This may contain some atrocious puns...

The people of Toronto are notoriously blurry

So I went to Toronto, and I feel I should first say thanks to Dave for giving me somewhere to stay. I went skating for the first time in many years, and certainly the first time outside ever, on a rink situated in the centre of Toronto. It was pretty awesome, although slightly tainted by the chap who slipped and hit his head and we then had to wait for the paramedics. Anyhow we decided after this that perhaps we would rather eat than skate and so I had some Thai food.

Later that same night I got my first experience of playing hockey, not exactly sure that I was brilliant but then considering that my main issues were with the skating I think it went fairly well. It was made more interesting by the fact that it was snowing while we were skating, so this meant getting to shovel snow while skating which I feel I had begun to get the hang of by the end. Still in the time it took to get the whole thing clear, where we'd started had a fresh centimetre on it. Also got to skate through ankle deep snow which was a fairly cool experience.

The old town hall, nothing more

Other than this I did lots of hanging out and just generally relaxed, which was marvellous. I also got to go out to a farm a couple of hours outside the city. It was a really nice one storey wood and marble place. I spent most of the time in an oak panelled room with an open fire reading Sherlock Holmes or watching movies. It was a lovely room, also one of the shorts makes mention of Horsham, The Five Orange Pips I believe, so that was a nice reminder of home.

How it looked from the window at the farm

Also there was a protest on the train tracks when I tried to leave, causing me to be delayed by three and a half hours, I wasn't particularly amused by this, but oh well. It seems the Prime Minister should have been talking to some Natives and hadn't so they decided I wouldn't want to be able to get Montreal, just a tad annoying if I'm honest.

Christmas at the Falls

The falls have a effective cloaking device

So I went and saw Niagara, really quite a strange place. The falls and the gorge they have cut out of the lanscape are really beautiful but then the place doesn't quite have the same kind of class. The casinos are quite cool, but it does seem to be a big mess of neon lights, discount souvenir shops and attractions of the sort you'd expect on a pier.

Yeah I played golf with Dinosaurs

Anyhow the key thing was that Stuart was also present so this gave us plenty of opportunities for entertainment. On Christmas Eve we did the exploring but the best bit was Dinosaur Adventure Golf. We played a couple of 18 hole courses in among some the odd T-Rex, Velociraptor, Stegosaurus, Diplodocus and well I'm sure you all know some dinosaur names. It was a pretty good course a few sand traps and a lot of ice traps, very hard to pick a good line over the rather uneven surface.

The guy who did the intro for the snowman
was also a musician it appears

A very Canadian sign

Christmas day started with a nice little snow shower, which seemed very appropriate. The time difference was handy as it meant all the decent TV had already been on, and was therefore available for watching on i-Player, so there was a christmas special binge, obviously. Outnumbered, Friday Night Dinner, QI, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, The Snowman and of course Doctor Who. All of which were nicely broken up with the odd game of pool, on perhaps the most unpredictable table ever, there was an interesting curve to it and the balls can out in a fairly random order. We managed to find ourselves a christmas dinner, in the Hard Rock Cafe, so could see a guitar belonging to David Bowie while eating turkey. After that we popped off to a bar and watched some christmas basketball, all in all it was a pretty good christmas.

It would appear I've been thrown in jail

The entrance to my "room"

Right so I went to Ottawa for a few days, it seemed a pretty cool place although kind of icy and really pretty chilly. There isn't a lot of stuff there but I got the feeling it was a pretty nice city, just had a good atmosphere. I had a nice look at the Canadian Parliament buildings, where you can go on a free tour, pretty sure that wouldn't happen back home. They did confiscate my belt though, as it was studded, I'm not sure what they thought I could do with it but presumably some pretty serious damage. So it's this big symmetrical building with one side being for the Commons and the other the senate, no Queen related stuff is allowed in the Commons. There is also a peace tower, apparently the largest peace monument in the world, so just stereotypical Canada there. The views from it would've been awesome but unfortunately it was a little cloudy and snowing. I should also point out that I stayed in a hostel that had previously been a jail, so I was sleeping in a cell which was different.

The Houses of Parliament, Canada style

I also went and visited some friends in a place called Perth, it's kind of small and spread out if that makes sense. Did manage to have this really nice meal of all local food though which was pretty cool. I also got a proper Canadian experience, driving to the middle of nowhere in the dark during a blizzard to get to a party. This was made all the more interesting by a suicidal deer that decided to jump in front of us, fortunately for both parties concerned we missed it (of course there I have changed my assumption about the deer being suicidal). Anyhow got drunk during a blizzard so that was cool. The next day there was an extra foot of snow or so, it just makes England's attempts look pitiful.

