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.