A lot of treasures.

Today, during spring cleaning, I found a small box in my apartment that I must have missed unpacking. This was a great find because inside were a bunch of little things I'd had while traveling in Australia and New Zealand, including my 4 GB SD card that I've been looking for all year.

Other than that, the rest of the items were mainly souvenirs and trinkets. This is inspiring me to finish putting the rest of the pictures from both my southern hemisphere trip and my Yukon trip up.

When I was in Auckland, I found the coolest Japanese import store. I could only buy a few little things including these pencil toppers with teensy little impractical fruit-shaped erasers in the end. I usually keep the berry one on the end of my pencil.


Various soy sauce and mayo containers.


The monkey mayo container opens and has a tiny little banana spoon inside.


A pretty pottery spoon from a store in the art deco town, Napier, on the North Island of New Zealand.

A 20 cent coin from New Zealand. All of their money is this pretty.


A pen for writing on porcelain or metal. I think I actually bought this in Ottawa. I haven't tried it yet, but I really want to this weekend. I think I'll go to the thrift store tomorrow and find a mug to decorate.


A tea towel from NZ with all of the breeds of sheep on it. I brought back some tea towels for my friend and this one for me.


And, my favourite Australian Swallow Casein knitting needles (made from milk protein!) that unfortunately popped on the plane once we got to a certain altitude and crumbled into a lot of pieces. If you look closely, all the breaks happened at the little air bubbles. I guess those are weak spots and maybe the air pressure change was too strong for them. These needles are great though, kind of bendy and warm. I bought them at a wool store the first week I was in Perth that took me about two hours to get to, and used them to knit navy blue merino gloves for my mom's birthday. And then continued to knit with them throughout my entire trip.


Annnd, some NZ fridge poetry. Which is now punched out and on my fridge in a random pattern. Mainly I really like the sheep magnet.

Just booked my last flight!

YYZ-YVR
YVR-AKL-PER
PER-ASP
CNS-BNE-SYD
SYD-AKL
DUD-WLG
AKL-LAX-YYZ

That's where I went, and where I'll be going, just in airport codes. There have been many more stops in between!

I forgot.

To post here the past two days, I think? I thought about it last night as I was falling asleep and realized I had completely forgotten about, not only my November challenge, but posting here in general.

It's too easy to do that sort of thing while traveling. Yesterday I had to guess the date and I was off by two numbers, not to mention had to idea which day of the week it was. I guessed close to the correct time, but I had to judge by the level of the sun.

Don't worry though, I've got a good post for later today. If I can get it to work.

November Day.

This morning I left Bondi Junction bright and early at 6:30 am. I caught my train to the International Airport. Sydney has fantastic public transport. It only took me about half an hour ot travel all the way from the eastern suburbs on the coast to the airport in the west. Plenty of time to go through customs, immigration, biosecurity, regular security (where I had nothing confiscated, for once), duty free, a million miles of airport, and spend my last ten Aussie dollars on tea and a muffin at Gloria Jeans (Australia's equivalent to Second Cup, I'd say. I used to always think there were just a lot of women's clothing stores around when people would mention it, but I've got it all figured out now, just in time to leave). Once I got through all of that, I boarded my Air NZ flight and headed across the ditch to New Zealand!

On the plane I watched 500 days of Summer. It was okay, but I wouldn't really recommend it. Maybe if you have a long flight and nothing better to do, try it out, but I ended up reading my travel guide for most of the flight (which was only three hours long, anyway). To eat, I was served a mini shepherd's pie with tomato sauce (pseudo-ketchup), a little salad of sweet potato, feta, sundried tomato, and orzo. That was nice. There was also a really tasty apricot cake for dessert. I wanted that lemon pop that they have everywhere (it's called Lift, but I couldn't remember the name) so I requested pop and the stewardess asked me what that was. The landing in Auckland was the worst flying experience I have had so far. It seemed to take so long for them to descend. And it was windy and rough. I distracted myself by looking out the window. As you land, you can see both coasts of NZ because it's so narrow at this part of the country. I thought that was really cool. I also felt so excited to be here because dry, red Australia was sort of making me miss Canada a bit and NZ looks so much like home.

At the Auckland airport I had to go through immigration, duty-free twice (I hate that because they just constantly squirt perfumes and it's so hard to breathe), customs, security, baggage claim, biohazard control (my boots needed to be cleaned properly and I saw a little sniffer beagle carrying a bag of brussel sprouts back to his security officer. That was so cute.), baggage x-ray, and finally out into the airport where my cousin, Jonathan, had been waiting for an hour. He said he'd never seen Auckland International so busy. It was absolutely packed for some reason.

