In the mean time

So I realised that I hadn't posted anything in the last 4 weeks. Mainly because I haven't done anything worthy of a blog (compared to moving countries or visiting exciting places). My jet setting has been on hold recently and I've barely strayed to Downtown St Johns. My next big adventure is due in December when I'm off to the Mojave Desert, but in attempt to keep my readers, I figured I should tell everyone about the more ordinary aspects of my new life. 

I have turned into a Pub Quiz regular at the Grad student Pub, Bitters. They call it Trivia, but I will endeavour to keep my English vernacular. Somewhat accidently I joined a group of quiz veterans and who base their team names on Strip Clubs of the World, examples being "Suckingham Palace" and "Pacific Rim-job" (specifically "Pacific Rim-job:Splendour without Diminishment" in honour of our favourite BC resident). Any further suggestions for team names are welcome. I've also stumbled upon a very knowledgable team and we frequently come in the top 2, rewarded of course with alcohol. Well, I say "we". I sit there and hope for a British question ("Who ran the first 4-minute mile?") or get excited when music or TV questions remind me about my friends back home (i.e. Right Said Fred, Dawson's Creek or Total Eclipse of the Heart). Subsequently Thursdays are my favourite day of the week.

Okay so this wasn't actually to do with the Pub Quiz, but it was taken at Bitters. The Canadians taught me how to turn Sir Wilfred Laurier (ex-Canadian Prime Minister) into Spock.

We celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving! Now I was expecting a big deal to be made of this. Either my expectations were high or my housemates just weren't that into it but it was a rather mellow affair. Determined to celebrate in some form I rallied the house and we prepared a lovely meal of roast chicken thighs with roast veg, mashed potatoes, squash, stuffing and gravy, finished with chocolate pie. Whatever I made of the day overall, I certainly managed to cook some yummy food.

Yummy Thanksgiving Dinner. I'm so happy they have stuffing over here.

I went to my first kegger. It's not really that big a deal, it was just a party with kegs of beer which is hardly a rarity, but I felt it was a distinctly North American thing that I should embrace. It was a fundraiser for my friends Gaelic football club (60% drinking 40% playing was their spiel to get me involved). It was good chat, good food and good drink. There was also a bit of snow! It was only a 30 second flutter and it didn't do anything, but again, it was an important event in my Canadian timeline.

I saw my first live sporting event. It was a double header of football (as in English football, I refuse to call it soccer, and if it was rugby with pads I would call it American football) versus the St Francis Xavier X-Men & X-Women. The women earned a tough 0-0 draw. The men ended up on the wrong side of an 7-0 drubbing as well as seeing their keeper sent off for too much backchat. Not a bad afternoon of entertainment for $3. The main point of the day was that I watched live football with other human beings and they still want to be my friends. For those who have accompanied or even heard me watching sports, you will understand how big a thing this is!

Nicked off of Tiffany. Watching MUN at King George V Park, the footy park equipped with cold metal bleachers and $1.25 tea. Located conveniently next to the supermarket so you can do your shopping after the games.

I've moved to my new office on the 5th floor. I have officemates who are lovely and I can now be hunted down my advisor if needed. Work has involved lots and lots of reading that I have been surprisingly keen with. The lab class I TA has finally moved onto the microscopes, something I'm actually good at! 

The pub quiz team celebrated Halloween in a distinctly geeky fashion. Between the 5 of us we comprised the Periodic Table, me being the Transition metals. We all required quite a bit of explanation to everyone we saw, but we all had an excellent time. Shopping for clothes took us to Value Village, basically the biggest charity shop I've ever been to. The "quality" of clothes did not disappoint  Additionally to celebrate finding our costumes we went off for my first Frozen Yoghurt experience. I may have to yield to the American pronunciation of that, it doesn't quite sound right when said in the Queen's English.

Nicked off of Steph. From L->R: The alkali metals, alkali earths, transition metals, non-metals/poor metals, noble gases. As per usual, I'm caught in a stupid pose.

Most recently I have found my fellow football fans who unite to watch Champions League and Premiership matches when they're shown on Canadian TV. This usually involves a trip to The Duke, the place I went to for fish and chips when I first got here. This weekend involved me watching the Merseyside Derby at Hannah's house over a fried brunch of champions. Her neighbours surely did not understand all the screaming. Resigned to not achieving anything for the rest of the day we ended up in The Duke for the Man U-Chelsea match where we were treated with more footballing excitement. The day culminated in my identity crisis as an Irish guy we met was utterly confused with my accent. He even said I'd picked up Canadian...

So that pretty much brings y'all up to date on my adventures. The only thing left to say is if you've managed to miss it, watch last Sunday's Antiques Roadshow. You may spot a familiar face or two lurking behind some very valuable royal memorabilia. 

Until the next time I do something interesting...

Out and about on The Rock

Over the last few weeks I have managed to get myself on various excursions around the island. Such trips are a great opportunity to see Newfoundland because if you can't drive or don't have a car like me :( it is quite difficult to get outside of St john's.

First of all, a geography lesson! I'm all for knowing the geographical context of an area so I shall enlighten y'all. You never know, something might come up in a pub quiz one day.

