thoughts from the igloo

Friday 13th March

Mariestell — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 05:55:09 +0000

This is my last thought which is written in advance as I’m handing back my laptop today. Tonight I’ll be flying to London where I’ll be meeting Liana – we’ll be watching Lion King on Saturday evening and on Sunday I’ll be heading back to the little island.

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog as much as I enjoyed writing it…well not exactly the case for the instances when I was writing at 12 am after a long days’ work. Soon I will go back to my lipstick instead of blistex, I will wear sandals instead of snow boots and mummy and daddy will be pampering me again!

I’ve landed on 7 different countries in 4 different continents in the last one and a half year, each country offered a unique experience – different people, different cultures that coloured each adventure and I certainly concur with St. Augustine’s saying ‘The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page.’ It’s time to return home now, but my passion to see the world will not stop here…I wonder from which land will my next set of thoughts be…

Thursday 12th March

Mariestell — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 05:52:55 +0000

With satisfaction I closed my work on the client. The manager organised lunch in my honour at an Indian restaurant – I feel special having people coming to lunch for me!!

Wednesday 11th March

Mariestell — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 05:50:56 +0000

I’ve started the packing process…I spent around 3 hours trying to fit in all my belongings into the one luggage I brought up from Malta. Quite an impossible task when I’ve bought 3 pairs of shoes (which I want to carry in their boxes), 3 pairs of jeans, 3 stacks of cardboard for making cards and an assortment of other things which accumulated over the past 2 months! Finally I give up andwent to sleep with all the items on my bed, thinking of buying another luggage tomorrow.

Sunday 8th March

Mariestell — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 03:50:26 +0000

We went to ‘Disney on Ice’ today. We enjoyed the show even though we seemed to be a little out of place as we were surrounded by families with kids.

And so we ended our last weekend in Montreal with some light and childish entertainment! Time flies by so quickly….we’ll soon start packing…

Saturday 7th March

Mariestell — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 03:46:47 +0000

We have booked our Maple Syrup tour with the same Chinese company that took us to Ottawa, so we’re quite skeptical about the day ahead. Not to our surprise we are waiting for the driver in the cold with a bunch of other people …and the driver is late! When the driver finally arrives it only takes us a couple of seconds after he opens his mouth for us to look at each other an smile! “Today we are going to see maple, maple erm the maple, maple, the maple comes out of the erm the trees, the trees’….and he babbles on for the rest of the trip. Thank God its only a 45 minute journey to Mount St. Gregorie.

We arrive and have some free time to walk around the maple forest….we utilised the time as a photo session. Today we are joined by Jade whi is also on secondment from Australia. Then we’re inside the maple house for the maple lunch – basically bread, ham, omelettes and a jar of maple syrup to add on to the food. I loved the maple syrup especially mixed with milk but the most disgusting item was lard…actual “xaham” jaqq!!! I thought they were some form of crisps when I saw them, only to discover they are part of the Canadian traitional food – yes when its freezing outside they used to eat lard to give them energy – I’d much rather have a red bull!!

After lunch we went for a horse ride into the maple forest and then we built a snowman whom we named Twiggy – my fist snowman actually!

A stop at Fort Chambly on our way home and dinner later in the evening, wound up by a drink at Vic’s and Analise’s apartment.

Friday 6th March

Mariestell — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 03:30:02 +0000

Its our last weekend in Montreal! We didn’t do anything much after work as tomorrow we have to wake up early for our much awaited for Maple Syrup Tour…and yes I have managed to keep myself away from the shops

Thursday 5th March

Mariestell — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 03:27:19 +0000

Its time to start closing off. I won’t be taking any new tasks from now on….today week will be my last day at the client.

Its also my last day for shopping today. I’m going to occupy myself with other things during the weekend to keep myself away from St.Catherine’s Street!

Wednesday 4th March

Mariestell — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 03:00:51 +0000

I broke plate # 2 in 2 months. An average of one plate per month. Not too bad given that it was not totally my fault in both cases.

Plate # 1 – it was the rain’s fault. It tore my paper bag and the plate fell through.

Plate # 2 – it was the fault of food sauce which dripped from my container, tore my paper bag and the plate fell through.

Tuesday 3rd March

Mariestell — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 02:59:24 +0000

Pamela goes out for work before me so we said good day as usual and she was off. Minutes later she came back complaining that the lift was not working ….good way to start the day, going down 18 floors of stairs!

Then it was my turn to head for work so I tried my luck with the lift and it came up as usual….as I got in and pressed the button I was thinking…what if it stops half way through and I’m stuck somewhere between the reception and the 18^th floor….nooooo….I got out again

and headed towards the stairs………I’m down on level 2 and I ended up in a garage…totally lost in the building….I head back and went to the lift again…its still working. I got the lift for the last two floors….not so bad to be stuck between the reception and the 2^nd floor I thought!

In the evening we had our team dinner. It was so good to see some colleagues which I hadn’t seen in a while as they moved to other clients. Delicious seafood soup, giant shrimp on a bed of rice, vanilla tarts for dessert, wine and a cocktail…mmm great reward for the hard work!

Monday 2nd March

Mariestell — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 02:57:05 +0000

Normal day of work and usual Monday blues after the weekend!