We drove back to his townhouse and I met Liz and Oliver. Oliver is the cutest little thing. He has a sore tummy right now because he has reflux (his was born on September 14, so he can't really deal with these things). But, I rocked him for about an hour and he was so smiley and happy. Such a sweet little guy.

Once he was all ready to go and we had chatted for awhile, we all went out to a nearby village and had thai food. It was great. I was stuffed because Liz and Jonathan had also bought a bunch of Halloween treats, but nobody had come to their door. Trick or Treating isn't really a tradition over here, but it's starting to become more popular so they were hoping to get at least a few kids.

Tomorrow I'm going to hang out with Liz and Oliver and plan the rest of my trip. I'm not tired tonight because of the time difference, so I'm sure I'll sleep in a bit tomorrow. I'll let you know what I've planned once I figure it all out!

Bondi Junction.

The past couple days in Sydney have been fantastic. The first night I shared my room with a girl from New Zealand. The hostel was the nicest city hostel Ive stayed in. We went down to the pub for dinner and ended up staying for the trivia night. I was no good because I could barely understand the hosts accent and I know very little about Aussie pop culture, politics, and historical figures. It was fun anyway. There was also a paper airplane making contest and I did pretty good in that. I didnt want to win though because the priye was two buckets of vodka and that was the last thing I needed.

The next day I went and got a badly needed haircut. It turned out great. Ive decided to grow it out a bit and every time I do that I end up liking the next short haircut. After that I went all through Sydneys Chinatown, checked out the markets, and went to see Wicked. The show was absolutelz fantastic. The lighting and costumes and sets were so incredible. The lead actors were great. All of the songs were awesome. To be honest, I had forgotten how much I love the story. Its just so clever and interesting and makes so many comments on politics and society, but its just funny at the same time. I might even read the book again. Actually, there is one book by that author I haven't read yet, so maybe Ill look it up.

Today, I took the ferry through Sydney Harbour and out to Toranga Zoo. I had another fantastic day. The zoo is all about education and conservation. The enclosures are great, I went to see the open flight bird show, the seal show, the penguin talk, and the chimp talk. They were all very well done. They are actually building a lot of new exhibits too. I think Ill have to come back some day because I didnt get to see a platypus and they are opening a new Tasmanian Devil complex which the proceeds of Wicked are supporting through their Green is Good program.

I took a ton of photos at the zoo. I even made a couple little movies. The very first exhibit I saw when I came in was one of my favourites, the red pandas. This one was active, but there were also several lazy ones sleeping in the trees.

I also really loved the echidnas, little Aussie porcupine=like creatures. This one is confused about where his nature area is located.

After the zoo I headed back to the hostel, picked up my pack, and hopped on the train out to Bondi Junction. Its the town in behind Bondi Beach. I have two friends from the Uluru tour who live here and they are letting me stay for three nights. This is really generous of them because they don't have a whole lot of space and they work very late hours. Right now I'm using their housemates computer. Hes Czech, so this keyboard doesnt have anz apostrophes. The y and z keys are not only reversed, but they are doubled, so you can use both keys to type either letter. Also, all of the words on this computer look like theyre from outerspace. For example, this is how you say New Tab = bez názvu. I could get by on the French one, but here I just have to guess and try to remember where the commands are on the list becasue I dont have a chance to find them otherwise. O well, at least it isnt a Mac.

Sydney, Sydney, Sydney!

I'm in Sydney! I only have five days to explore this great big huge wonderful city! This is my last Australian destination, so I'm going to make the most of it. I'm now 15 hours ahead of home, so it makes it harder to call, but I'll try to give you a shout tomorrow.

I landed here at 5:45 this afternoon, took the train into town, found my hostel. It's the nicest big city hostel I've been in so far. I went to the pub for dinner and played trivia with my roommate. We didn't win anything. I couldn't really understand the host's accent or answer any of the pop culture/political/local news questions. They asked if an ant is intoxicated which side does it always fall to, left or right? I have no idea, but I wish I did. I think about ants enough, I"ll have to google the answer later.

Tomorrow I'm getting my hair cut, shopping at the huge, cheap Paddy markets, then going to the musical! I'll probably stroll over to see Darling Harbour too.