Quebec cunningly chosing cloud cover

Queen Victoria looks at her lovely library

The House of Commons, Canada style

Now for a little rant about trains, because I'm English and that's what we do. Now I wouldn't say the system back home is great but they seem to have decided to make it far worse out here. The main problem I feel is that for some bizarre reason they seem to think it should be like getting a plane, with a queue to board and sometimes checked baggage as well. Now this can lead to a train spending over half an hour waiting at a platform, why can't people just wait on the platforms and get on and off when the train arrives, it's crazy. However the trains are pretty spacious with free wifi so that makes up some of it. But being delayed for an hour so no apparent reason: signalling, train broke down, "someone on the line", etc. is just preposterous.

If Carlsberg did Icicles...

Right so I have been in Montreal and am now on a train to Ottawa. The first couple of days it snowed fairly incessantly which is less fun than we seem to think it would be back home, it is just rain but colder. This may have been because I was wandering around the city and couldn't really enjoy it so much.

Maire-Reine-Du-Monde

Notre Dame

It is quite a different a different place to Halifax, the people are decidely more French and I don't necessarily mean that in a good way. It also seemed the sun had decided to shun the place while I was there which was a shame, couldn't see the tops of the buildings half the time. There were quite a few pretty building though, some slightly older and more European stuff. I went and had a look at a couple of cathedrals, Notre Dame and Marie-Reine-Du-Monde, went into Marie as it was free which I considered a big plus.

SQUIRREL!!!

There were some pretty sights though, found this wall covered in icicles that was awesome kind of like stalactites. Also climbed up Mont Royal which was a bit of a challenge it was fairly deep snow which made it more difficult. Saw a few cross country skiers, unfortunately the views of the city were rather obscured by a collection of grey clouds. The place seemed to be littered with statues as well, one of which was a Mountie so that was stereotypical.

A view of Montreal from Mont Royal

Icicles on a wall

Met some cool other travelers, a guy from England a few Canadians, a Nigerian (who I couldn't understand), a Czech (who I could just understand) and an Aussie who was in the country for one day and got ridiculously drunk. So that meant the evening were fun and fairly long. Also trains seem to like using their horns out here

Je suis Montrealais

Ok, so I didn't get round to writing anything last week, shoot me. I would say it was because I had exams, but we all know that writing would've been great procrastination, so no it was because my laptop cable had died and I couldn't turn it on. Anyway I didn't get up to much last week.

This week I have done my exams which was fun, obviously. Since then I have been drinking and playing some pool. I also discovered that American football is more dull to watch than curling so pretty high praise there. I have also seen the hobbit, I liked it but it wasn't the story I remembered reading as a kid which was a shame. There were a few guys dressed up and we had Gandalf sitting on our row which was interesting

There is a tree in front of my window ok

I'm now in Montreal for the start of some christmas travelling. Was amazing flying in at night and seeing all the snow on the ground, have never seen anything like it. Turned up in the hostel and met another english guy and went for some drinks, found a bar with $10 pitchers and open until 3 in the morning on a sunday night it was great. I also feel I did fairly well considering I didn't eat for 10 hours before drinking for 5. Which reminds me I met a nice stereotypical Canadian at the airport, just says hi and we spend some time in a bar, chatting about rugby, places we've been and those we want to see, the normal stuff. Anyhow Montreal is really quite french, people are speaking it everywhere so I don't have a clue what they are saying, think it's about time I go and do some exploring though.

11 became 12 and I got to shave

Right, so, in the past week Canada seems to have heard that it has a reputation for being cold.  So it has got down to about -8 in the day, which I'm pretty sure has never happened back home. Fortunately Halifax hasn't yet cottoned on to the fact that as it's by the sea it should be windy, so that is a pretty handy fact. Anyhow it's still pretty dry and clear skies, although I feel I should make the obligatory fuss about the fact there has been a small amount of snow, so here we go, oh my God it's snowing! Snow!! SNOW!!! Good, glad I got that out the way, can move on now.

Today I discovered that a peanut butter twix is a thing, and quite a tasty thing at that. However that does not make up for the severe lack of pasties here. What else am I supposed to eat when I fancy something filling, savoury, easy to eat that isn't a sandwich? There's nothing that quite fills that spot like a cornish pasty or perhaps a lamb and mint one, but no can't even find anything vaguely similar.

