Salut Eastern Canada!

Once again life got in the way for me to finish this trip's blog in a timely manner. It's amazing how time flies by so quickly. 

How to recap this incredibly amazing trip? To say I have gained a new appreciation for this great country called Canada is an understatement. To travel to the east coast during Canada's 150 birthday year was such a treat. To see the amount of patriotism back east was a little foreign yet at the same time so refreshing. 

We got to experience the immense hospitality of the locals who honestly treated us as friends, not strangers. The stunning coastline was more beautiful than I could ever had imagined dotted with fishing villages all along; some looking abandoned and weathered due to hard times hitting the industry. Seeing the massive icebergs off the coast in Newfoundland was an experience always to remember but also a sad realization that something is not quite right with that. It felt peaceful there, an opportunity to really appreciate the magnificent nature we were surrounded by. 

We experienced what I imagined quintessential east coast life to be. We got to experience so many amazing things like the local music scene in its rawest form; incredible food prepared using local products; informative historical sites to better understand the east coast; and the ability to freely explore so many beautiful natural sites.

We travelled a great distance on this journey: round trip flight - 9572km; total distance driven - 4300km. We stopped at 12 Tim Hortons in 11 different cities or towns but only had 3 roll up the rim wins. 

This was a trip whose memories will last a lifetime. And I'm so glad to have shared this with the best travelling partner in the world, Z! 

Happy Birthday Canada! Thank you for all you have to offer. 

To travel is to live....until next time....life is good!

St. John's, Newfoundland

Our last stop on this amazing trip was St. John's. Some 4300km's of driving brought us to St. John's. Our only real rain day was spent here. Our hotel was downtown on Duckworth Street, one of the main streets in downtown, and right on the harbour. In fact our room had a harbour view facing the working port. We could also see  Signal Hill from the hotel. Had the weather been somewhat better we probably would have walked up and explored Signal Hill a little more, especially considering we enjoyed its namesake band so much in Halifax. The shops that lined Duckworth Street were quite quaint and each was painted a different bright colour. The locals call them jellybean houses because of their colours. 


When we arrived we were both rather hungry and decided that we'd go for a later lunch at O'Reilly's, a pub situated along the internationally renowned George Street. Now George Street is actually a fairly small street but is believed to have the most pubs and bars per square foot of any other street in North America. It's a pretty lively place at night. The walk from the hotel was probably about 8 blocks or so. It was raining and so thought we'd borrow an umbrella from the front desk so Z went out to ask. He came back relaying the message that they were out (after all it had been raining all day) and that they had no budget to buy more. He did come back with a paper brochure which the ever so friendly front desk clerk had given him and said "use this" or "just suck it up it's St. John's". So we ventured out with the small umbrella I had brought from home. We quickly realized that the downpour combined with the fierce Atlantic wind rendered the umbrella useless. At points during our 8 odd block walk the wind was so strong it was making the rain come down on a 45 degree angle. We got part way and hunkered down in the doorway of a Bank of Montreal branch to try and wait out the downpour. After awhile we realized the downpour wasn't about to stop and we were already soaked through so it was decision time...continue on and get more soaked, or head back to the hotel, change into dry clothes and take a taxi to George Street. We opted to continue on in part because I really didn't want to risk getting my only other pair of shoes that I needed the next day for our return home to get wet. We made it to O'Reilly's, shook off as much of the rain from our coats and enjoyed a great lunch which listening to a local singer perform with her guitar. Eventually our clothes dried; I even went to the bathroom in the hopes they had a hand dryer so I could dry my jeans. Thankfully they did, but unfortunately it was positioned over the counter and I couldn't reach it without climbing onto the counter which I thought would be weird. After a prolonged lunch waiting out the rain, we left. We did a little window shopping and stopped at the Terry Fox Memorial site before heading back to George Street so we could go to Christian's to get screeched-in. 


What is getting "screeched-in"? Well Newfoundlanders are a friendly bunch, very welcoming, entertaining and enjoy a good time. Getting screeched-in makes you an honorary Newfoundlander, but you must partake in the ceremony and complete all tasks involved. We heard Christian's was the best place to do, so we paid our $20 and became honorary Newfies. Our Master of Ceremonies, Skipper Vicki, a retired RCMP officer, was a blast. She had the best stories to tell (Newfies are also known for their story telling) and her stories were even funnier because of her Newfie accent making it difficult to understand what she was actually saying. The ceremony started off with eating a chunk of bologna. And as Skipper Vicki says, 'not to worry if you're a vegetarian you can still eat it because we're really not sure there's any meat in it anyway.' Then we had to recite a poem which to this day I still really don't know if I said it right or what it actually means, but it goes like this in the answer to the question "Is ye an honorary Newfoundlander?" "Deed I is ol' cock, and long may your big jib draw". After this we drank a shot of Screech rum; and for not being a rum drinker it was actually not bad....it burned on the way down like tequila does. We were told here too that we must shot the Screech, no sipping allowed and no chasers. Now I wish the order of the activities we had to partake in was a little different because the last task we needed to complete was kissing a frozen cod. If that wasn't bad enough, Z and I ended up being last so we had to kiss it after everyone else, and there were probably about 30 people in total, had kissed this cod. And there was no fake kissing the cod.....Skipper Vicki made sure lips touched lips. 

The weather really didn't clear up much and we had wanted to listen to some more live music so we walked a long around way back to O'Reilly's. It's literally 2 pubs down, but we wanted a bit of a walk. While out and about, we saw two different wedding parties, both heading into different pubs. It was somewhat funny to see a bride in full bridal gown head into a pub. Guess that's not unusual there. Back in O'Reilly's we found ourselves a nice little table...it was a little busier in the evening than at lunch.....and enjoyed listening to Rob Kelly sign with his guitar before he took the stage with the Irish Descendants. The Irish Descendants are a folk music band from Newfieland. It was an enjoyable night. The other folks sitting around us were friendly and we chatted with some for a bit. Unfortunately our night was an early one though because our flight the next day was super early making us wake up at 3am. I have to say our last night on the east coast was awesome because we really got to experience the local life on a Saturday night.