More travel

I am still trying to figure out how to post photos on this darn blog, so for now my absolutely enthralling description shall have to be enough!

Oh and I decided to divide this update into two posts - one finishing up stories of my travel and another about Fort Albany itself.

So when I left you last, I was on the train to Cochrane. The hotel I stayed in that night was right inside the train station, so as you can probably imagine, it was quite noisy with all of the freight trains passing through during the night. But as anyone who knows me well can attest to, I could sleep through a nuclear holocaust. Hence, once I fell asleep (which again, was not hard to do after a 12 hour train ride and safe in the knowledge that, 2 periods in Canada was out of reach of a safe return to glory against the Russians), I did not wake until the next morning.

The room itself wasn't any more than one person would need for such a short stay. Bathroom, bed, toilet, sink, shower, tv, and not much else. Well that is, except for a wonderful Kuerig machine and some verrrrry static-y sheets! I am not even kidding you people, I couldn't even wear my pajama pants to bed that night because I was afraid I would wake up to the bed on fire part way through the night!

Lucky for me, it seems those who have heating keep it very high up here. I barely needed blankets in that hotel, the B&B the next night or my house up here (kept at 24), and I don't need to wear anything under my scrubs at the hospital, which is kept at 78 (more on that later).

The next day was the train to Moosonee (which I have pictures of). It was much older (or at least less maintained) than the train to Cochrane and not nearly as comfortable. Luckily, the car I was riding in was mostly teenagers. Having gotten up early that morning for the train, most slept through the majority of the 8 hour ride.

As mentioned before I stayed in a B&B in Moosonee. I was absolutely lovely. I talked to the manager's father who said that he built it and two other buildings on either side over the past six years, after he retired. Apparently he used to be employed traveling up and down the coast of James/Hudson Bay building 40 cookie cutter bungalows at a time. As his daughter said, when he retired he could build buildings the way he wanted. When I was talking to him, he was shoveling the snow up against the sides of the house saying that it was commonplace as the snow helped to insulate the house against wind (not that it needed it, he built the place with walls 14 inches thick! But regardless, I made a note of it!

The B&B was wonderful, nice and clean and new. The only potential drawback is that in the standard rooms, every two share a bathroom, the doors of which locked independently from both sides. However, lucky for me, there was no one in the room on the other side of my bathroom so I had it to myself that night! Breakfast was lovely and she too had a Kuerig (I sense a pattern!)

The night I arrived in Moosonee I took a walk around town to look around. I walked to the river and saw the winter roads being prepared to both Moose Factory Island and to Cochrane. On the way back I stopped at the grocery store/Pizza Hut/KFC/bank all-in-one to get some dinner and see how astronomical the price of groceries was there. Surprisingly, it wasn't that bad in Moosonee!

The next day the cab driver taking me to the airport told me that the winter roads had been shut today because there was high tide during the night which forced a foot and a half of water on top of the ice!

The flight itself was very short, only 1/2 an hour. My bags were 24lbs too heavy (66lbs instead of 44lb.... oops!), and yet the woman behind the counter literally said "Oh don't worry, we have someone else on that flight with over 100lbs!" Talk about a different world, not only do they only charge 76c for every extra pound compared to Air Transat's $20 for every extra kilo! And they don't even charge you when they should! It's a different world up here, I am telling you!

While I was waiting for boarding, I heard this same woman talking about the same plane landing in Moosonee yesterday. Apparently it came it at a very sharp angle against the wind and only corrected itself just before it landed... geesh! Talk about a conversation for an airport waiting area! Thankfully, the sky was clear as a bell yesterday morning and there was very little wind, so no chance of a landing like that for my flight!

More about Fort Albany in the next post!