Week 1 in Kangiqsualujjuaq

Alright, here I am at the end of my first week (kinda).  Friday was kinda cool, one of the teachers (Luc) sent out a mass email to everyone about having a get together at his place.  Given the fact that I had absolutely nothing else I do I figured I would go.  I got there around 7:30 and realized immediately that I was surrounded by francophones.  Aww well, I guess it's time to brush up on my French.  Fortunately there is another teacher (Heather) that came and she speaks no French whatsoever which made me feel a little bit better...haha.

Anyway, I left Luc's house around 12:45 and went to bed!  Somehow I managed to sleep in until almost 10! it's been a long time since that has happened.  Feeling well rested I decided that I would climb some mountain! I was especially motivated given that it is Blueberry season here and I want some berries!

On my way through town I snapped some pictures.

Here's the grocery store called the northern Co-op.  There's actually another place just like this one down the road a bit and it sells pretty much the same stuff.  I believe I mentioned before that the North has the secret to dieting with Chips costing about $7 a bag and pop costing $21 a case (12 pack)  well here's the proof!

I actually haven't had much food lately and I'm too cheap to pay the exorbitant prices that I see in this store.  I did however break down and buy a bag of chips.  At 5.49 it was a steal!

Here's a picture of my house.  There's actually 4 of us living here, but the apartments are pretty spacious.  Including myself there are 3 new teachers in here.  Its not much to look at from the outside but they are actually pretty nice on the inside.  My whole place has new hardwood and they repainted the walls.  The rust looking tank on the side is my water tank.  They come around every day (except Sunday) to bring water and take away sewage.

And now here is a stop sign.  I thoroughly enjoy the fact that even though we are in Quebec the signs are in English and Inuktitut, not French...haha

On my hike I decided to get some wild blueberries (so I can make a pie when my stuff gets here).  In general the blueberries are everywhere so to speak, but not in a high density.  Every so often though you will stumble on a patch like this one which makes gathering much easier.  I managed to get a medium Ziploc full.  Not quite enough for my purposes but very close!  Maybe I'll get more tomorrow if it doesn't rain.

Finally, we have a semi-panoramic picture of Kangiqsualujjuaq that I made from stitching together several pictures I took from the top of the mountain.  I also labeled it somewhat so that you can get the idea of where everything is in the town.

I figure next I'll put up some pictures of my house and my classroom, although I might wait until my stuff gets here before I do that. Both look a little bit sad at the moment.