Back "Home" Part 1: Leaving

Well, I have arrived at my new southern home for the time being.

On the 17th, Anthony came up to Iqaluit and we spent the 5 days of his trip packing stuff up and hanging out with my friends. It was SO great to have his help, I don't think I could have done it without him. Anthony has all of the culinary skills between us and he's very creative, so he managed to create us meals with the leftover stuff in my freezer. We ate quite well for the 5 days. I had a ton of frozen smoked trout so we were eating that everyday. After a particularly long day of packing, some friends came over for board games and I wolfed down several packages of smoked trout.

I had already done quite a bit of packing and throwing things out before Anthony arrived so the only things left to do were the end-of-the-line stuff. It was hectic trying to remember to do everything and clean everything.

I had no idea, but Canada Post has a weight restriction of 30kg for anything you send through the mail. Anthony and I hauled down several Rubbermaid totes to the post office, only to find out from Jordan that they were too heavy. I felt terrible for Anthony because he had done all of the heavy lifting and we had to bring them back to the apartment and back up the stairs. Once we redistributed some weight and got them under 30kg (most were 23-25kg), they were much easier to handle.

Anyway, on Wednesday we woke up early and finished everything up. I had my official apartment "march out," I dropped my vehicle off to its new owner, we mailed all of the totes, and checked into the airport. By dumb luck, Anthony and I were both on first class on Air Canada. I had booked his ticket through Aeroplan and first class was the only thing available (for a cost of 25 000 points) and I had gotten first class because it was strangely cheaper than Tango on the website when I booked it. It turned out to be a great happy accident because we were allowed 3 checked bags each, and I had my cat with us in the cabin but there was still lots of leg room. I'd never flown first class and I'm glad I did, it was a nice treat for my last arctic flight. As the plane took off, I was a little upset I'd never see Iqaluit again, but the free wine helped soften the blow, haha.

We picked up Anthony's car at the Ottawa airport and drove to Oshawa to spend the night. Since we had the cat, we didn't want to drive the entire distance in one day. On the drive, we stopped at some Smart Centre to eat and change. I took some clean clothes into a WalMart bathroom and changed into them. It felt SO good to put on clean, non-sweaty clothes, you have no idea. In Oshawa I took a shower and put on pajamas and again, it felt great to be clean. I crawled into bed and basically passed out.

The next morning we leisurely awoke and left. We got McDonalds breakfast -- Anthony's treat -- because he knows how much I love it. A bacon and egg McMuffin never tasted so good.

We made it back to Sarnia around one and Leah was eager to get out of her cat carrier.

All in all, a relatively smooth and painless move, though it was long and tiring. I started preparing in early June so I am glad it's finally over. Check out the next entry for my thoughts about being back south, I didn't want to create one giant entry.