The Great North American Adventure Update

Well, we are more than halfway through our trip in North America.

We spent a fantastic week in Calgary at the end of September. The weather was splendid and we got to spend some quality time with the Pugh's. We went on a great hike in Kanaskis, where we saw a bear from the car, went to the Calgary zoo and finally went to Drumheller. It was great to see Calgary again and get to do some of the things we never got a chance to do when we lived there.
Check out photos on Flikr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpeterb/page7/

After Calgary we flew cross-country to St. John's to visit Maureen and Justin. The weather was mostly cooperative and Joel got to see a dramatic part of Canada that he'd never seen before. Joel definitely got some great photo-ops:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpeterb/page6/

We went to my parents for Thanksgiving where my mom made us tourtière! What a treat! We also finally got to meet the beautiful Ellena. We were certainly dazzled by her! We visited Steph and John at their new house in Montpelier Vermont. It was very exciting to see them settled in their new home and to visit their new town. Montpelier is really very pretty and the state of Vermont is truly fantastic.

We took a whirlwind trip to Québec City since Joel had only been there once and really wanted to go back. We arrived just in time for some twilight photos of the city and walked around in the early evening playing photo nerd and enjoying the historic houses and buildings dating to as far back as 1611! We found a really neat restaurant for dinner where we both had the most amazing boeuf tartare. yummy! We also took lots of pictures in the daytime as we walked around town before heading back to Ottawa.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpeterb/page3/

We had just enough time to catch our breath in Ottawa when we took off again for Chicoutimi to see my family there. The drive up was a bit hairy with a snow storm in "the parc", although that's par for the course for this part of the world. We stayed at Céline's cottage on Lac Sébastien, which was very beautiful in the fresh snow. We had a wonderful time at the cottage and also took some time to visit my grandpa, Andrée and Pierre and Esther. It was great to catch up with everyone. On the way back to Ottawa we took the long way home along the Saguenay fjord and down the St. Lawrence through the region called Charlevoix. I had never been that way before and it was really beautiful. No it's such a popular tourist destination.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpeterb

Again we had a couple of quiet days in Ottawa then headed to Kingston so Joel and I could attend convocation at Queen's... two and three years later! I got to meet with Mark for an afternoon, and we went to dinner with Mark and Jean. It was really great to see them again. Convocation was really emotional. Mark and Jean were there too, and Kathy convocated at the same time as us! Mom and Dad were there and I think they were really pleased to have been part of the event. We went to Kathy's house for breakfast the next day and got to see the famous Sheldon in action! How quickly they grow and become very active!

We spent our last few days in Canada relaxing at my parents house enjoying the country air and the time with the family. We met up with Steph in Montreal on our last day and had Montreal smoked meat. Yum! It was Joel's first tie in Montreal and I'm pretty sure we're going to want to go back on a future visit. On the way home we made a quick stop at Lise's house.

Leaving Ottawa was really tough. We had a really great visit and it was well worth taking the time between work to come home to visit family.

On our way to the US we made a quick pit stop in Calgary and stayed with Kirsten and David again. Thanks guys!

We're now finishing up our visit with Becci and Mike in Salt Lake City. This is one of the first times we've actually taken the time to go visit the mountains and stuff. We did a few good hikes in the Wasatch mountains and got some good views of the city and waterfalls and rocks... etc.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpeterb


Lots of visiting done in the past more than a month. It's been great seeing everyone and sightseeing old places and new places. More to come in the next month!

First Day of Work

Well, one and a half weeks later than initially planned, I started my first day of work today. I was super nervous but once I got there we had a staff meeting to get things figured out for the rest of the term now that we've lost two weeks due to the earthquake. Speaking of earthquakes, we got two aftershocks over 4 today, which feel really different in the 3rd floor of a big building compared to the second floor of a small hotel. Much less rattle, much more swaying. Interesting. I have no office to myself yet, since I'm still officially just a visitor, but I get to use the department head's office in his absence. Sweet! I'm all plugged in, working on lectures and tutorials for next week. I don't think I'll do much that's research related until I come back in December.

It's nice to be back at work. I certainly prefer that to spending all day chasing up houses to visit and real estate agents and mortgage brokers... ugh. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just go to Target and pick out the house you want and put it in the neighbourhood you like? Sheesh.

We had a nice afternoon here. It was really sunny and warm, and then at 4ish the wind changed and the cold antarctic air swept in and cooled us right down. Brrr. I keep forgetting that it's winter here. Or should I say "winter". Cold and rain is the order of the day and sunny and warm is just a random bonus.