I've had a really great time the past few days with Pat in Brisbane. I got to see the city, ate wonderful food, watched a huge lightening storm from the highrise, and somehow came out of the casino with $47. I'll try to get some of my pictures up soon.

Night! Cass

Brizzy.

This afternoon I flew into Brisbane. It's nice here. A bit cooler, a big bright city. Hopefully I will meet up with some family friends this Saturday. They have been in Sydney the past few days and are just recovering from all of their traveling too. I also hope to meet up with a local knitting group. I found them on Ravelry and asked if I could come to join their weekly meet up at a pub here. Unfortunately, they usually meet on Tuesday nights and I will fly out on Tuesday afternoon. They said they'd like to have a meet up this weekend too so I can come!

I have so much to write about and so many pictures to add! The internet here is free, but I can't figure out how to access the USB ports. That's okay, it's bedtime for me and I have a lot of time to figure it out tomorrow. I'm sharing a room tonight with three girls from Brantford. They came here to play soccer in Sydney and now they are traveling up the coast. My flight attendant today saw my Canadian patch and asked where I was from. He's an Aussie, but he's been to Peterborough about ten years ago! Such a small world.

I'll be back tomorrow to tell you all about my last few days at the research station, my stay in Cairns at Holloway Beach and my trip to Kurunda!

O, and this time in Cairns I ended up staying with a friend at his house on the beach. It was SO much like being home with Andrew in Guelph. I miss Emslie St. a lot. I'll always miss that house. I'm not homesick, but after thinking about all that I was starting to miss some things about Ontario. Then Jayme sent me a really long e-mail and a whole bunch of great pictures. I miss these guys too! Brian is teaching Stogie to be a good dog and sit at the dinner table while they eat. He doesn't even try to eat off their plates....aw, good Stogie, one of the family.

Great Barrier Reef.

Today I had one of the best days. Not just of my trip, but probably of my entire life. Courtney, one of the other volunteers, and I went on a sail boat out to visit the Great Barrier Reef. We spent the entire day snorkling, learning about reef ecology, and cruising along on a huge boat called the Rum Runner. It was built for 120 people, but tourism in Cape Trib has been hit hard by the economic situation in Australia, so there were only 17 people on board. The crew was great and we met a lot of really nice people.

The reef off Cape Trib is the least disturbed area along the coast. The coral is perfect and there is so much wildlife. We wore short wet suits and just floated along for about three hours. I saw huge sea turtles, rays, sea cucmbers, blue sea stars and about a million species of coral.

Yesterday we also climbed Mount Sorrow. That was quite the feat. The most rugged mountain i've climbed so far in the hottest condiitons.

I'll have more once I'm back in town with an english computer and high-speed internet. Just wanted to post about my day before dinner. Tonight I'm making an apple crisp and we're roasting a feral pig the neighbours caught. Should be interesting.

Mastering the Art of French Cooking in Cape Trib.

Here at the station, I've been cooking a lot. Pretty much every evening since I arrived for myself and 3 or 4 other people. It's been really great to cook in a big, well-supplied kitchen. I can request any groceries I want and there's all sorts of interesting foods growing around here to find.

Tonight I made gazpacho for the very first time. I don't think I've ever even seen gazpacho before, but Helena spends a lot of time in Spain and requested that we try to make it the other day. The groceries came in with a ton of tomatos, so tonight was the night. It turned out so well. I will definitely be making it again in the future. I also made a banana bread cake with butter icing for dessert. The bananas came from a tree down the lane and the coconut came from the beach. It was so good. The director said it was the best banana cake he has ever had. The other day Helena injured her hand very badly while digging a ditch for the new water system. She split her ring finger from the tip to the base of her second knuckle and lost her finger nail. She has been in a lot of pain and after dinner she told me, in her sweet broken English, that thanks to me (and my banana cake) she could forget the pain for a few minutes. I think that's one of the best compliments I have ever received.

Last night we had sushi. It was very delicious. I've had a lot of practice though, thanks to Nat and all our Guelph sushi events. I even made the thin fried egg filling and it turned out perfectly. We ate sushi for dinner and again for lunch today.

The girls are requesting that I write down all of my recipes for them, but that's really hard to do. A lot of the things I've been making are just things I know how to do. The director told me he'd have to take away my passport so that I can't leave. I've already decided to stay one extra night and they're happy because that means one extra dinner. They are planning the things we need to eat for the next few meals that are left and have decided that we need to start cooking lunch as well.

