It is amazing, the difference a day can make!  When I decided to change my attitude about this trip, the result was a truly great day.  When, I figured out that complaining about all the negatives only made them sharper, and increased the amount and intensity of my tears, and became determined to find the positives, then embrace them, everything changed for me.

The day started out a little rocky, when I had to walk around this end of town in stifling, record high temperatures, to find a clipboard for my paper apps, but that was truly, the only tiny hiccup in my day.  I went in to work at noon, and just the intensely cool environment improved my mood, tenfold.  I walked in, determined to not worry about numbers, and just concentrate on doing my job, for five hours.  When I stopped counting numbers, and just sporadically check my watch, to countdown time, the day went much quicker, and I had some fabulous conversations with some really, genuinely nice people, from all over everywhere.  I had FUN at work, for the first time in forever.  Once I hit the 20 application mark, I decided I wanted at least 2 more, and then was leaving.  I finished up 15 minutes prior to my 5 hour benchmark, and called it a day.

I quickly hopped across the parking lot, back to my hotel, and changed my clothes, dropped my work stuff off, and was back out the door, for the short, but incredibly hot jaunt to Sam’s Monkey Tree Pub.  I had checked out a few restaurants, online, and the reviews on this one were pretty favourable, and when I saw the sign from my hotel balcony, I knew it was going to be my first dining out experience in Yellowknife.  I was NOT disappointed.  I have a thing for bellinis, and whenever they are on the menu anywhere, I like to try one, and as they were out of the standard frozen peach purée, the waitress suggested it with lime slush.  WOW, the best I have ever had, anywhere!  I was so impressed, but when the seafood linguine arrived, I was truly in food heaven.  Mussels, jumbo shrimp, calamari, and the best cooked scallops I have had, outside The Maritimes.  I actually mentioned to the waitress when I was done, that they were perfectly cooked, and even Gordon Ramsey wouldn’t have kicked the cook out of the kitchen!  She said she was going to pass that along, and I hope she did.  I never finish a meal when I am out, but I used every single bite of my garlic toast to sop up every drop of Caesar salad dressing, and every speck of the spicy white wine sauce the pasta was served it.  Mmmmm.

The only downside of the Monkey Tree, was the lack of air conditioning.  It never gets to these temperatures here so they are unprepared for 30C, and the walk back up the hill to my hotel had my dying for my room, but also wishing I was going to spend the evening in it, alone.  To that end, I asked the girl at the desk if there was a movie theatre in town, and she told there was one downtown.  I came up, checked shows and times, and as Brave was the only one of the three playing, I hadn’t seen, and after a little debating with myself about whether to go or not, I went back down and called a cab.  First one still wasn’t there at ten minutes to showtime, and the girl at the desk called me another that had me there just in the nick of time…on cheap night!!  The six dollar admission almost made up for the twenty-five dollar round-trip taxi fare!  And, the movie was brilliant!  Scenery was fabulous, characters interesting, funny, and endearing, and story was well told.  I laughed out loud more than once, but especially at all the cartoon bums, when all the Scottish lads lost their kilts, to make a “rope” laddder…priceless!

After the show, while gazing up and down the street, I noticed what looked like a park at the end of the street, so I took a wander down to what turned out to be City Hall.  The park was beautiful.  The lake, buildings, sculpture and absolute feeling of serenity was magic.  I was the only person there, likely because the skies looked about to explode with a raging storm at any minute, but I relished in the entire scene, and breathed in some amazingly clean, fresh air.  I would have stayed longer, but the battery power on my phone was into reserve, the storm was threatening, and I was a ten minute drive back to my hotel, so I hoofed it back to the theatre, and had a cab in under three minutes!  Aurora cab company for anyone coming to Yellowknife..very important to remember!

I came back to my room, feeling a huge sense of accomplishment.  I was quite proud of myself for changing my fate.  Speaking of fate, the very end of the film, Merida, the main character says  “Our fate lies within us…we just need to be Brave enough to see it.”  I absolutely adore that, and may make it my mantra from now one.  I don’t feel I was necessarily brave in my endeavours yesterday, but I did make the changes I needed to make, in me, to have a fabulous day, in a beautiful city, with friendly people.  Mission accomplished!