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.