Went to the hockey again, this time the Mooseheads won 7-1, essentially they have a fairly awesome keeper whereas the other team didn't. Got to see a fluke goal as well, it went in off the glass that protects the crowd, really quite embarrassing for  the keeper. This time saw some guys get penalties for roughing, perhaps they'd had a few too many pints of lager and felt a bit fighty. Now, Cananda has a few places which I would descibe as unpronouncable and the team they played were from one such place, Chicoutimi Sagueneens, not even sure which one is the place. I have a suspicion one of those words may be pronounced Shoe-Book-Toe as the announcer seemed to keep saying it, however that may just be a list of things he had to remember who knows.

Anyhow I have exams soon so not doing a huge amount of anything so there's not much else to tell. Oh, and I should probably mention that I'm at the Uni with a puppy room to help people relax during exams.

The visibility seems to end at the window

So this week has seen me finally get to hockey game. Went to see the local team, the Mooseheads, against their local rivals, the Screaming Eagles. Mooseheads won, turns out they're one of the better teams in their league, and since the NHL isn't happening this year it's one of the better leagues. They managed to avoid fighting with each other, which upset some of the locals. It's fairly easy to follow really, makes it much easier that the rink is pretty small compared to a football/rugby pitch. They like to punctuate every little break with music, which then ends very abruptly when the game restarts. The stadium announcer was a fairly scary looking chap, it was the eyes, they gave you the sense of "I'd kill again." There are also lots of little bits from the players, one of whom I understood as well when he spoke Czech as English. Anyhow I feel I will be doing this again.

How the world looked when I woke up

Yesterday saw me compete for Dal for the first time, it went pretty well got a couple of PBs. The only downside to this was that I had to get up at 4 in the morning for the travel, we went to New Brunswick, the next province, it's about four and a half hours away. Fortunately some lovely people on the team offered to make all the rookies breakfast, so that made everything better. It also meant that I got to see some more of the country, or at least I would've had it not been so exceptionally foggy. So far as I can tell Nova Scotia is essenitially a giant area of fog with the occasional tree breaking through.

Otherwise what I have done it the past week remains largely unknown, presumably not much, but I'm fairly sleep deprived so perhaps loads happened, who knows.

Conspiracy Theorising

Now this might strike you as an odd thing to say, but there don't seem to be many gingers around here. Perhaps you don't it is worth commenting on, but this is meant to be a Scottish area so I find it just a teensy bit suspicious that the place isn't crawling with them. I mean, I think I have only seen one proper flame haired guy the entire time I've been here. Perhaps it is just some kind conspiracy and really there aren't any Scots at all, and the locals don't even seem that pasty again suspicious. I reckon I might be onto something, so if I suddenly disappear you all know why.

Anyhow this was a wonderfully short week, as they took two days off for Remembrance, I'm sure you'll agree three days of lectures is absolutely cracking. Being the exciting type that I am I spent a fair bit of that time sleeping, however I did get around to seeing James Bond, was very nostalgic watching all the shots of London under a grey sky and pouring rain it felt like I'd never left. I also showed Four Lions to some Canadians, I feel they were slightly shocked by it, which is what I was hoping for really. A marvellous thing happened to me this week as well, I woke up no particular idea what I was going to do with myself, only to discover I had an email inviting me to a brunch starting in 25 mins, just enough time to get there. So there was a fairly perfect start to my day with a pork based skillet.

Friday saw me playing Jenga, well Tumbling Towers, while drinking. It has a lot of scope as a drinking game I feel. Of course, fairly quickly we became more avant garde and no longer were the bricks being laid flat and a mightily wonky tower ensued. Then yesterday I went downtown for a meal to celebrate a birthday. I got rather confused walking down as to why so many people were walking towards me, I had to fight against the current in much the same way a salmon before mating season has to. Anyhow it turned out that there had been a Christmas Parade which had just ended. The meal was great, some duck and a cheesecake, sorted. On my return to Res I discovered one of my friends had been enjoying some Tequila, so naturally were attempting to use their head as a battering ram against a various walls, it ended well. After that I played a little beer pong and went to sleep, good night in all. I'm also growing to like the time difference, as when waking up feeling a little delicate there is normally some football or rugby to watch.

No pictures again I'm afraid my camera has found itself a nice comfy spot on my desk and is displaying no desire to leave whatsoever.

Drunk people do British accents

Right, well if I'm honest, it hasn't been the busiest week of my life. Quite a lot of time being spent doing athletics, have myh first competition in two weeks and that will be my first time in another province, which will be interesting. I also have been trying to take work more seriously and treating this less as a massive holiday. So I've started my distance learning, admittedly I'm only doing the course that I find interesting but I'm sure I'll do the others as well.

