The last night in Ithaca

The last night in Ithaca, and guess where I am? The lab of course, frantically typing up experiment summaries. But 10.30pm is the cut off, then I'm off for a last drink at the h house. Tomorrow morning is an early meeting with my boss, the last coffee at Gimme! then off to catch our 11.35 am flight. It's a good thing the airport is only 5 min drive from work!

Suitcase living

My time in Ithaca is almost over - Lyn and I fly to Las Vegas on Monday, then on Friday she is off to spend some time with a friend before heading home, while I will be going to Calgary. For now, the apartment is full of boxes and packed suitcases in preparation for the big move. I am fortunate that the person who will be subetting the apartment is moving into their own place for the first time and will take a lot of the household bits and pieces I'm not going to move.

There are several big tasks scheduled for today. Firstly, to drop 8 boxes and 3 suitcase to UPS to be shipped. I'm a little afraid of how much this might cost. Then to breakfast at the Carriage House, where Lyn still has not been (shameful indeed, as the Ithacans out there will agree). Then to the bank to deposit all that change collected over the years, and finally (and most devastatingly) to Time Warner to return the cable modem, at which point I will be mostly offline until I start work in Calgary on November 1st. So don't expect rapid replies to email (just in case you ever did). The phone will be OK until Friday when I leave the US, after that, check your inbox for new contact details. And there's an email link on the left of this page in case my work address is inactivated.

Banff, Stampede, and Home

Getting a little out of date here. Sorry.

Thursday Matt and I drove out to Banff National Park, a little over an hour outside of Calgary. I had really hoped to see an elk, but it wasn't to be. Still, there was no shortage of impressive sights - Lake Louise gleaming turquoise against the craggy mountains and distant glacier, Moraine Lake more blue than I thought possible, the Crowfoot glacier (one of the toes has receded since it was named), and Peyto Lake and its source glacier viewed from the highest pass in the park.

Friday we joined the cowboys and girls at the Stampede for mini donuts (think of a bigger version of the Berry Donut Van serving bags of miniature hot fresh cinnamon donuts - yum!) and chuckwagon races. Alas, I couldn't find a cowboy hat I liked enough to fork out $30. The races were followed by a kitschy patriotic show featuring the "Young Canadians of the Calgary Stampede". It was pretty cool, although a little bizarre to hear Canadians being so overtly patriotic. They usually tend towards more subtle maple leaves on their backpacks or hockey jerseys. The bars afterwards were crazy, but we finally managed to find a beer at the Unicorn Pub. It's still a mystery how a pub founded in 1979 could be Calgary's original pub. It's a young city, but really...

Saturday was a sleep in followed by some pretty good Mexican for lunch, then off to the airport. Quite some tears later I was on the WestJet plane (kind of the Canadian version of Virgin, lots of fun) back to Ottawa. It's a little strange to think that the three and a half day drive could be reversed with a three and a half hour plane ride. Matt's lovely parents picked me up, fed me coffee and alcohol, then let me sleep in on Sunday AND fed me bacon and eggs for breakfast! What legends!

Of course all good things eventually end, and after breakfast I headed back to Ithaca. A very uneventful drive, which may or may not have been punctuated by a trip to the Carousel Mall in Syracuse. And finally I arrived back to Ithaca, to a steamy 30C apartment, some very wilted plants, and the fun of unpacking. Oh, and work tomorrow. Hooray....