Trans-Canada Tea Party: The Grand Tour

Dear Laura,

Well, my time in the north has almost come to an end. My flight leaves tomorrow at 2 p.m. I'm a little sad to be leaving - it always seems that as soon as I start really settling in to an elective, it ends and I have to move on.

My preceptor wasn't working today, so I took the opportunity to wander all over town. I met my preceptor for lunch at this wonderful little cafe, where they have sandwiches on the most delicious homemade bread ever. Then I went to

a little craft store that I've be eyeing almost since I got here. Turns out they have drop in quilting classes every Wednesday night - wish I'd know that three weeks ago! I did buy some fantastic handmade moccasins there, though! They had a pretty impressive selection of yarn, but sadly no dishcloth yarn, which was what I was looking for. This is a friendly small town though, so the lady who was working there directed me to the hardware store down the street - where they had an impressive craft department, including some beautiful fabric and lots of yarn! Not somewhere I would have thought to look for yarn!

I bought some yarn and walked on to the hospital, where I took a few photos and dropped off some "thank you" cards. Then I wandered home to warm up!

Oh yeah - it's been a beautiful week here, between minus 10 and minus 15 every day with lots of sun. Unfortunately, today, the day when I decided to go wandering, the temperature plummeted. I was bundled up on my walk, so I was warm enough - but my cheeks were freezing in the wind! Turns out the windchill was MINUS 28 today! No wonder I was cold! (And can you believe that I was actually out for a stroll in this weather? This is not the Nikki you know! I'm all tough and stuff now!)

I have lots of pictures for you today. Some of them are from a walk that I took on Wednesday, when it was sunny and only minus 15!

Here's the little Lutheran church around the corner. I think it's really sweet. There are a remarkable number of churches in this town, given that the population is (I think) less than 10000 people. There's a Jehovah's Witness temple right next door to this church.

This is just one of the residential streets a few blocks over. I'm hoping this photo shows all the

snow here! They've been clearing out snowbanks along the shoulders of the roads for the past few days, because they're so high that there's no visibility at the corners. For some reason, all this snow removal has been happening in the middle of the night - so I keep being woke by the "beep, beep" of some vehicle backing up at 2 a.m.!

This is my house. It's the end unit of a triplex that I think the regional health authority owns. It's a two-bedroom unit but there have been three of us here - the other medical student is using the rec room in the basement as her room. It's quite a comfortable little spot, and the sun just pours in that front window during the day.

Last but not least on our tour, the hospital. It was once a mission hospital, run by nuns - hence the big cross on top. There's a Catholic cathedral across the street. It's a great little hospital, with one ward for medical/surgical/pediatric patients, another ward for maternity patients, and a third ward for psych patients. There's also an emergency department, and next door there's a personal care home (i.e. nursing home). It's pretty functional for a small-town, relatively remote hospital!

And I'm sure you're wondering if I'm ever going to return to craft-related content on this blog. I have been doing some knitting while I've been here - obviously no sewing, since Mrs. Stitchy isn't exactly travel-friendly! I've made a dishcloth already, and I've been working on a pair of socks that I'm working on for my Dad to wear to the wedding. I finished sock #1 before Christmas and I'mr eally trying to get the second one done for his birthday in February. It was only about 1/2" long when I got here, and I'm almost

to the heel now - so I'm making progress. Finally, I started a new knitting project today - can you guess what it is??