|
Rose and I got back from Halifax at around noon today. I just spent the last couple hours
going through over 100 pictures.
So you know, Halifax was awesome.
We left last Friday afternoon at around 3PM EST and reached Halifax the next day at dinner time.
I had originally talked Rose into taking the train in 'Comfort' class, which turned out to be
anything but; we discovered this at around 11PM Friday night, when no conceivable position caused
us anything short of excrutiating back pain accompanied by occasional circulatory difficulties.
The "pillows" given to us had seams like razor blades, and the "blankets" were about as soft as
ratty plywood. At 2AM Saturday morning I realized that sleeping on my dinner tray was perhaps the
most viable option. I got about an hour of sleep.
On the upside, the
I had my morning tea in was really charming.
For our return trip, BTW, we went to the VIA Rail station early and asked the guy there if we could
upgrade our tickets from 'Comfort' class to something with a bed. For an extra wad of cash he upgraded
us to 'Comfort Sleeper' class, which actually came with free water (in a bottle, not in the fancy cup,
sadly), a cabin to ourselves, a private bathroom, and bunk beds. To boot, the pillows we got from the
upgrade were actually soft, and the blankets were duvet covers. So: if ever you travel VIA Rail
overnight, do yourself a favor and get a sleeper-class car -- your neck and spine will thank you.
We stayed at the Prince George Hotel in Halifax proper, which is located on Prince street and is
right by a hojillion restaurants, the
,
and the harbour itself.
was OK for a
4-star place, though by far nothing amazing. The two restaurants they have in-house are ridiculously
overpriced and pretentious, but we ate once at each regardless. The food was good, but Rose had a shitty
experience with a fancy 'burger', so she might disagree with me on that. Whatever. Over the course of
the trip we ate at SO many restaurants and every single one of them served seafood of some kind -- which
makes sense, you know, but it was still neat to see. Fish is like fries over there, seriously.
We didn't know it when we booked the trip way back in March, but this past weekend was Natal Day weekend.
The docks were full of folks milling around, checking shit out; there were tents and live music and tons
of things to do. The ambiance rocked; a total party port-city.
When we weren't on a tour of some kind, Rose and I spent all our time walking on the boardwalk along the
at the base of Prince street. Tons of boats are tied there, including the
(a naval memorial ship we got the chance to check out) and the
(the ship we took out for a ride later in the week). It's like it's all right out of PotC, man,
.
Not so cool was the Harbour Hopper, which is an amphibious tour vehicle that we must've seen about 40
times during our vacation. Oh, and
.
Really mood ruining.
,
though out of the way, was one of the tours we took. It blew my mind. The town sign says 40 people live there...that's it; it's
apparently one of the most photographed sites in Canada. However, the town itself looks just like you'd assume a 40-resident,
maritime town would look like, so that's not what really blew my mind. What made me /love it is the sea. The Cove is on a little
outcropping of land, its reknown
the last bastion before the crushing depths beyond.
So 'falling in love with the sea' isn't a joke. It's
and
and
.
I was shocked. Shocked to see it, to smell it, to hear it. It's so bloody inspiring, and frightening.
Phew.
We also visited Halifax Citadel, which was just up the hill from our hotel. We watched the changing of the
guard (the guards there are
);
I wish I had pictures to show you of that in particular, but I don't have any remarkably good ones due to
the fact that some terribly rude folks were hanging around in my view. On the upside, the Citadel was cool.
The whole thing is just like (well, figuratively)
back in the 1700s, with actors dressed up and guys calling out drills & stuff. Pretty spiffy.
On Monday we checked out the
with the help of a
who played the bagpipes for us all the way through (awesome!). After that we made our way over to the Titanic victim
and got a whole whack of extra info on that subject. Interesting to note that they sculpted the grave site
to match the sweep of the Titanic deck; I'd post a picture, but some may think that over-morbid so I'll
spare you.
I then purchased copious amounts of
.
And that was pretty much our trip. OK no, I'm not being entirely honest with you; we did spend one
day sitting in our hotel room discussing the mechanics of dolphin sex while watching Jerry Springer and 4
consecutive episodes of Star Trek TNG. But that's it. Really.
♠ KA
|
News