I've had such a great time here and I'm so glad I decided to come live in the rainforest for a couple of weeks. Courtney, the new volunteer, will be in Auckland at the same time as me, so we'll hopefully be able to meet up again. I also have open invites to visit Paris and Normandy and another stop to make during my tour of the UK. I don't know how I'm going to fit this all in.

This weekend will be a really great one too. Tomorrow will be my last day at the Bat House. Sunday Courtney and I are going to climb Mount Sorrow. It takes 7 hours return, but the view of Cape Trib and the ocean will be worth it. We're going to leave in the morning and take a picnic. On Monday we're going on the boat to the Great Barrier Reef. Tuesday, I'll catch the bus into Cairns and stop at the crocodile sanctuary and the organic biodynamic hippie-dippy ice cream shop on the way back south.

Tim-tams and boxed milk.

Last night I went to the grocery store to buy some things for breakfasts over the next few days. The big grocery chain here is called Woolworth's. The grocery store is located just across the street from the hostel I'm staying in. It's part of an outdoor mall in the CBD (central business district; the Aussie shortform for the downtown). The mall is really cool. All of the stores are open to the front, like a mall in Ontario, and there's more than one level but there isn't any roof over the street. And it's wintertime here.

Shopping in a grocery store on the other side of the world was a very surreal experience. None of the familiar brands are available. Nothing seems to be in the logical place. There was an entire aisle of biscuits (cookies) and three sections of their favourite cookie, the Tim-tam. The tea section was larger than the cereal section and there was an entire wall of various brands of 'long-life' milk in boxes. Also, they don't have any blueberries in season.

So far, grocery shopping is the only thing that's made me feel homesick :( Thank you so much for all of the sweet notes and e-mails. Knowing that you're all in touch really makes my day!

A post about what I ate on the plane.

Or, why my stomach hurts and I never want to see Saskatoon Berry Mousse ever again.

But before I get to that:

O man, that flight was long. I've actually been traveling since 3:00 pm on August 21. It's now 9:00 pm on August 23. I managed to miss August 22, 2009 somewhere along the way. So, let me add it up.

1.5 hours on the BC Ferry
1 hour on BC Transit
3 hours at the Vancouver International Airport
13.75 hours Vancouver to Auckland
9 hours trapped in Auckland International Airport
8 hours Auckland to Perth
1 hour Perth Airport to Perth City YHA
= 37.25 hours in transit

I am SO GLAD I don't have to do that for another 4 months because it's too much. I have a lot more to say about that, but I am exhausted so I'll just give you a rundown of the menu.

Disclaimer: if I actually manage to make this sound delicious, don't be fooled. It wasn't. I will say that the packaging was absolutely adorable though and I do love airline food service containers and such.

Vancouver to Auckland:

Dinner

-Beef curry (Where was the curry? No where. They should probably call this overcooked beef cubes instead)
-Basmati rice that was somehow undercooked, though it resided in the same dish as the overcooked beef. You could feel each little sharp rice piece.
-Green peas. great addition (sarcasm).

-Cheese portion. Actually good. New Zealand does have some good dairy.
-Two of those little Toppers crackers

-Bean salad. Okay. I'll give it an okay.

-Whole wheat dinner roll. Fine. The NZ butter saved it.

-And dessert, drum roll please for Saskatoon Berry Mousse with a chocolate cake base. As I wrote in my earlier food report to Emily, this was a dessert directly out of China Buffet's nightmares.

-Tea

-Luckily, the stewards also poured very strong gin and sodas and kept our wine glasses topped up with some of New Zealands finest vintages.

After that I sort of passed out (the turbulence kept jolting me awake and I kept forgetting where I was because I don't usually fly at night) until the stewards woke me up with breakfast at 2:45 am NZ time. I certainly wasn't ready for breakfast, I don't even know what I was ready for.

Breakfast (I went with the continental because I was scared of the hot meals at this point)

-Blueberry crumble muffin which you can probably purchase out of a vending machine somewhere

-Fruit plate with all my favourites (sarcasm): unripe honeydew, cantaloupe, RED grapes, pineapple, and a canned peach half. I actually really like canned peach halves, so that was okay.

-Yoghurt. Yum.

-Orange juice with the peel-back top, which I also love for some reason.

-Tea.

I actually received the 'lucky last' fruit plate, but my neighbours had the salsa omelette and it actually looked pretty good (contrary to my first impression).