Got to watch the results come in from the US election, at a reasonable time, which was nice. Made far more interesting by the insistence of one chap I was with that we should do various odd bits and pieces to prevent Romney. It seems our superstitious behaviour worked, for which I'm quite grateful, it is really quite hard for me to successfully articulate my disdain for Republican politics, but how a party that seem to have BNP-esque ideals can be mainstream is a concept I struggle with.

Friday was a fun night, started by having a few drinks to help the work seem more interesting and it progressed into a fairly interesting night. Was a good sit around chatty kind of time, pretty relaxed and socialable, essentially my favourite kind of night. The more bizarre part of the night started with a fire alarm, as they often do. While some people decided it would be sensible to leave the building, I chose to move to a different part where the alarm wasn't going, good choice. This led to my meeting of a wonderfully drunk girl, trying to avoid having their alcohol taken and being put to bed by those fortunate enough to be looking after her. Despite cruel gravity attempts to bring her down, she chose the sensible hiding places of the guys toilets, whereupon a British accent was adopted along with the name Freud, it was amusing trust me. After leaving this source of amusement I went back to talking, frisbee and watching door decoration. This continued until 3 when I decided I really should get some sleep. I was woken at 6.30 the next morning to accompany someone to the airport, that is too early, far far too early. So yesterday was essentially lost to trying to regain lost sleep.

No pictures this week, as I don't think my camera has left my desk all week, so there we go. Also I'm currently sporting a beard and 'tache, it's rather ticklish.

I'm on a Boat

I have realised I forgot to mention an amusing sight I saw last week at Peggy's Cove. While having a look at the garden of a chap who had carved some figures into a large chunk of granite which just happened to be there, we saw a taxi pull up, the door open and people lean out to take photos before shutting the door and being driven off. It just so happened there were some other English people there at the time who could join us in incredulity and fits of giggles. Oh and, of course, there was the mandatory "Bet they were Americans." I mean honestly the sheer laziness of some people.

The Bluenose II

So this weekend saw me travel to Lunenburg a place with a German name in a supposedly French area, pretty sure we've had the odd issue with this type of thing back in Europe but, it being Canada, all is well. Essentially it is a very pretty harbour where they have some rather beautiful ships, one of which is called the Bluenose and is on the Canadian dime, which is 10c for those of you who have no idea what the names of the money means like me. Also I should technically point out that it is actually the Bluenose II, as they rebuilt it and only finished it this summer.

The Picton Castle setting sail

There were also some other tall ships about, one of which, the Picton Castle, we followed out as it set sail to go round the Pacific rim. Was quite a cool thing to do, our boat was rather smaller so felt dwarfed by the Picton Castle, strange that we were probably the last other people that the sailors will see for a couple of months. I believe that it was also used during the filming of Pirates of the Carribean which is kinda cool as well. We also discovered that the HMS Bounty which was sunk by the Sandy had left from Lunenburg only a couple of weeks earlier, so it was a shame they hadn't decided to wait a bit longer. Also in the harbour was a Greenpeace ship that had been impounded for ramming the Canadian coastguard, not the most intelligent of plans.

Indian Falls

On the way back to Halifax we stopped off at Indian Falls which was a nice little waterfall. Met some rafters on the way down the track, who had just been down the falls, and managed to lock themselves out of one of their cars, so gave them a lift a couple of kilometers down the road. This was slightly less worrying than intial thoughts as we'd first seen a chap running down the track with a first aid sized box, and then seen two other very disconcerted looking chaps at the end of the track.

He Who Must Not Be Named is now stealing, honestly where will it end

On the side of the road going to Peggy's Cove

Those of you used to seeing me during Uni term time will remember that essentially I spend most of my time half asleep, looking more lost and confused than normal. Well I'm glad to be able to inform you that I have continued that here. My general state of alertness was not improved by training 7.30am on tuesday then supposedly having a session at 7am on the wednesday, I slept through that one, I had a quiz at 8.35 so I thought it was justifiable. Basically I like to wake up sometime between 9.30 and 10 and life conspires to stop me doing that for which I am most certainly not grateful.

