Blogs from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, North America - page 11

I've been back in country fro a little over 2 weeks, usually when I travel I write a lot more than I have this trip, I'm not sure if it's because this is not a new place or if I have just not been quite myself but I haven't felt the urge to write. The trip over was long. I flew out of Sydney on the 29th of June. Stopped in San Francisco on the way. After clearing US customs (which is always nervous) I had a well deserved cigarette. For a smoker the first cigarette after a long flight is always special. It always seems sweeter. An indicaiton of the level of addiction I guess. I was keen to check out Spider Murphy's tattoo shop. Peter from Hold Fast was tattooed by Stuart and Theo ... read more

I'm still stuck in Edmonton. Long story short DO NOT use SKY SHUTTLE to get to the airport even if you are broke. It took 2 hours to make a 35 minute ride. It is now 10:30 and I am back at the Sutton Place, a lovely hotel, were I was given 20 dollars worth of free food and drink and free chocholate covered strawberries. Thank you! I still am amazed by the fact it is light out at 10:38 pm. Not broad day light but twilight which is why I am still awake. I had a great time at the ice rank today which I'll put in a new post. ... read more

I arrived just in the knick of time for my poster session. I brought only carry-on items, breezed through customs in 5 minutes, and took a taxi directly to the Shaw Center. By 6:05 pm my poster was up at the session at the International Congress of Conservation Biology. Yeah! My advisor arrived at 6:45 or so. This was my first time to meet her in person and I will not see her again until I graduate. A bit wild but it's the Prescott College way. Edmonton is an okay city. I skipped the meeting festivites tonight and headed to the Edmonton Capitals baseball game. They beat Tijuana Cimmarrones 14-5. It was fun and more people were there than the tourism agent at Edmonton Tourism told me would be there. The capitals are in the Golden ... read more

We picked up Nancy's sister, Janet, at the airport and when right to lunch at the West Edmonton Mall. It's the largest mall in North America. Where is the largest one? Hong Kong? Dubai? Anyway, there are over 800 stores, a full amusement park, a water park, a hockey rink, and over 200 restaurants. We had lunch and then went to see the replica of the Santa Maria, Columbus' ship. It was funny to see it in a mall, floating on its own little lake. That was enough mall for us. We went to our little house. Janet helped Nancy with a knitting project because Jan is a master knitter extraordinaire. It's great to have her with us to share our adventure!... read more

On Monday the 28th of June, we received a phone call from our recruiter Asia’s personal assistant explaining to us that we needed to obtain transcripts from the Art Institute of Seattle to complete the requirement for the 4-year Bachelor’s degree because the official transcripts from Australia plus my original bachelor’s diploma wasn’t sufficient enough. Then the following day, I spoke to Asia and she emailed to us two more Health Statement forms for both Shauna and I to fill out because somehow the first one’s we sent were not the correct Health Forms, too! The kicker is Shauna nor myself even thought about obtaining the Art Institute transcripts because the original diploma was included in the paperwork plus all the other random papers that we were trying to obtain seemed more important or at ... read more