Gotta love Google Maps

I live in the province of Newfoundland & Labrador, on the island of Newfoundland, on the Avalon Peninsula on the east of the island, and the city and capital of the province, St. John's.

#1 Bay Bulls
This trip was the first event of the Alexander Murray Club (Geolsoc) calender. A boat trip to Bay Bulls. The idea is to see whales and puffins and all the exciting wildlife that live off the coasts. However going in September, all the whales and puffins have gone. Not even a lazy straggler was in sight. It wasn't a complete waste in terms of animals though; we did spot a bald eagle (apparently?!), some jellyfish and a cormorant!

The bald eagle was about this outcrop somewhere...

The infamous Newfoundland fog lying low off the coast.

When we weren't trying to spot something interesting, us geologists were doing what we do best. Drinking beer. 2 small cans of Coors or Bud for $6. A bargain even if it is terrible beer. The constant flow of ale over the 90 minute tour was conducive to chatting and making lots of new friends. It culminated in a dance-off between the Murray Club members, where I refused to be dragged up to dance with the drunkest guy on the trip, citing that "English people don't dance."

Afterwards we went for Mexican where I was introduced to a new more refined way of eating nachos. We then headed for Big Ben's which I suppose is the Memorial version of the Whey Pat, just with less light and seemingly irritable bar staff. After we were told to be quiet by the manager we decided to head to an impromptu house party where the beer continued to flow and my peers were introduced to my competitive streak and my mad skills at beer pong.

Nachos at Quintanas.
Chilli etc. is served individually on a chip.
Good food but is way too delicate to be served in the Whey Pat.

#2 Flat Rock
So my supervisor managed to convince Exxon Mobil to come and run a safety course in St John's instead of Houston, and got them to help fund our field schools for the next two years. A perk of this is that staff and some of the postgrads who wanted were allowed to go on the safety course. We did a Canadian Red Cross First Aid course in which we learnt a disproportionate amount about choking and childcare. Then we were taught how to act as field trip leaders and how to do a bit of first aid in the field. This was the bit that meant I got to go outside again! Granted this time it was only 30 minutes N of St John's in a place called Flat Rock but we got good weather so it was very pretty.

Cool coastal outcrops where 3rd years do their structural field trip.
There's a really cool ramp structure in the left of the photo!

Pretty waterfalls.

One of the groups attending to our Exon Mobil leader who "fell over and hit her head."
They definitely had the hardest job of all the groups!

Gorgeous day and yet another panorama

 During the day we were split into groups and were responsible for leading our the rest of the group round like we were on a field trip (minus the geology bits!) The rest of the group were told to be as mischievous as possible to make it difficult for the leaders. People would try to wander off, take photos from precarious spots, be unco-operative etc. This actually led to my favourite moment of the day. John, my supervisor and Head of Department, was being difficult when I was leader and was saying he was going to walk a different way back because he knew what he was doing. After trying to reason with him he said "But I'm your supervisor" to which I got to reply "No, I'm your supervisor right now." Satisfying if not a bit terrifying.

#3 Grand Falls 
The day after I learnt how to co-ordinate a mass road-crossing, I was in the field again but this time to actually look at rocks. I had signed up for the Geological Association of Canada Fall Trip to Central Newfoundland. Some 428 miles along the Trans-Canada Highway is Grand Falls-Windsor, our base for the weekend trip. There was a mix of undergrads, Master's and PhD student from Memorial and industry professionals, some of whom have been working on these rocks their whole career.

GEOLOGY WARNING. The geological gist was that we were looking at the sediments that were deposited in the Iapetus ocean between Gondwana and Laurentia some 420 million years ago. These then got smushed up when the ocean closed and the Appalachian and Caledonian mountains formed. The Canadian version of the Iapetus suture in the UK is the "Red Indian Line" which we were dotting about for the weekend. GEOLOGY OVER.

It was a fun weekend with lovely weather yet again, making the scenery even more spectacular. Most of the outcrops we visited were coastal and situated around small fishing communities. The best place name by far was Leading Tickles, named so for the thin stretch of the bay (called a Tickle) that was an important water route way back when.

Leading Tickles at sunset.

Moore's Cove lone landscape.

Mouse Cove. Beautifully isolated.

Great bedding-foliation relationships in some oceanic green and red beds
near Moore's Cove.

Sharon's Cove where we saw the same type of turbidites that are in the
Southern Uplands in Scotland.

The weekend ended with dinner at a Chinese Buffet in Grand Falls which seemed to be open just for us. After sampling one of the town's 2 pubs the night before, we gave Jimi Jak's a chance. It was a quiet night to say the least, despite it being a Saturday, but that meant we could monopolise the pool table so we didn't complain. Again my competitive streak was shown to a new set of people. My pool skills were rather impressive and despite protesting that it was atypical of my usual game they know think I'm somewhat good.

Lunch stop on the final day at Cottrell's Cove.
Tim Horton's sandwich and a beer.
Gorgeous view.

In conclusion, I've had a pretty good last week or so. The trips made up for the fact my TA-ing sucks a bit right now. But anyways. I really hope I get to see more of this beautiful island and beautiful country.