Can just see the lighthouse on the left

A little island

My friday night was fairly interesting, after the place we had decided to go to decided it didn't know what a provisional licence was we had to leave and find somewhere new. Where we ended up had some nice cocktails, not exactly cheap but wasn't "out on lash" as such, so had a casual few. There was also music, as always, first an acoustic chap so as not to annoy the restaurant below, I got the impression from some of the girls he was "alright". This chap then returned with the rest of band for a set which was pretty good actually, quite folky. Then the last band came on, all in fancy dress for Halloween, the singer appeared to be dressed as a raven it was quite impressive. Anyhow they had one of the longer sound checks I have heard, which involved the accordionist doing something which could possibly be described as some kind of freeform poetry, but essentially he just went on saying random things for quite a while. Anyhow the music seemed to be a mix of Irish and Russian folk, wasn't too bad but was getting lake and fairly sleepy by this point so left fairly early. Should point out they were called Tequila Mockingbird Orchestra which seemed like a cool name. I also proved my assumption that Martini is a foul drink to be correct. The best bit of the night, however, occured walking home, a totally sozzled tramp in a 3/4 length leather trench coat with long scraggly hair meandered towards us carrying a sign saying "Voldemort stole my wand, need $$$$$ for a new one" quite hilarious, trust me.

The harbour at Peggy's Cove

Saturday was a quieter night in, ended up watching drunk people in costume wander up and down my corridor trying to find a party, presumably they were failing as I'd see the same people every couple of minutes. Ironically one of the least ranchy outfits I saw was the person dressed as 50 Shades of Grey, who'd have thought. I also watched a drunk person go into my room, realise it wasn't the toilet and then come out again, I suppose I should be grateful they realised.

They seem strangely obsessed with Bagpipers here and this
one only knew about 3 songs

Yesterday I went on a trip with my mum to Peggy's Cove which is a fairly famous tourist spot around here, it's a quaint little fishing village with a lighthouse and some fairly incredible scenery, so having remembered to take my camera I took the pictures in this post.

SoCo and lemonade please

Ok, so another eventful week has passed. I've finished my midterms, for now at least, made essentially no progress with my project and seen my Mum as she flew out to visit me.
Having my Mum here has two main advantages: one, she has a hire car and two, free food. So over this weekend I have been taking advantage of these things, the food is probably the better of the two as cafeteria food can become rather monotonous, so the baby back ribs where wonderful, made even better by the fact the rack was larger than the plate. Also had the pleasure of finding somewhere that does bottomless lasagne on sundays for $7, this was after 3 hours training and through some careful restraint I only had 3 plates. The getting to see other places has also been good, went to a beach just outside Halifax on Saturday, which was very pretty, essentially sea then right next to it pine trees and some maple trees in various stages of colour, so a wonderful patchwork of green, yellow, orange and red. It was however really rather windy, could just about still walk in a straight line. Yesterday I finally made my way to Point Pleasant Park, which is right at the south of Halifax, essentially it's a wooded area with some old British forts next to the sea. It's very pretty and helped to prevent the French and Americans from taking the port, so really it's quite a marvellous place. The wandering was sadly cut short by a quantum mechanics assignment, involved lots of head scratching and googling. Also I'm afraid there are no pictures of either of these excursions as I forgot to take a camera with me both days.
On Saturday I managed to meet my first unhelpful Canadians. While at a bar and hungry we attempted to buy some food, only to be told that we could not order food without a table and a chair, the place was packed and no-one looked like leaving. So after some time we managed to find a chair and sat up by a bar, asked to order food only to be told that the kitchen was closing so we couldn't get any. We left, and I got a Subway.
I also introduced some Canadians to Southern Comfort, and elicited some incredulous looks and half finished confused attempts at sentences by calling Sprite "lemonade", I know revolutionary.

Some Red Stuff

Right I'm going to start this with a rant against the most inconsequential of things, a light switch. Now, at home when one wishes to turn on a light switch you push it down, however here they flick them up. Innocous you may think, but consider this: you get back into your room, it's dark and you need to turn on the light but can't see the switch, so naturally you hit the wall and swipe downwards until you hit the switch and 'lo there is light. Why can't you swipe upwards I hear you cry, well gravity doesn't help you to do that now does it? And to really compound the issue, the switches are very large so when you hit on the downward swipe, you get a brief flash, followed by darkness, mocking your ignorance of how electrical fittings work.

Right, now to change the tone, here is a dragonfly,

It's red and has wings and everything

The Chemistry Building.
My office is the second floor, second from the left

And now to more important things. Last weekend was Canadian Thanksgiving, a time to think we have food aren't we all jolly lucky essentially. To celebrate this I managed to get myself invited to a pot luck dinner, basic idea is everyone brings some food with them you hope not everyone decides potatos. It is a great meal as you just get to eat as much as you physically can and then have dessert, before lazing around and chatting. Was all very enjoyable, and the hosts were lovely people and they had a very nice house much, much posher than anything I have ever seen a student in in the UK, I mean the kitchen had marble, well faux marble, surfaces and everything seemed new.

