Time to leave. It seems that for the past 6 months, I have been packing and leaving on a fairly regular basis. About every 3 months, I haul out the rucksack and figure out how I'm gonna get all this stuff to fit.
The flight back was uneventfull, and the large straw hat I was wearing helped to single me out to all the customs guys as One To Check. Consequently, I was unpacking all my carry ones at every point. Tiring, but you get used to it. I now know how to pack in order to minimise the pain of someone who doesn't care if it fits back in, dump all your stuff out.
Back in Calgary. I arrive on the coldest Dec 15 in 30 years or something. -40 C. That's cold. "Hey mister, that straw hat's not gonna keep you warm! HA HA!". Yeah. Smart guy there. I mean, I had my jacket on for goodness sakes. I was going to be warm enough.
That turned out to be true, so long as you didn't spend any more than about 30 seconds outside. After that critical time, things stop working - like respiration. You start to take a breath and something inside your lungs says "No way man. Are you crazy? I'd rather suffocate than freeze from the inside." So you avoid this reverse microwave action by generally running around outside. Until you fall flat on your ass becuase of the ice on the ground that you didn't see. Eventually, when you are in the taxi and start to come out of shock, you realise that it is very, very cold outside.
Dec 18Back to work in the Calgary office. The first thing I noticed was the accent. People give Canadians a hard time about their accent, but during a conversation, I remarked that the women in Venezuela are stunning, and the guy said "Noo doot, ey!?" It was a classic moment....
Time to introduce some of the people I work with.
