Bonjour de Rimousky!

I spent last week in Quebec for the DFO national science workshop. It was hosted at a research centre in a little place called Mont Joli (for no apparent reason as there weren't any 'monts' in sight). There are no hotels in Mont Joli so we ended up staying about 30km away in a town called Rimousky on the bank of the St Lawrence river/estuary. The river is HUGE, easily the biggest river I have ever seen (in fact the Gulf of St Lawrence is the biggest estuary in the world). It doesn't say much for my qualification as a marine biologist, but I thought it was the sea when I first saw it. It had snowed before we arrived but the rest of the week was clear, sunny weather. This is not to say it was warm (in fact De Aar has moved down in the rankings behind Rimousky), and I have come to realise that in Canada the amount of sunshine has no bearing on the temperature - I first picked up on this after an ill-fated breakfast on the patio in St John's.

The place was very French and I am not. I managed to get by with just Bonjour! and Merci!, said enthusiastically in a way that was friendly but assured people that that was all they were going to get out of me. There were plenty of good restaurants in Rimousky and a particularly good crepérie where I had a couple of good meals with some of the other folk from St John's (no pictures of this place though - the pic on the right is from a FAR more expensive, but really good French bistro where we ate on the last night). Tasty food (basically you can stuff your crepe with anything - like choosing pizza toppings) and a nice, relaxed pseudofrench atmosphere. Last time I was immersed in a French environment I ended up drinking alcohol-free beer with dinner. I managed to avoid that cock-up this time round but it was still testing trying to navigate around the menus. I spared no expense when it came to food, safe in the knowledge that I was putting the Canadian tax payers' money to good use.

The conference itself was alright. Bilingual obviously so they had all presentations projected in English and French. There was also a pair of interpreters doing their best to try translate often jargon-loaded scientific talks given by people talking as quickly as possible to squeeze there presentations into 15 minutes. As a result I got a good overview of marine research being done in most of Canada, but only a vague idea of what is going on in the French speaking parts. My poster (also in English and French, although I have no idea if the French bits are accurate translations) was the most irrelevant one at the conference. Given that I have only just arrived in Canada I presented work from my PhD - details of modelling work done in South Africa at a conference designed to showcase Canadian research.

As the crow flies Mont Joli is about a 2 and a half hour flight from St John's. But they like to give you the roundabout route in Canada so it took as nine hours via Montreal and Halifax instead. Monti Joli Airport, being a small one, has no metal detectors. So everybody's luggage is thoroughly checked by security, one person at a time. Fortunately only 20-30 people can fit onto the small planes that service the airport so it didn't take more than an hour. It was quite cool to fly in the smaller plane. I traditionally get placed next to a wing whenever I get window seats but this was the first time I got a wheel. I have new respect for tyre and suspension design in planes after watching the wheel when landing in Montreal.

Moose!

Moose are in season at the moment and Janine's father shot one last week. Apparently Moose aren't native to Newfoundland, and have in fact driven out most of the natural Caribou population, so hunting is used as means of control of the Moose population. Hunters enter a draw to get a licence to shoot one, which they can then use as they please. So we had a Moose roast last night and it's pretty good eating. Quite similar to the venison we get back in SA - more flavoursome but a bit less tender than beef.

The Pall Of White

Snow! It snowed last night for the first time since I arrived in St John's. Just a light snow flurry but it carried on through the night to leave a thin crust of snow in the morning. It was a bit heavier at work and was also snowing this morning when I walked up to the NAFC from my bus stop. I was taking photos like a Japanese toursit untill it was too cold to keep my hands out of my gloves! The shot below is a before-and-after (from a slightly different perspective) of the view from the road I walk to work (click for full size).

Downtown St John's

This is the view from the balcony of the coffee shop in The Rooms (see post below). You can see it full size if you click on it (that goes for all of the pictures in this blog by the way). That's St John's harbour and part of downtown St John's. Its almost the perfect natural harbour and you can barely see any of St John's from the sea. You can't tell from this picture but there is a fairly steep decline down towards the water (its a real bugger to walk up after a few drinks on George Street). I live to the right of this picture about a kilometer or two down the road. The NAFC, where I work, can barely be seen on the side of the hill on the extreme left of the picture.

The Rooms

Fishing is THE central theme in Newfoundland culture. The Rooms is a Museum-Art-Gallery-Archive of Newfoundland history, so named after the rooms where fisherman would take there catch to be processed by the families - "a gathering place where the land met the sea that was central to the lives of the fisherman" (according to the brochure). I went with Celine on the weekend (free entry on the first Saturday of every month - still got certain student instincts for a good deal), and its actually a very impressive building. Its designed to look like the traditional steep-roofed Newfoundland houses (only much bigger, more modern and with lots of mirrors) and it is very modern inside with some incredible gallery rooms and great views from the restaurant at the top. There was an excellent display of photos from around the island over the last 20 years and I picked up a bit more of the history of the place. Its good to know a bit more about the place I am living. We were going to head to the mall afterwards (so that I could spend some of my money now that my first pay cheque has finally arrived) but we missed the bus and it was too cold to wait forty minutes at the bus stop. Fortunately there was an incredible sunset to look at on our walk home.

Halloween!

Last night was Halloween and we had our fair share of trick-or-treaters. Didn't make a dent in our sweet supply though, so it looks like it's chocolates and bubblegum for breakfast for the next few weeks. Janine is really into the whole Halloween vibe and, considering she is doing half her varsity courses online and therefore has a lot of time on her hands, every day I get back from work some new decorations have been added. So our place was pretty well decorated from the jack-o-lanterns outside (Celine making one below) and little ghosts on the balcony, to the eye ball lights and the fake blood on the toilet handle.

While the actual night of Halloween is for the kids, the adults celebrate it with big parties, crazy costumes and much drinking the weekend before. In Newfoundland that means "St John's Mardi Gras" downtown on George Street.

My housemates and I had a Halloween party at our place before heading downtown. I went as Fidel castro (less the cancer), Celine as a witch and Janine went as a zombie bride of some description (in a wedding dress she got from a thrift store for $5). It was a good party and a met quite a few people, most of whom I will have to meet again considering we were all in disguise (some impressive costumes actually - people go all out for Halloween here) and a fair amount of punch, jelly shooters and beer was consumed. Apparently there were some great costumes downtown as well but I was in no condition to judge by that stage. I must be starting to take root here because I was able to find my way home at 04:30 in the morning after loosing everybody in the huge crowds downtown!