Date: December 9, 2005 - Weather: - 13 and cloudy
Sunrise – You mean there’s a “sun”?!!
Sunset – Whatever!

Lungfreeze. What is that? How do you get it! What happens when you get it? Who ever heard of that, anyway?

This is what I said when I first heard of it. I had noticed people around town this week (when it was just about forty below) covering their mouths and noses with scarves and mittens. I assumed they were just keeping their faces warm, but what they were doing was using the cloth and their hand to help warm the air that they were inhaling. Pretty interesting! I am told that the air can get so cold that freezing of lung tissue becomes a real danger. Care is, obviously in order.

It’s becoming clear that although the cost of living here is high, there is a real opportunity to save money. The same tank of gas has been in the jeep since we got here. We have burned more gas idling the thing than we have driving it! As well, there really isn’t anything to spend money on once you have the basics. I’m sure we could dispose of great quantities of cash if we decided to go to the bars on the weekend, but we had rarely done that back home so we’re not likely to do it here. Given that most people stock up on dry goods and canned goods, the only things that needs to be bought locally are fresh products. I imagine days and days will go by where we won’t use the jeep and won’t spend a penny. Once Lorie gets a job and we get settled away, we will use all that extra cash to pay off debt and start saving some too. That will be different!

We are settling in a little more each day. There are still plenty of things that we have to do, but we are really held up by our effects not being here. It doesn’t look like we will have them before Christmas either. That should be fun!

Over the next few days you will notice some changes being made to the blog. I will be starting to transition it away from a travel log and more towards a regular “daily-post” log. I am also searching for a photo hosting website so that I can post more of the pictures we took on the way here. We have several hundred that I am sure people will be interested to see, but posting them on the blog is very inefficient – it takes me a long time to get them posted, and the process for posting pictures to the blog is a real pain.

Let me know what you think of the changes.

Cheers!