katimanuts!

Hello Friends,

I've been suuuper busy today, as my second day of house manager.  Today I made 6 loaves of bread, half a dozen buns, two loaves of zucchini bread, 2 dozen muffins, a dozen pizza rolls, and shepherd's pie and salad for dinner. Pretty sweet day, also did lots of laundry and cleaned our Katima-house.  I also decided to butcher my finger on a potato peeler.. NO FUN.  On Sunday the whole group went to a community garden very near to our house and put the garden to bed for the winter.  I helped tear down a green house and did some soil turning and weeding.  Lots of bug bits later I got the impossible task of rearranging the shed for the winter but thankfully we had an impromptu composting session and I got away from it.  We've been doing a lot of French activities as we are supposed to get in 1/2 an hour of second language learning everyday.  Pretty soon we are going to have a huge wall of vocab.  We've also labelled literally everything in this house with both English and French vocabulary words so everywhere you walk there are bright post its which have been conveniently laminated.
Sophie and Millie talk about the kids they see everyday at the boys and girls club and every single day Jessie comes home from the Food Bank with either random food or a crazy story (or often both), as a result of having a crazy boss.  I don't think she's had a tame day of work yet.  Martin works at the Art Gallery at Confederation College (backup option for locals who don't get into Lakehead) and he loves it because he gets to draw all day.  Eric has been tagging along with Jessie having interesting adventures all over town and being force fed multiple kinds of traditional Thunder Bay food.  Tbay has a big Finnish population so traditional food include huge doughnuts slathered in pink icing and strange sausage dishes.  I haven't tried either yet.
On Saturday we rode bikes/took the van to the Thunder Bay museum.  It was a decent sized building all stoney and viney.  The first floor was the coolest - all these old indian beadwork hides and mits, moccasins, vests you name it, old newspaper prints, and lots of old Finnish stuff.  And then just because they had to fill the rest of the museum they filled the second and third floors with a huge display of old wedding dresses and an Albertasaurus.  (which obviously brought up a nice round of "My Province is Better Than Yours", which I might add despite statistical differences West Coast is winning! )
Yesterday after dinner we went slack lining (please youtube if you don't know) which was super stellar and afterwards my legs hurt in places they have not hurt since ski season.
I finally got my photos up on my computer so I have many to share and not all are from Katimavik some are from the summer time.
aaand one last thing - I sent postcards today. Be excited.

Cyd & Petra on top of Robbie on Canada Day '10 <3

Eva & Petra on top of Fairview - Lake Louise August

Our photo scavenger hunt crew - Me Dalandrea Martin and Julien outside the Hoito (famous for pancakes!)

There are hundreds of these beautiful stone churches in both ends of the city

Indoor Turf Dome - so sweet/cheap :D

New City Hall - also the bus terminal

Me and Dalandrea outside City Hall :)

Sophie hard at work dans la jardin

Partial Katima-group getting diiiirty

Scott, Antoine, Dalandrea, Jessie, Sarah, Eric, Petra, Sophie, Jodie, Julien

Slack-Lining!

More Slack-Lining

Serving Aborginal Medicinal Tea (tastes like bark and leaves) at Old Fort William

Awkward Utensil Dinner - first day of house manager, I made soup muahahah

Utensils included sieves, whisks, oil brushes, can tops, flippers and steak stabbers

Opening large package of goodies from Ma & Paps

C'est fini! :) Au revoir

super tardy

I think it's high time I posted some goodz on here.. it's been a little while.
Thunder Bay is pretty sweet, I won't lie.  I just received a package from the parents and now I have my skates and my climbing shoes so I can do more physical activities while still being ridiculously cheap.  I somehow have managed to live off the $50 my mum gave me right before I left for the last two and a half weeks which has been more than stellar.  We also get $20 every Wednesday (thanks Tories!) which allows me to visit the gym here at least twice a week.  The gym is pretty ridiculously fabulous - there's three pools, a running track, four weight rooms and 3 studios, I like the city.
Anyhoo this week I went to work on Monday and Tuesday only.  I've been putting together catering packages for an event called Sweet Indulgences.  My boss is a serious sweetheart who has rheumatoid arthritis and it's really neat working with her because she is very professional but still has the personal aspect of business which I think comes from having the disease she works with everyday.  She's basically giving me the reins on the whole planning of this event which happens in February so I won't be able to go because by that time I will be in Quebec.  On Friday we are going to restaurants to give out caterers packages because the event is all about which restaurant in Thunder Bay has the best dessert.    It's pretty intimidating when I have to call a sponsor or a donor and say "Hi this is Petra and I'm calling from the Arthritis Society." because instead of me being a little school kid who wants money for new computers or whatever I'm actually representing an organization...an organization I really know nothing about.  So on Tuesday I did some reading.  I'm not going to summarize what I read but arthritis.ca is a superb website!  Arthritis is quite fascinating and though I am not an expert I now at least know what to do when someone says "I think I have Arthritis."
Yesterday and Today I joined the rest of the group (besides the house managers) and volunteered at an event called "Fall Harvest" which was up at Old Fort William, out of town a bit.  It was an First Nations exhibit kind of ordeal - the First Nations elders had their little wigwams and gave presentations to school groups on native living.  Our job was more or less to help the elders.  Yesterday I was at the "Medicinal Tea" station, and in the afternoon at Bannock Making - soooo yummy.. Today I went to Wild Rice Drying where we actually had to do the presentation.  For lunch I had Canadian Goose Soup - not even joking.  I've also had my fair share of moose meat and duck over the last three days.. enough with the wild game already.
We can't have steak at the Katimahouse because unless we budget super strictly we really can't afford it.  Our food allowance per week is just under $600 which we spend on flour.. a lot of flour because we make our own bread.  And we also buy lots of apples and cheese.  Peanut butter has become a staple in my diet which I'm not going to disapprove of because due to allergies in my house it has been a foreign substance for most of my life.
We're doing an activity tonight where we label virtually everything in this house with french.. I'm preparing myself for the kitchen to have multiple pieces of coloured paper all over the place.
This past weekend we split up and went to either the Toys for Tots toy drive at the Salvation Army or a big slow pitch fundraiser put on by Lakehead University.  I was a score keeper at the slow pitch tourny and it was frickin cold the entire day and there was only crappy hot chocolate to warm up my practically board stiff body.  FUN TIMES.
Katimavik is slowing letting go of all these stupid rules because our "probation" time is almost up, thank heavens.  We get to start planning our own days and doing whaaaatever we want :)
And now for some photos