Some red leaves

The week itself was fairly unremarkable, but friday was one of those nights where you think I really need to get some sleep then you get a text and 8 hours later you get back. Was a good night though, went out for one of the chem students birthdays, discovered some more interesting bars. Also there was a nice time where everyone laughed at the organic chemists, just because. Last night was also someones birthday, and I have to say a more competent effort at handling your drink I have not seen. Unfortunately this activity may have destroyed any kind of sleep pattern I had and my 8.35 lecture tomorrow will be quite a challenge.

Strawberry Fields for at least as long as we can stay awake

The Cookie

So I had my first proper midterm this week, that was interesting, probably should've noted it was worth 20% before the day before but what are you going to do. Fortunately most of it was stuff I had seen before, but the thing is midterms are just weird, give my one big exam at the end over this continuous assessment lark any time. There seems to be some sort of idea that Uni should be a kind of constant effort over the year, instead of a fairly relaxed time followed by a week or so of manic revising, who'd have thought.

The Bird trying to eat my cookie

I was invited to the house of the Professor with whom I am doing my project on wednesday, as one of his previous students had recieved their pHD during the day. This meant going to Bedford, it's very strange Halifax Bedford and Dartmouth are far closer together than home, which is the area at the top of the bay. It was a very nice house, which they'd built, plenty of space and a beautiful garden looking out into the harbour. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me at the time, but they have weddings there, it's that kind of pretty. I then got to progress to eating, was truly amazing to have some non cafeteria food for a change, had some lobster and haddock nibbles, followed by a wonderful butternut squash soup to start. The main, some marvellous salmon rolls, served with homemade bread and vergetables from the garden. But it was the dessert that was really something special, a pumpkin pie where the pumpkin had been made into a mousse with a cream and cinnamon topping. I was gladly able to inform my hostess after that Brits are a fan of pumpkin pie. We then retired to the games room, where we finished the night playing some pool and table tennis.
 

The Bay

The Lake

Yesterday I went and explored Dartmouth, which is like a suburb of Halifax really, mainly housing. However in among the houses were some stunning lakes, which if I had arrived properly prepared I would've been swimming in, however the correct attire was accross the harbour. This meant I was only able to paddle which meant, in true British spirit, rolled up jeans which of course got soaked anyway fortunately the weather was really rather warm, so we dried off fairly quickly. Our guide was a local who then took us back to her house to relax for the rest of the afternoon, and since she was a music student meant us listening to some wonderful playing on various instruments. I feel I should also mention the cookie I had in the morning, it was roughly an inch thick and the size of my face. Also the evening was fairly wonderful, but then any night that ends with dancing around to the Beatles at 2 in the morning in the study lounge clearly was.

Bus will be 36 mins and it's raining, time for a new plan

If I was going to define my week with just one acronym it would be DOMS, yep that's right, drunken ostentatious male shenanigans, or delayed onset muscle soreness, take your pick.This is due to the fact I started winter training again, basically the time of the year where your coach can be as sadistic as they like, and are. After my first session on sunday, 3 hours, I was unable to walk properly or bend until thursday, during which I was still doing more training, oh how I enjoyed that. To any of you considering starting exercise, my honest advice right now would be "Don't do it, go back to your sofa and find the box of doughnuts."

Waterproof and good to -25C, come at me winter

I also discovered that the chemistry building at Dal was 100 this week, which meant a party. First however, there was some trivia, during which I learnt that: an undergrad here once blew up a rat with nitrogen trichloride for eating their sandwich, they had a high powered sniper rifle in the building for a visit by Clinton (didn't know the card guy was that big a target, but there you go) and there's a secret exit for professors in case of student unrest (not so secret now though). After the trivia, there was cake who can have a party without cake, certainly nto chemists. It then turned into ChemBeer, this is a weekly thing where the chemistry students get together to drink in the chem building, pretty good fun I must say. The craziness of rules here seems to mean that while playing beer pong in residence is frowned upon doing it in the chem building is perfectly acceptable. Later thast night I found myself at the citadel, a big fort on the top of a hill, where they seemed to be having a kind of rave. It's very strange being somewhere with 10m high perimeter walls and military types in kilts, while music is blasting and colourful lights are sweeping the area.