Should be a fun couple of days as I get set up at work before we head on a field trip to the south and west parts of the island. We're really looking forward to that! Should be lots of great pictures then!

What Marlene Forgot to Mention

Marlene forgot to mention some of the greatest tragedies of the quake... Two of the mexican restaurants in Christchurch (probably the only 2) were destroyed in the earthquake. In fact one of the most famous pictures from the quake is of one of the restaurants completely void of its external walls. This far from Mexico though, one can't expect the Mexican food in restaurants to be that great, so we'll probably make our own Mexican food....maybe... So far we've been to 1 Asian grocery store, 1 international grocery store (the largest in NZ), and several regular grocery stores, and we haven't found a single chile aside from bell peppers. No thai chiles, no jalapenos, no nothing. No heat at all.... There is a specialty store that sells such things, but it too has been damaged in the quake. Hmph!

Shaketown

So for those of you who haven't heard Christchurch was rocked by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake last Saturday morning at 4:35.

http://maps.google.co.nz/maps/ms?client=firefox-a&hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=114215793670404019839.00048f8b8d6da4188d66e&ll=-43.520672%2C172.265625&spn=0.697066%2C1.167297&z=9&source=embed

Luckily no-one died and only a few people were injured. Most houses, although some are very damaged, made it through the quake and protected the occupants while they slept.

We took the risk and flew out here and arrived Sunday morning to a city still in shock. For the most part, the town is functioning, except that the CBD (downtown) is still cordoned off because of the brick historic buildings that did not do so well in the quake. We didn't actually feel a shake until Monday evening, but since then we have been feeling them every few hours. Luckily we weren't around for the main quake so we aren't nearly as nervous when an aftershock hits as the locals are. Everyone here is pretty much on tender-hooks, scared of the next shake.

We spent Tuesday driving up and down the rural roads west of CHCH mapping the fault rupture. Joel took a picture of a church that got knocked down in Hororata: http://flickr.com/photos/jpeterb/ We'll put some more photos of shifted roads and hedgerows soon. Pretty impressive stuff!

Our hotel suffered no damage so we feel very safe here even during the aftershocks. The University is closed so we have been spending our time getting to know CHCH, looking for a house to buy and getting important immigrant stuff taken care of. Pretty busy times.

We are looking forward to having the CBD opened up, although it will be a sad sight all those demolished historic buildings.

SFO-CHCH... via YVR?

The passport has been obtained. I have to say, all the people at the Canadian Consulate in SFO and the passport office in Vancouver did a great job at getting me my urgent passport replacement. I am now at YVR waiting for my return flight to SFO so we can take off for CHCH tomorrow. Four days later than expected, but all in all, we will have made relatively good time. It was fun hanging out in Vancouver yesterday and I managed to pick up a pair of my favourite sunglasses at MEC, the original of which I broke some time ago in Brisbane. Two pairs later and I still wasn't satisfied, but the second I put on the pair from MEC, tadaaa! I also had a chance to re-appreciate what a great city Vancouver is. Definitely on the list of cities I would live in.

Well, we look forward to updating the blog once we arrive in CHCH!

Take off! Or not.

I wonder if the universe is trying to tell me something: When I tried to cross the border to the US for my job in San Francisco over two years ago I was rejected. On Monday when I was packing up to take my flight to my new job in New Zealand I lost my passport. Maybe I'm not meant to work and live internationally? Hum. I hope not, cause I really think this New Zealand thing is going to be good.

Well, now I'm cooling my heels in Vancouver. It could be worse. Vancouver is nice. Pretty soon I'm going to head out and walk along the waterfront or something. I had a poutine at New York fries for brunch today. So fatty. So salty. So good. All the same, I think I can go another 10 years + without needing another one of those.

Joel is busy trying to make himself useful at Rick and Rosalind's in Berkeley while I'm here. They've been kind enough to let us continue to stay at their place until my passport woes are over and we are good and gone, flying over the Pacific to our new home.


Fingers crossed the next post is one about passport success!

Tasmania

Everyone refers to Tasmania as "Tas" I think they should start calling it "Mania." It would be a good for marketing. So the dust has settled a little bit. Marlene is about done with her first week of work, and I'm about done with my first week of post vacation vacation. We had some internet issues, but I think it's resolved. I'll start working on drafting up a summary of our trip, but until then here are some photos to tide your appetite.

-Joel

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpeterb/