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I went to Mexico last week and it was great. I went with old friends, Murray and Dan - Murray and I are constant travel companions. We've been to China, Mongolia, Russia, Georgia, Spain, Morocco, Cuba, Canadian roadtrips... and I have been to Mexico with Dan before. Mat stayed home and took care of our fish because his deadlines at work unfortunately coincided with my holidays.

Mexican food is fantastic, but a bit limited for a vegetarian. We ate like pigs, but didn't get swine flu. We got a car while we were there and drove all over.We got lost a million times, encountered indigenous protests and a roadblock and drank beer like water. The lawlessness of the country is strangely comforting to me. 

In my early 20s I spent two years traveling through Mexico, as a hippy kid. It was nice to return with my Spanish, Canadian dollars and a car. Mexico is easily accessible and the people are unbelievably open, friendly and helpful. The food is simple and honest and the landscape is spectacular and varied. We swam in the ocean on empty beaches at sunset, swam in a giant crater's lake, wandered through fields of agave and listened to music in the city streets. Even on a Wednesday night the cities are alive with music and food and people. 

Here are some pictures
( mexico )

It was Murray's dream to go to Iceland and he has been talking about it incessantly for the years I have known him. I assume he was going on about it long before that too. Anyway, we had a plan to go there. First in April, but then I bought a house, then in July, but then there was work, and in August, more work. So finally we both had a week off in Sept. I bought a ticket and then he realized he had to work. Work gets in the way of things more often than not. I went ahead with my super cheap ticket to the super expensive country with Mathew.

Murray asked me to take pictures of Icelanders, mainly because he fetishizes them on account of Bjo:rk. Can you imagine that there are no Icelanders there? There are almost no people. The whole island has about 300,000 of them. That's all. That's one third of Calgary and Calgary is just a largish village. So we drove for a week. We would drive for all day, our goal a sprawling metropolis of 1000. There is no one just out and about in rural Iceland, save for a few other touries. We went to waterfalls bigger than Niagara and were the only people there. We wandered through steaming lava fields, utterly alone. We drove for ages across treeless mossy rocks without passing anyone, unless you are desperate enough to count sheep and horses.

We camped and it was chilly and windy, but beautiful. We stayed with people from couch surfing in the second largest city (positively bustling at 16,000) and they were very kind. It was a guesthouse in Reykjavik (all my emails to hospitality clubbers and couch surfers unanswered) for $150 a night - that's for a sagging single bed and shared toilets and showers. Iceland is the most expensive place I have been - apparently its only rival is Tokyo for cost. I had never really been anywhere with a higher standard of living than Canada - so looking for local haunts to save money was fruitless. The cheapest beer to be had was about $10 and a loaf of bread close to $5. We managed to do quite well with camping and cooking though.

I was going to tell everyone that Iceland was terrible, because it is so unspoiled and unpopulated and that is so much of its appeal. If people went there it would ruin it. But... that would be a terrible lie. It's an amazing place. Have a look at Mathew's pictures, you'll see for yourself.

( look! )

It was recently a friend's birthday - he really likes Douglas Coupland and so I made him this. I used the website pic2point.com and am quite pleased with the results. The picture didn't turn out so well, the flash kind of made the backing stand out a bit. It was the first thing I made in years, but will definitely try something new again soon. ( here )

I am finished this semester, save a bit of marking to do! Hurray! What's a better way to celebrate than going to Cuba? I am leaving next Monday, getting back in time to celebrate xmas with my mom for the first time in five years.

Thursday and Friday I will be out in Banff, opening the season with a group of coworkers and students. Don't work until 14 Jan. Life is pretty fantastic.

It's me! I never really write anything anymore... bad Katie.

All is well. I don't even know what to say, since a million things and nothing have happened in recent times.

I am in school and working. Sometimes it is overwhelming, but I like it. My students are great. They come from all over the place - no Russians though. I have many Korean students, some Japanese, a few Mexican and South Americans. They are a pretty fun group and really motivated.

My classes that I am taking are kind of boring. The classwork is pretty mindless and an Education degree is kind of a joke. I wish I was finished already.

This weekend was a good one. I went to Edmonton for a wedding. One of my friends got married and there was a big party. I had a great time, saw lots of people I hadn't seen for years, ate and drank way too much and danced all night. It was a Polish wedding. The bride's family is Polish - it was neat because the service was in Polish and English and at the party there were wacky Polish dancers.

So what else is new? Not much, you probably know that life in Canada is kind of boring. But I like it right now. I went to Vancouver Island last month. It was great - I stayed at a cabin on the lake. Vancouver Island might be the best place in the world.

I am thinking of going to Iceland in March.

so... it turns out that despite all evidence pointing to the contrary, I am, in fact, a screamer.

A few nights ago i was sitting up in bed, catching up on the street and thinking about sleep when I saw this creature scurry under my desk and probably burrow in my slippers. Said creature was like a brown streak of lightening, all tail and sharpened incisors. Of course I screamed. Like a girl.

Now i recognize that this little rodent is much smaller than me. i could easily kill it with my bare hands. I know it isn't a threat to me at all. It is even, maybe a little bit cute. But damn, it and its icky long tail move fast. And that creeps me the fuck out.

So I jumped on my bed, did the "willies" dance - all the while my housemate laughed at me. I left my room, heart still scurrying faster than the demon-mouse's little clawed feet. I was behaving irrationally. I knew that much. I tried to concoct a plan, but failed miserably at coming up with any solutions other than leaving my house and belongings forever at the mercy of the mouse.

Anyway... Steven (said laughing, mocking room mate) suggested killing the mouse (this was, by the way, the second mouse sighting in a week - the first I didn't witness and took place in the storage room - at a safe distance from my sleeping area). I was in total agreement - unwilling to fuck around with trying to catch it and then taking it far far away - lest it eat me.

Steven went into my room to catch the bastard child of satan and i hovered around outside the closed door, listening to the chase. somehow, the demonic rodent managed to mutate its icky little body and slide under the door. My door is a pain to open and close because it drags against the carpet. Even science can't explain how this could have happened. This is just more evidence that the mice indeed harbour evil.

I didn't see where the mouse went - presumably to the kitchen. It became apparent we would have to take more drastic measures to purge the house of evil. we found a mousetrap behind the fridge - baited it with peanut butter and popcorn and waited. All the while Steven mocked me and my squeamish behaviour. I believe some vaguely mouselike flip flops were thrown, causing more squeals and crawling skin.

After a very short time - we were still chatting in the doorway of my room, contemplating sleep - we heard stirring in the kitchen. we listened carefully and rejoiced at the SNAP of the guillotine-cito. The devil spawn was still scurrying in its death, popcorn in its vampire teeth, its eyes bulging from the force of the blow. I think you've all heard enough, I won't go into details about what happened next. But after defiling its memory through ventriloquization I felt much better and less impotent in the grip of all that is unholy in the world.

For now no more mice have become entangled in the baited and waiting lair. I have been able to sleep.

Back in Canada, it is really hot. I think I went from record breaking temperatures in Russia, to the same in Canada. It has been really, really unseasonably warm. I guess it is ok, I have air conditioning now and it really makes life much more bearable.

I have been up to a few things. Nothing terribly interesting. I bought a Mac computer and so far I am thrilled with my purchase.

I have kind of settled into my house, once I am fully I will post pictures.

I spent the weekend in Jasper, with students. It was a hot hot weekend, but a really great time. Here are some pictures of our mountains. This is one of the reasons it is great to be home and why I have the best job in the world.

I have been really quiet lately, I know. I am back in Calgary, settling into life here. I can't say that I have really done anything very interesting yet, just working and moving and visiting friends. I go to the mountains for a big camping trip in two weeks, but until then I think I am just settling, I will maybe go for a hike next weekend.

I am pretty much settled into my new house, mostly unpacked, but it is still chaos here. I don't really remember where I put most things. Well, most things are pushed into cupboards and on my closet floor. I guess the organization will come. maybe.  Either way, I really like it, but I will post about that another time.

I said I would write about Ukraine, so here it is:

About seven years ago I wanted to work abroad, but had no work experience and was a university dropout. I applied for an exchange program with the government of Canada to go to Bolivia, but was offered a position in Ukraine instead, I have to admit I probably would have had trouble locating in on a map at that time.

I decided to let my itchy feet take me there. I arrived at the beginning of January after a long, confusing flight. When we got into the city of Lviv and to the place (a former kindergarten) where we would be doing our orientation, all I could do was gawk. I felt like I had stepped into a news program from the late eighties, I couldn't believe how Soviet it looked. I had never thought that people actually wore fur, or drove Ladas. The disrepair was astounding, the payphones were still rotary, but mostly missing the dialing cog. The concrete (and boy, there was no shortage of that) was crumbling and metal claws were bent out of the ground. Windows were broken, facades had slid of walls in chunks. There were chicken coops in people's yards. I thought we must be in a ghetto, but it turns out it was a nice part of town.

My next few months were interesting. I spent a  lot of time indoors. I read lots of books, played a lot of cards, drank way too much horilka and ate ridiculous quantities of chocolate. I watched the heavy snow plummet from the sky and settle in wet heavy mounds all over the city. Aftera big snowfall there would be babas out in full force, with kerchiefs on their heads and fingers the size of sausages, shoveling the snow from the streets while dodging ladas and minibuses.

We had water for three hours a day. Usually. It came around 6pm, and hung out until 9. It was anyone's guess about whether it would be hot or cold. Bathing became so passe and the cold whore-bath became the new thing.

It was nearly impossible for me to buy anything. They only had shops where everything is behind the counter, and you need to fight with the shop assistant to get it. Despite knowing very little Ukrainian I managed fairly well and enjoyed the adventure. While I was there the first western style shop opened up - a place where you could take products off the shelf. it was revolutionary. There were guards at each end of each aisle, making sure nobody took something from the shelf and into the folds of their giant winter coat.

I left Ukraine at the end of spring, Mayish I guess, I went to Crimea and enjoyed the warm weather, the sea (which I swam in, it was cold) and the mountains. From there I headed to Istanbul on a mafia ferry crossing the black sea.

It was about five years until I returned to Ukraine. I visited a few years ago and stayed for a few days. I didn't really notice that things had changed so much. There were supermarkets and ATM machines, those were the only notable differences. During that visit I didn't stay in Lviv, rather I went to Sambir, where my wonderful friend, Myrocja, and her family lived. The big change was that her and Ihor (they were the people I had stayed with in Lviv five years prior) now had two kids, and their house was bustling with activity. They had no running water, I got dysentery. It wasn't very much fun.

I had a nice visit, went to the country, saw some old friends, moaned and clutched my belly while Myrocja tried to convince me vodka would make me feel better... and then I went to Poland on a bus of market workers and crossborder traders.

When I took my job in Russia I promised I would visit my Ukrainian friends before leaving, and so I took the train there a few weeks ago. The train, as always, was an adventure. It was full of drunken Ukrainian workers returning from Moscow. There were people walking through the wagons selling everything imaginable - tea sets, toys, books, light-up icons, currencies...

When I got to Lviv, it didn't really look strange, foreign, or decrepit anymore. I don't know if it is because I am used to living in Russia and disrepair is normal, or if they have fixed things up. I really don't know. Either way it seemed bright and even a bit modern. Unfortunately modern often means that gigantic brightly coloured signs are erected on top of beautiful old buildings. That buildings which are hundreds of years old are torn down to accommodate shopping centres. It is unnerving. Lviv is a great city, untouched by the major wars which destroyed so many other places. Some of its buildings are 600ish years old, and it is bit by bit being dismantled to satiate consumer lust. pity.

I stayed in the village again, was thrilled to find that they had installed plumbing. Their children had grown - Volodya had been an infant and now was a boy, running to and fro everywhere. My life slowed down for a few days there. I ate really well, I drank even better. I spent afternoons in the garden, lounging, picking and eating strawberries, walking kids to dance lessons, eating ice cream on patios, reading. It was lovely. It was a great holiday, not an adventure to a new place, but a great way of seeing good friends and resting.

I headed back to Moscow, again on the 24 hour train ride of doom. Sweating, sleeping, reading, sweating, sleeping, reading. I was in Russia for a weekend, packing up, saying so longs and preparing myself for a reintroduction to Canada.