Yesterday I made an attempt to go to point pleasant park, which is meant to be rather  pretty, but we were foiled by some fairly persistent rain. So in the end just wandered around downtown halifax, by which I mean we hid in a superstore and there a coffee shop, before heading up to the shopping mall. They also had a homecoming thing yesterday for the american football, didn't go, somehow the idea of spending an evening in the cold and damp just didn't appeal, especially if it involved watching a game I have no love for. I've heard the Tigers got destroyed, so definitely didn't miss much. Instead I spent my evening with a couple of Kiwis and a Swede, was a tasty meal I can tell you now.

Ja es ist Oktoberfest, wait... what?!?

So last night I went to Oktoberfest, despite not being in Bavaria or October, but these Canadians don't seem to let minor issues like that worry them. I suppose to misquote a common phrase "those guys could organise a piss-up in a brewery" and they did. The beer was pretty good as well, tried everything they made nothing particularly German tasting, but some nice ales. Unfortunately the Bratwurst weren't perhaps the best cooked as both people who had one got to see it again later that night, but still the sweets were pretty good. It would appear that there are quite a few Germans and German descendents here, with many of the men in lederhosen and women in dirndl. The best bit was, of course, the Ooompah band. I really don't know what it is about that kind of music but it definitely suits having a drink. Also they had a slightly creepy drummer who took D.I.O. to a whole new level, giving them a drumroll to down their drink.

I mean this is just awesome

In general Halifax seems a pretty good place to go bars with live music. Went to a place called Rockbottom on friday, underneath somewhere called Your Father's Moustache which has pictures of guys with truly epic 'taches adorning the walls. Rockbottom was pretty nice good for a chat, then the bands a bit later in the night. There are quite a few fiddlers about, slightly odd as I thought they were more Irish than Scottish but perhaps not.

Unfortunately this is a country that uses the word, aluminum, I dislike it, with a passion, aluminium, it has an "i" for a reason. However my use of this, correct, word seems to put some locals in the mind of Harry Potter and think it is a spell, so wave imaginary wands saying aluminium in a faux English accent, which was fairly hilarious. The other noticeable chemistry pronunciation is of the "yl" suffix will at home we say methyl as me-thile, they seem to prefer meth-ill. Still, at least they accept that words like colour should have a "u" in, unlike those live-fast die-young Americans who think they can go around misspelling things just for the kicks.

This is a gangster bar, we are here undercover

Ok so I have started properly now with lectures, or classes as they to like to call them.They're all pretty much fine, have to say that whoever timetabled quantum mechanics for 8.35 monday, wednesday, friday was a fairly sadistic git, but anyhow at least the content is interesting.

My project is progressing nice and quickly, well I mean I have a computer now. I had to set it up, and being the technology loving computer savvy chap I am that took no time whatsoever, or perhaps it was about 4 hours just to get windows 7 on, then have to download all the programs I needed after adding the internet, only to be foiled by a server that had been hit by a hurricane. It was definitely one of the two.

So last night I had my first experience of clubbing canadian style. After the brilliant response of the bouncer to my ID "What the fu... is this?" After some explaining he seemed fine, presumably decided if I was going to get a fake ID I would at least get one with a picture that looked like me and was heard of in Canad. Anyhow when I walk into the club and have a serious sense of deja vu, I quickly realise this is down to the fact the place is playing Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough and looks the bar in Rush Hour 2. Anyhow in general it seemed to be a slightly classier establishment thatn most I've visited well defined dance floor and plenty of seating. Felt slightly odd being there as most of the people seemed to be on hen nights, and a ever so slightly creepy lesbian who was trying to strip one of the girls I was with.

Also went to experience a sports bar, ridiculous number of screens including in the toilets which I have to say is a brilliant idea, you never have to miss a thing. There was also a pretty serious collection of hockey jerseys, occupying whatever bits of wall weren't LCDs, most signed including one of a Gretzky who I've been led to believe was quite good. At some point I will be having some wings from this place, they have an entire page of the menu dedicated to sauces, must be least 40, and have some spicy ones that progress from mild through hot and suicide finally to death, so that sounds like a challenge to me.

Panther Balls

So this week we had Frosh Week, which is like Freshers except only 4 days and the events are all dry. This way of doing things has two main advantages: 1) your liver doesn't hate you and 2) you have a sporting chance of remembering some of the names of the people you meet. The first thing that happened was some kind of cheer off, kind of like football chants but less offensive, most of my house didn't turn up and we didn't do that well, unsurprising the all girls residence was pretty good. Every house here has some kind of name, and mine is the Panthers, also we like to call ourselves Smith Haus, not sure why because last time I checked Germany wasn't infested with panthers but who knows, times change. The Dalympics were pretty cool, collection of challenges for points, probably the highlight of my day was putting in a cross that someone headed in, in 3-legged football, or soccer as they like to call it here. A close second was the fact that we got points for having lunch. Also saw this guy called Survivorman, he pretty much seems to be like Bear Grylls without the staying in hotels, he was pretty talented on a harmonica and had a band, so played songs in between answering questions. We had a pretty relaxed house social where we watched The Goon, which is set here in Halifax.