Auckland to Perth:

Lunch

-Pan-seared chicken thigh. I avoided the lamb curry (look Dad, already being the New Zealanders even make airplane lamb).

-Green beans with a blob of red stuff. I think it was some sort of tomato-based sauce? How is that even questionable? I don't know.

-New potatoes. Goodish.

-O, and under the chicken was an interesting surprise. I couldn't figure out what it was at first because it was just a perfectly round, grey disc. Then I realized it was stuffiing. I think.

-Cheese portion.

-Different crackers. Whole-wheat of some sort.

-An okay salad with cucumber, pineapple, shredded carrots, and lemon vinaigrette. If the pineapple had been fresh this would have been good.

-White dinner roll with butter.

-White chocolate, almond, raspberry ice cream. This was pretty tasty and I like the tiny dessert spoons they give you.

-More gin.

-Tea.

And a surprise tea meal (my ticket only said snack)

-Two scones. I've had much better, but they were warmed up, at least.

-Strawberryish jam, no real berries actually existed in it anyway.

-Some sort of cream spread that we don't usually eat in Canada.

-Smaller fruit plate, this time with out of season apples.

-Orange juice.

-Tea.

Well, that got long. I hope you're all completely captivated. I really regret not taking pictures.

Have to run! Cass

So long and thanks for all the fish!

There are two things that I don't miss about Ontario: the bugs and the humidity. Out here, on the west coast, they don't even put screens on the windows. In Ontario, we get chased inside at night by the mosquitoes. Here, we come inside because it's just too cool and windy.

We're about to head into Victoria so that I can catch the 3:00 ferry. Then it's off to the airport for the longest flight of my trip. I'm feeling a bit antsy and I'm just ready to get this show on the road.

This morning Jill and I took a drive down to Pedder Bay. This is the body of water that I can see from the top of the hill at her parent's house. In the bay there is a marina where several large fishing and sailing boats are docked. This weekend the annual Salmon Festival, a big fishing competition, will be held out of the bay. I sort of wish I could stick around to see it, but I need to be somewhere over the Pacific Ocean.

Last night, we made dinner with Leah. We ate the salmon a neighbour had dropped off, veggies I grilled, mojitos with mint form Jilly's garden, bread from the farm down the road, tiny beets with goat cheese that Jill made especially for Leah and I, and an amazing mixed greens salad that Leah whipped up with dressing from the Rebar cookbook. Leah has been making her way through this cookbook that was put out by a local restaurant.

After dinner we took Leak out to the bus stop and dropped by 17 Mile Pub to meet some of Jill's work friends. Jill and I were the first to arrive so we played a game of pool. We were doing really well until her friends showed up. It took us about 20 shots each to finish the last 2 balls. The game ended with Jill sinking my last ball and the 8 ball all in one shot. Fabulous work. Of course, they had a great time making fun of us and talking about their game. Once they started playing though, we realized that we weren't that awful.

Okay, I'm off. Next time I post I'll probably be in Perth. I'll definitely upload some pictures once I'm there because I've taken an awful lot of good ones!

Talk to you soon, Cass

See you at Christmas time!

This morning I left Warsaw with Mom and Dad at 7:00 am. John had just gotten home and so we said good-bye and he stayed with the pups. They were up and ready to play, so I said bye to them too.

We made it to Pearson in no time. I said bye to Mom and Dad at the entrance of the airport. It was a bit teary. I hadn't really thought about what leaving by myself would feel like. I choked back tears through most of the check-in process. There were so many people around and everything was really overwhelming. I felt much better by the time I got to my gate and sat beside a napping cowboy for a few minutes before boarding the plane. Watching the pilot and flight attendants prepare for the trip was also really reassuring. I wished I had a cell phone so I could call Nat or Em and talk to them about leaving for long trips.

I felt a bit nervous during take-off at 11:00 am. I wonder if that feeling ever goes away? Flying just seems so unnatural. On the plane I sat over the wing and looked over the clouds for most of the trip. I had to choose between Star Trek (which I haven't seen), 17 Again, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine (which I have seen). I decided to go with x-Men because I wanted to see Gambit, who is played by Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights. I've been watching that a lot lately and didn't remember him in the movie. I ended up fast-forwarding through a lot of parts. Then I went with the Canadian short films. Some sort of interesting. Some not so great. The movies got me through the 5 hour flight and we actually arrived about 25 minutes early.

