First Impressions of a Subzero Eastern Province

Yesterday, I flew out from my parents' place to the place where I will be spending my next four months, when not working.

Location: remote small town in an "Eastern province". English-speaking (fortunately). Proud location of the smallest airport I have ever seen. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to take a picture.

Surprisingly, it is not as cold as I thought it'd be. Kind of like the coldest sunny day* I have ever had at my university town - which is cold but not exactly winter Arctic conditions. Of course, one day is a statistically insignificant sample size. We shall see whether I freeze in this town or not...

As is common in a remote town, there are very few things to see and/or do, and very few shops. So-called fresh food is extremely expensive around here - even more so than those grocery stores near university campuses. So here I will be living on the classical substance known as instant noodles. Possibly some other stuff to prevent scurvy. Probably little to no coffee, since that's expensive, too. (Noo, need caffeine fix!)

My renting arrangement is basically a room in the landlady's home, with the opportunity to share her kitchen, laundry (etc) as required. This place is a mess. Bad as first-year residence, without the excuse of housing first-year students. But at least it has high-speed Internet. More to the point, it also has:


(Sorry for the blurriness, I know my picture-taking skills sucks. The landlady also has dogs, and those are cute too, but...)

So it's not so bad, after all. Except now I can study physisorption of cat hair on my sweater.

Oh, and since work will begin soon, I might go on a hiatus due to lack of Internet access on the worksite. Can't exactly blog on the company's Internet you know.

*Oddly enough, during the winter in Canada, sunny days are often colder than snowy days (subjectively speaking), especially when windy.