Being in San Francisco I escaped the first really cold Canadian weather. While my co-workers were working outside in -30°C, I was on the plane back to Calgary praying for milder weather. Not because I fear working in -30°C (that's been delegated to my parents ;-) I actually hope I'll get to do that, but in due time, after my body's had a chance to adapt to the climate.
Lo and behold, followed 2 weeks of nice almost-warm weather (say, 0-10°C in the sun). Apparently Calgary has this unique climate where Winter is regularly broken by warm sunny periods ("Chinook", a.k.a. warm wind).
What follows are a few pictures from my last work trip to an oil site near Edmonton. Note how the weather changes on our way back from the site (snow & fog, -10°C, no Chinook) to Calgary (Chinook):
In the absence of new contracts, we've been cleaning tools in the workshop, forever. I'm getting restless...
In other news, on Friday, Benjamin held his 18th-floor-downtown-apartment-warming party, and yesterday I went to a Christmas Buffet with the "Flemish in Calgary".
Also, a month from now, I'll finally break even on this Canadian adventure. (If this seems long, it's because I didn't work in my first 3 months here.)
Also, Sinterklaas (the Belgian Santa Claus) has visited my parents' place in Belgium and left something for me as well. On the phone, my brother Koen was telling me with a triumphant wide grin not to worry about the food spoiling. He has no idea that I'm arranging for a hot shot (*) to fly over the good stuff, MWUHAHAHA!! :D
(*) A hot shot is a fast special delivery driver. As in when one of our pumps failed on a site 1000km up North, and he drove all night to bring us a replacement by next morning. (My hot shot, you guessed it, is one of the Belgians going home for Christmas.)