When we came in to Vancouver we flew over the Rockies. I could see the peak of Mt. Baker in Washington over the clouds. The lakes in the mountains are very cool to see. Once I landed I collected my gear and met Crystal and Geoff. It was so good to see both of them! It's been awhile and it was really nice to catch up.

We drove to their apartment past the Canadaline which is the new rail system between the airport and the downtown, built for the Olympics. A lot of places around these parts are getting fixed up for the big events this February. We had lunch at their place, which felt like dinner because my body is three hours ahead of things around here, then went for a walk down to Kits pool and beach. The pool is massive: 127 m long and salt water. It's built right into the side of the harbour. There were tons of people swimming. We drove around and saw Crystal's gym. David Suzuki also works out there and so does Zac Efron. Yep. Crystal was on the stationary bike right behind Zac Efron the other day.

A screenshot of Kits pool on the shoreline. It's the light blue spot. As you can see, it's pretty much the length of a city block.

View Larger Map

After our walk Crystal and Geoff took me to Lynn Canyon Park. It's in North Van and is owned by the district.

We hiked over a suspension bridge! Luckily I've outgrown some of my childhood fear of bridges. They are everywhere in this city. Driving bridges, walking bridges, stories about bridge history.






And saw a fantastic waterfall. It was very beautiful.



Then we came to this cobbleboulder beach. The water was chilly, but manageable. I dipped my toes in. A lot of people were swimming.



There were all sorts of trees covered with all sorts of mosses. This is one particularly mossy example.










Okay, so we're about to have second dinner, so I have to get to it. I'll add more soon!

Love, Cass

Constellations.

In Warsaw, on any given night, there are anywhere between 3 and 5 working street lights. This means that I can see approximately 1000 times more stars than I can see on a clear night in Guelphcity. Whenever I'm here I spend a lot of time looking skyward in the evenings. I've always been interested in the stars and patterns in the night sky. I'm really looking forward to seeing the other side of things in the Southern Hemisphere. I've done a bit of research into the constellations visible in the southern skies.

First off, I thought I would try to understand how far away from the equator each of the areas I am visiting are located. This way I can figure out which parts of the sky I will be able to see.

Toronto, Ont., Can. 43 40N 79 24W 12:00 noon EST
Vancouver, B.C., Can. 49 13N 123 06W 9:00 a.m. EST
Auckland, New Zealand 36 52S 174 45E 5:00 a.m. EST the following day
Wellington, New Zealand 41 17S 174 47E 5:00 a.m. EST the following day
Perth, Australia 31 57S 115 52E 1:00 a.m. EST the following day
Sydney, Australia 34 0S 151 0E 3:00 a.m. EST the following day
Los Angeles, Calif. 34 3N 118 15W 9:00 a.m. EST

In Warsaw, the patterns I notice are the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, Cassiopeia, the Milky Way, and the Northern Lights. I used to know more of them, but I stopped paying such close attention awhile ago.

I found this free monthly star map from the Sydney Observatory, so when I'm down south I'll be able to pick out some constellations we can't see in the Northern Hemisphere.

Big Things in Australia.

Here is the wiki article about Australia's Big Things. This type of sculpture seems to be quite the phenomenon downunder. I am very excited to see what I come across during my adventures. There are apparently over 150 big things across the country. The wikipedia article gives an extremely comprehensive list of their locations and interesting features. I've also found a few articles online about the big things. Apparently several people have planned extensive roadtrips to see all of the big things across Australia.

Old friends.

One of my old friends is in town for a visit! I met Jilly in my first year of undergrad. She lived at the end of the hall and shared a room with Megan. It feels a little crazy to talk about people I met in University as old friends. I mean, I've only been finished with university for a week, but I suppose my university years have composed a little over a quarter of my entire life.

Emily picked Jill up at Pearson Airport on her way through Toronto from Belleville. They arrived at the house a little after 5:00 with a tonne of food. To say the least, dinner was fantastic. I made turkey burgers and coleslaw. The girls picked up buns at the Hasty Mart (only real option on the long weekend without going too far out of the way) and Jill had purchased two fancy burger toppings somewhere during her travels. I cut up tomatoes and red onion and Em brought corn on the cob. We had appetizers too, my feta chili pepper spread, smoked salmon from the West Coast, and crackers. I had brewed up some lemon iced tea and we just sat in the side yard, enjoyed the lovely evening, and Andrew (the man) BBQ-ed. Dessert turned out to be an event on its own. Em had baked blueberry shortbread crumble squares, Andrew provided the fully loaded ice cream, Jill brought stroopwafels, and I had made a fresh Ontario fruit salad with peaches, plums, and cherries.

