...At the top of the world...

Well, after a frantic run around at the Toronto Airport Karen and I managed to catch the flight from TO to Ottawa in one piece. But no joke, we both just barely managed to get on the plane in time. There was running involved. So much for 'meeting up' at the airport beforehand. Otherwise the travel portions of our trip were smooth. There was some chaos with the small size of the Iqaluit airport and the extreme number of excess baggage articles that everyone on the plane had...but it eventually was all sorted out. Karen's bags weighed a ton. Almost literally. Together we had 13 pieces. Good times were had in the transportation of all of our stuff from the Iqaluit airport to our hotel room on Sunday night and then back to the airport at 6am the next morning. In fact, things were so rough when we first arrived in Iqaluit that the military jumped in to help us. No, it wasn't planed. I guess we just looked pathetic standing outside the airport and wondering why the hotel shuttle doesn't run on the weekends. At any rate, it was immensely helpful that these three military men loaded all of our suitcases into the back of their truck, drove us to the hotel and then unloaded everything for us again. They kept exclaiming about the amount of stuff we had and couldn't believe there were only 2 of us. Imagine their continued shock when we told them we were only staying for 2 weeks. "Um...well, we're only up for 2 weeks but we just couldn't decide what to wear!" Yeah...good times. :)

We were met in Qikiqtarjuaq (Kick-ick-tar-jew-ack) by the principal and dropped with our two 'priority suitcases' at our newly renovated house. It's a lot nicer and larger than we expected. It has 2.5 floors, tons of storage space and lots of living space. We'll be happy there. Photos will follow of course just as soon as all of our other suitcases arrive, not to mention our cargo shipment. As it stands, no flights came into Qiki today because of the high winds and fog but we're hopeful that the other 9 pieces of our baggage will arrive at the end of the week.

Luckily, part of our Food Sea Lift order had arrived! It's a good thing, because there was no where to buy dinner in the town. We made pasta with tomato sauce and cheese. I even had grapefruit juice and canned peaches for dessert. It's not so bad. In fact, I think food options will be fairly decent. Of course, I think we're eating pasta again tonight so it might loose its appeal sooner rather than later.

Our school has wireless internet which is nice, although it's been a bit difficult to set up phone and internet service for our house. We basically have to sell our lives away to set up phone service. I let Karen do that. Because I'm just that nice.

I puttered around my classroom this morning/afternoon. The students start school on Thursday so I have to come up with some 'back to school activities' for the rest of this week and then get down to some serious lesson planning over the weekend which is a long one since there is a holiday on Monday. The other teachers from the South that I've met have seemed really nice. Karen and I live next door to a young couple who have been teaching in Korea for the last couple of years and have a wrinkle dog...you know, the kind from 'Pound Puppies.' I used to have a wrinkle dog toy when I was a child. The real thing is even cutter!

Alas, I haven't taken any photos yet as I haven't been in a particularly 'snappy' mood. I will take some soon and upload them and let you into the aesthetics of my new world. Qiki has some mountains so there is visual appeal and at the moment most things are brown, yellowy-brown, or greeny-brown. There is no snow, but today is overcast, foggy and very windy which makes it a lot colder.

I'm heading home now to fix myself some pasta. Sweet.

Gotta love those carbs.