Sketchy

Me and Dalandrea being beautiful

Scary x ray vision

Dalandrea, Antoine, Jessie, Petra, Eric and Sam !

ta ta xox P

9-5

Hello
My first day of work has been super quiet, hence my ability to have free computer time.  My boss is very nice, she's very small and cute and took me to lunch today.  No one else has really been working today, just a few people in and out of the office.  Right now we're doing promotional work for the Joints in Motion projects which allow people to run marathons, half marathons and 10 & 5 km runs in other countries.  This looks like fun.  This Sunday is The Thunder Bay Marathon and so we're doing lots of advertising there.  But if this slow stuff keeps up these posts are going to get smaller and smaller.  She has promised me that this place is usually bustling and time is a sacred thing that goes very quickly, but I'm not sure whether I buy that at the moment.  Time will tell.
P

Thus, now

Hi Hi,
This week has gone by super quickly.  Tomorrow I start my new job at the Arthritis Society.  I will be in the office doing a lot of promotional stuff and a lot of things on the computer by the sounds of it.  My boss was very excited during my interview so I'm pretty stoked to go to work tomorrow - never has that really happened before!  I'll only be working there for 10 weeks in total but the change of pace is going to be great.
  Today we went on a picture scavenger hunt all over Thunder Bay - rode the bus a lot - my team won because we are awesome and made it all the way to the other side of town to city hall.
We had a bread making workshop tonight so now our freezer is seriously jam packed with a ton of bread which is good because we literally eat enough of it a day to feed a small African nation for a month.
Our house is very close to Lakehead University so we sort of live in the student district.  We also live right around the corner from the Canada Games Complex which has a sweet gym and a swimming pool; I think I will be spending a lot of time there and probably a substantial portion of my $3/day budget.
I really need to figure out how to use my Mac so I can get my photos up on here, Canon software is just darn tricky.
Our house is looking into getting a Katimapet, a fish to be name Giles I believe.  Giles probably won't be that stoked on flying to Nicolet come December though.
Good Night
P

The early days

Might as well start writing all this down before I forget it !!
It is my 4th day in Katimavik. After 4 airports and a lot of time waiting in 2 by 2 seater planes I arrived in Thunder Bay at 12 o'clock their time.  We did some introductions etc but for the most part we haven't had to do any disgusting "get to know you" games we all learned to hate in school/any group event.  We do a lot of talking and for the most part a lot of My Province is Better Than Yours.. which can get heated at times but it's all in good nature. The group consists of 2 BCers, 1 Albertan, 1 Manitoban, 3 from Ontario, 3 from Quebec and 1 from Nova Scotia.  The first two days were largely just orientations, rules and people getting unpacked.  We stay up late almost every night.  The majority of us live in the basement, so it's a little crowded.
This weekend we have been volunteering at the "Go Green Expo", a litter-free green event held at a community complex.  There are a lot of great vendors promoting their methods of energy reduction or production reusability.  There was not a demand for the amount of volunteers at this event so for a few hours of the day we were unoccupied.  There was a great little famers market there too with lots of baking and smoked fish and natural products and crafts etc.  I sat in one workshop that explained the idea behind a rain garden - very informative just useless to me as I don't see myself doing that kind of thing for a very long time, if ever.  There were several other workshops and though no one else showed up to this bicycle one we chatted up the instructor and got some good advice, weird stories and his contact info so we can get him to fix our crappy little bikes at home.  Today is more or less the same thing, shorter thank god and the workshops look good - "Shoreline Restoration".. I'm hoping to see BP there but chances aren't likely.
Went running today.  Our house is very close to Lakehead University but though the campus is nice there does not seem to be many trails around it.  I'll just go in the opposite direction next time.
We live in Port Arthur - the North part of town, Fort William being the southern and by our assumptions and gatherings the more ghetto.  "Inner City" connects these two places and this is where the Go Green Expo is.  Thunder Bay is not as large in area as I thought.. it is 16 km from the top of Port Arthur to the bottom of Fort William, width-wise it is something like 8.5... pretty much peanuts for the amount of people living here - around 100,000.  The lone mountain this city has is less than impressive compared to our beautiful Kootenays.
My french is picking up surprisingly quickly.  I still find the conjugations learned in grade 8-10 more or less useless... thanks Mme. Bella.
More later I have to go make lunch.
xoxo P