After dinner we came inside and sat around on camping chairs and the two livingroom chairs. Everyone helped me make some wardrobe choices for my trip. I think we made good decisions. Jill says I'm ruthless when it comes to packing. It's true, my pack is probably only 3/4 of the way full including boots, work clothes, sleeping bag, and everything else required for four months on the road. Good thing because I'm sure I'll have a few treats to bring back at Christmas time :)

Now that Jill is here, the fact that I'm heading to the other side of the world is sort of sinking in a little more. I'm stopping to spend a few days at her house on Vancouver Island first. This will help with the jet lag too. And, I'll have seen both sides of this huge country in only one summer. In the next few days I definitely need to give a recap of my time in Kingston and Halifax at the conferences too.

Manitoulin Island.

Two weekends ago, Nat and I took our second roadtrip to Manitoulin Island. We had visited the Island once last summer and had such a good time we new we wanted to return this year. Last year we had explored the eastern portion of the Island which is more densely populated. This year we planned to see the western point. We took the ferry to the Island, camped out, and drove around to see all the sights. Nat did most of the driving and I recorded our outing on a newspaper map we found at the information desk on the boat. I had done the same thing the previous year and it was really neat to compare our trips.

Here's the rundown:

Day 1 - Friday, July 17
-leave Guelph at 7:15
-arrive in Tobermory at 11:00. Apparently, if you have reservations you're supposed to arrive at the ferry one hour in advance of leaving. We were only 20 minutes early. Their website is really poorly laid out and tricky to understand, so I'm sure they have a lot of people not following the rules.
-land in South Baymouth at 1:15. There is a ton of tourist literature on the ferry and we found out that an island-wide art tour was on this weekend. We decided we would stop at any of the interesting studios as we drove by.
-snack at South Baymouth Gallery (salsa and chips), browse gallery on Given Road.
-Blue Jay Creek Art Farm and no fruit stand. Guest artist Marc Brzustowski.

One of Marc's paintings, not my favourite, but the best I could find online:


The greenhouse at Blue Jay Creek Art Farm. Made from the remains of an old stone barn and abandoned glass windows:


-Lynstudio 5 painters and a potter
-old mill Edward's Studio, post office museum and mini lighthouse



-Ravenseiyre Studio
-Life's Little Pleasures quilting and knitting store
-Twin Bluffs restaurant in Gore Bay for fish dinner
-Twilight Isle Campground. Out tent, cottages, construction workers. Camped out on the tip. Wake up to rain. Ate breakfast on the porch on on of the cottages. Couldn't start stove = PB and Nat's jam sandwiches and brie. Best showers in a looong time; hot water and good pressure, too bad about all the spiders.



Day 2 - Saturday, July 18
-Mindemoya farmer's market, lots of interesting handcrafts, lots of not-so-interesting handcrafts, no fresh produce. We need to come a little later in the season for this sort of thing on Manitoulin.
-There was a community fair down the street from the market. I bought the book, Birds of Manitoulin for a quarter. We tried to find pie, but there was none so we settled for rhubarb cake. Yum. Good alternative.
-Wool'n'things
-Roadside pseudo-alvars with huge cracks, campanula
-Luc Lachance studio, he paints on black canvas and had about 20 Art Tour signs leading to his house from all different directions. He almost drew us in twice.
-Hawberry farms, samples and preserves. I bought raspberry honey, asparagus spread, and onion chutney.
-We saw Sandhill Cranes in a field. Nat was really looking forward to this and she spotted them right away.



-Farquhar's butter and ice cream snack in Evansville
-Set up camp at the Mississagi lighthouse campground. We had a beachfront site on an alvar. It's so nice to sleep with Lake Huron crashing against the rocks in the background.



-We snacked then headed out in an attempt to find the Queen Mother Provincial Park indicated on the Ontario roadmap.
-On the road out to the main highway we found Lakeside Daisy and Coreopsis in flower on the roadside and a tiny patch of mini wild strawberries.



-Drive to find provincial park, found creepy town of Burnt Island instead. Park not functioning? Big fishery, chicken farm? Hiked into alvar with Indian Paintbrush.
-Tried to see world's largest drum, peace pipe, and dream catcher. They apparently exist only on the billboards.



-Back at the park, we visited the lighthouse museum, campfire cooked times two. Veggies and sausage for dinner. French toast and hashbrowns for breakfast.

Admiring my annual breakfast smore:



An old crochet-covered bottle in the lighthouse museum. All of the artifacts belonged to the families that lived in the house over the years:


Day 3 - Sunday, July 19
-We got up, packed up, hiked along the shoreline, then visited the town of Meldrum Bay. Cute town. Checked out the Netshed Museum, had a tour from a 17 year old local, stopped by his aunt's thriftstore (some promise, no good finds this day), snacked on popsicles and icecream at the general store (Dukes of Meldrum Bay).



-Visited Misery Bay alvars. Had a good chat with the volunteer on duty. He confirmed that the provinical park is not operating. Their interpretive centre is great. I love this place. I bought a Friends of Misery Bay membership and a Misery loves company patch for $15. This morning I received my first e-mail update. We hiked to the shoreline.



-Drove back to catch the boat at 5:40 and made it home by midnight.

We had a fantastic time and we'll definitely be going back. Perhaps we will try driving up and around through Espanola. Several of the locals told us that was the way to go; just as quick as the ferry and much less expensive. There are a few things we didn't get to this year and have on the list of things to do during our next trip:
-at the interpretive centre at Misery Bay the volunteer told us to check out the west shore of Misery Bay. You need to hike across the water to get there and we didn't have time this year.
-walk up to the base of the windtowers. They are completely massive from the road and seeing them up close would be really interesting.

These next few weeks.

So, pretty much everything in my life is changing over the next few weeks. This is all sort of overwhelming, but it's also so exciting.

This week is a big one. Mainly because I'm defending my Masters thesis on Friday. Um, I'm a little nervous. I just practiced my presentation for Doug and Uta and got myself tied up in a "big ball of wool". This is not a good feeling because I have enough actual tangled balls of wool in my life and I don't need any extra metaphorical ones. I know I'll have myself untangled by Friday, but it's a bit unsettling this afternoon. Apparently, some people find untangling wool to be therapeutic and relaxing, though. There's a group of people on Rav you can send your tangled wool balls to. They will deal with the mess and send them back all skeined up. I'm not a member of that group and they probably wouldn't be able to do much with my thesis presentation anyway.

The weeks after will include the following events:
-making edits to my written thesis and preparing to publish
-visiting Warsaw, for one last relaxing weekend before I move
-traveling to Manitoulin Island for a roadtrip with Nat
-Hillside festival where I will be running a crafty workshop
-Wolfe Island music festival with Em
-moving out of our sweet little abode in Guelphtown and finding some place to stash all of my belongings
-perhaps (of course) a going away party for everyone

During this time I also need to pack for my trip. I'm taking one backpack for the entire four months. It carries 65L, or about 35 lbs. That's all I can comfortably carry for the day anyway. I've been collecting items to take over the past little while. I need a lot of multi-functional items because I'll be at an International conference, working in a forest, working in a rain forest, camping in the desert, flying on a bunch of planes, working on farms, swimming in oceans, the list goes on and on. So far, here are the items that I feel a little bit crazy about NOT taking:

-my hairbrush
-my laptop
-my wallet
-a pillow
-my running shoes
-a proper towel
-my jeans

These are all of the things that I want to take, but just don't have the space for (my hairbrush is really big and I chopped my hair off anyway). Everything else I've found suitable alternatives for except my jeans. I might end up wearing them, actually, but I'm trying to find another pair of pants that will dry more quickly, but still look fashionable. I'll have to come back here and post the few items of clothing I'm taking and amaze everyone with how many different outfits for different occasions I can come make with so few items of clothing (um, I still don't have that completely figured out yet).

Yeah, so busy busy busy, but a lot of fun too!

Official Travel Blog.

This morning my blog has officially become a travel blog because I just went and had my first passport pictures ever taken. They are absolutely horrible, I look like I'm sleep-walking in them. I had just gotten up from my snooze on the bus to school and I'm wearing an antique sweatshirt passed up from my younger brother when he outgrew it at age 12.

I suppose I really need to work on that new header now and turn this into I want to be a (traveling) Arts and Scientist. I plan on posting all about my journeys to conferences in far away places over the next year. I'll have to tell more people about this place before I leave.

p.s. If you think that's cool, here's a new blog that I've been following lately: The Impossible Cool. It's all about icons of personal style in our recent history. I think it's neat to see what this person will find next.