleasent night. They offered to drive us home which was pretty nice, because we had suffered quite severe from mosquitos walking our way towards the Wildcat Cafe.

    Friday August 21
    This was a pretty relaxed day. I worked on finalizing the first movie for our website, but was severely handicapped by Pinnacle Studio 10.6. The last thing before going to bed was upgrading to 10.8. Weird enough, everything works fine but after rendering some parts missed sound. Weird, weird, weird, it remains work in progress.
    Judith went to the Liquor store after we did groceries together. Some more work (on website texts this time). I cooked some nice stir fried noodles with bokchoi and other vegetables. Remarkable, since we don’t have a pan to stir fry. 🙂
    A quiet evening with some television, then off to bed early.

  • About food, a museum and more food

    Friday August 14th 2009, 09.54u. It seems another raven has flown into a powercable. Awefully quiet again, cause at the moment supreme you hear the fridge, the stow and the microwave all power down. Airconditioning in the building makes more noice than you realize and this is the moment you do realize that. And of course the internet connection, the brightness of the laptopscreen…… It all changes. But we were not as surprised as last time.
    Unfortunately our conversation was about coffee and we had just concluded it would be a good plan to make some. Only 8 minuts without electricity this time. A shreek sound from the fire alarm, brightness of laptop screen back. Waiting for the router to come online again. Loading and turning on the coffeemaker.

    Well, this gives me a perfect opportunity to make this post into a small update, since it has been awefully quiet on the site for the last two days. Wednesday was a day with work and a small walk to Rat Lake. We went by the two High Schools (St. Pats and Sir John Franklin) just to check them out. Rat Lake was small and since we forgot our insect repellent, we went by it fast to go back to the city. For me the walk resulted in two new bites. 🙁

    Wednesday evening I reheated the risotto I made tuesday evening. It was quite an adventure tuesday evening to make it and I was glad it worked out fine. It again pointed out the different opinions the Chateau Nova Hotel and I have about a “fully equipped kitchen”. Despite the culinary handicaps both Judith and I were pleased by the result. Wednesday I was creative again in the kitchen (to cook something to accompany the reheated risotto) and made a “Hamburguesa Canadiense al pan”, or a Canadian hamburger (by Uruguayan standards that is ;-)) on bread. Add some baked out bacon, a baked egg, cheese and some ketchup to your burger on a toasted burger bun and you recreate the delicious burger I made.

    Thursday we went to the “Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Center”. Quite a name, but it turned out to be quite a museum as well. A lot of information about the different Inuit people that live and have lived here, information about the early days of air travel around the arctic circle and information about the animals that live here. Insightful and truly remarkable at times. It also gave us an idea about how little people from Europe or other parts of the world come here. The guestbook in front of museum revealed the names some people from France, Germany, Belgium and one other Dutch family that had been there in the last month. Abundant were the names of Canadians and Americans. We do know the Japanese cheat, because we saw a few exploring the musem through the viewer of their cameras, but we didn’t find their names in the book. So we’re sure there must have been more of those.

    After 3-4 hours well spend in the museum we picked up some groceries and went back to the hotel. No cooking this time, because we wanted to celebrate the fact that we were in Yellowknife for over a week now by going to a nice restaurant. So we went to “Le Frolic / l’Heritage”, two restaurants that were in the same spot. We still don’t know why it had two names, but the food was quite ok. After we try some other restaurants I should see if I could make a comparing article on restaurants in Yellowknife ;-).

    Today our plan of renting a canoe to explore the lake was postponed again. More wind then was predicted yesterday and not as warm. We do hope the forecast for tomorrow is correct, cause we figured we would make reservations for the canoes and force ourselves on really carrying out our canoe-plan. At the moment it is work again. We’ll see what we’ll do this afternoon. It may be time to honour our good friend Tim with another visit.

  • Power outage

     “Our” power outage was mentioned in yesterday’s newspaper!

    P1080562

  • The weakness of mankind

    Tuesday, August 11th, 07.55u. We’re up early. I allready installed myself in the bedroom to work there. We did a test yesterday and it works not being in the same room when you’re both busy on a job or getting a job. Both things are more effective.

    But not at the moment. At the earlier mentioned time, electricity went down. Total silence, the laptops went to a less bright mode to preserve energy. Not too bad, one would say, weren’t it that Judith was just planning to do an interview by phone for which she needed the website of the company. And well,  wifi routers don’t  tend to work without electricity. So there was some slight panic, a call to the reception. “Yes it is down in the main building as well, but we’re hoping it gets back on in a few minuts.” No panic there, that’s for sure.

    But at these moments you start thinking. In the Netherlands, We rely on electricity for a lot of things we need in life to work. In Canada, that’s even more so, since we cook using electricity, we make toast using electricity, we make tea using electricity, we make coffee using electricity. The airconditioning, the lights……. we had a lot of machinery that went down when they were suddenly denied the energy they needed. So we remain in silence, apart from a shreek signal going from room to room in the building, warning us a vital system is without energy.

    08.07u: after 12 minuts that seemed to last like an hour, the lights went on again, a last shreeking sound, a breath of relief. Life reboots and continues. The world seems to have forgotten it stood still seconds ago. And apart from a guy in a bedroom on the 3rd floor of a hotel, who wrote this all down, nobody seems to care for that moment the weakness of mankind was so painfully exposed…..