I have been and met the research group that I will be joining, they all seem pretty cool. Had lunch with them in the pub on campus, the fish and chips wasn't bad at all, and pretty cheap as well. Is also pretty cool to have my own desk in an office, will hopefully also have a computer soon and then I can start working properly. Have already got an account on an academic cluster, and so far as I can work out this means that you can basically use some pretty full on computing power. Basically it what I think I shall be doing is looking at how binding different amino acids to iron in a porphyrin ring affects the binding of oxygen, which is basically what happens in haemoglobin.

Had my first few lectures. Doing a course on Quantum Mech with the Professor from my research group looks pretty interesting, unfortunately that way they organise lectures here means I have that at 8.35 every Mon, Weds and Fri. I'm also doing a class on transition metals which is a mixture of final years and grad students, looks pretty interesting but unfortunately it now means that I need to know the Periodic table up to Radon, which for non chemists is basically all of it apart from the little bit on its own at the bottom. Then I am taking a organic, which should just help me to remember some stuff and keep my in a lab so I don't return even worse at practicals than before. One awesome thing about my timetbale is that I have nothing on tues and thurs, although that will probably be taken up with my project and athletics.

I met up with my training group yesterday for some testing, we went across the harbour into dartmouth, where they have a 400m track, they have an indoor track here but it has 16 sides and is 260m, I mean that seems pretty random to me, but there you go. So did some speed tests and some jumping tests. Went to one of the athletes houses in the evening, was a really nice place, but the nicest part was her three dogs. The oldest was a 1 year old husky coyote cross, had a 9 month cross, but by far the cutest was a 16 week husky chihuahua cross.

Right I have now pretty much decided that I am going to attempt to write this every Sunday, so if you want to check around this time each week there will hopefully be more stuff up, and yeah just follow me or something.

They've Changed my Orientation, it's now International

Nova Scotian Tour Guides

Ok so I've now been here a few days now, and all seems pretty damn good. I suppose, being British, the first thing I should talk about is the weather, it's so good, hardly seen a single cloud just been blue skies and sun the whole way.

The start of the first day was fairly surreal; had a nice breakfast followed by being led to a talk by a bagpiper and a tiger. The talks were not great, kinda being told "Hey guys you should probably do some work ok." But the bbq's were good and also saw possibly the largest amount of pizza I ever have just stacks of it, like two tables covered and about 10 boxes high. Cinammon buns are also pretty awesome will be eating more of them.

Discovered all the English guys a few days in, when they organised a game of football, or soccer as they insist on calling it. We made a very solid team and were beating the Brazilians, got to be the first the English guys to have done that for a while. There are quite a lot of Americans here, but also a large number of people from more exotic places.

The Atlanitc isn't as wide as everyone thinks

Halifax is pretty cool, the sea is about 5 minutes away from where I'm staying, then the harbour is about 25 minutes in opposite direction, and there's more sea to south of me that's fairly close, but havn't visited there yet. There's a good bar scene around here, everywhere's pretty relaxed, bit strange that everywhere does table service and beer is a bit expensive but otherwise all is nice. Also not really used to the fact that they don't include tax in prices, which is kinda annoying but, oh well, don't think I'm going to be do much about that.

So that's most of my first few days, have orientation week going on now, a strangely sober freshers, and first few lectures this week so will take more about that next time.

From Horsham to Halifax

Right so I have arrived in Halifax, don't really know anything about the city as yet, but do know the arrivals lounge of the airport fairly well, having waited there for three and half hours for them to organise a taxi. So I have moved in and got a student card and everything, managed to get the internet working but seem to have killed firefox doing it which is a shame. Interestingly I have discovered I have no sheets, pillows or a duvet, which is just dandy.
Currently writing to try and keep myself awake beyond a time any self respecting 8 year-old would, so blame any vague incoherent blathering on that and not me, yet. Anyway it would appear I have arrived in a land which seems to consist mostly of lakes separated by trees, where taxi drivers don't try and start a conversation with you. Also the chair in my room seems to be some kind of failed rocking chair, why, why would you do that?
In conclusion, I'm glad that I am able to listen to Just A Minute, and I definitely should sleep soon. But you can make some sort of effort to follow this, or not whatever, it's all good.