Thursday, April 26, 2007

Leaving in less than a week

Hello folks!

So I'm starting to feel the fever! On Wednesday my good pal Romeo and I will be flying to Halifax, Nova Scotia. We've booked two beds in an 8-bed mixed dorm at some hostel in the city, five minutes north of the downtown core and close to the waterfront. I have a newfound interest in waterfronts thanks to my current paper on waterfront revitalization. Anyway.

The prospect of staying in a hostel, meeting international laid back hippies, drinking beer and figuring out public transportation gets me giddy. But it'll be much different than the traveling crowd I encountered in Israel and Asia, I imagine. Maybe I'm wrong. And everything will be English, which takes some of the fun out of it. And it's my very own country, which adds a bit of fun... who knows the kinds of fun I'll encounter. We went with this five minute away hostel because of its 100% fun rating on hostels.com. Fun!

We're going to spend a day or so in Halifax before hitting the road in a rental car (note to self: better find out more about rental cars) and heading for Cape Breton where the nature is reputedly swell. Then we'll drive to New Glascow, a little town where old residence floormate and good friend Jackie makes her home. It's been something like three years since I've seen that girl. Wow. We'll drive into PEI and Romeo will stock up on all things Anne, before we return to Halifax in time to catch our flight to Newfoundland. Here we have a hostel booked too, but I forgot to check the fun rating. It must be good. I hear Newfoundlanders are the friendliest and have the most sex. Interesting.

I saw a commercial for Newfoundland just last night. In it people were dancing a jig to fiddles. I hope our hostel is in close proximity to a community centre.

I wonder if it'll be funny (funny-strange, not funny-ha ha, though it's guaranteed to be funny-ha ha) to travel with a boy after all my girl-on-girl traveling days. Romeo says it will be. Why? Because he can pee anywhere!!!

1 Comments:

At May 02, 2007 11:11 a.m. , Blogger Kiran said...

halifax is an awesome city...clean and nice. if you're staying at the barrington street hostel...that's where i go, you'll have a good time. it's close to everything.

1. make sure you wander through all the old houses to fort massey cemetary...old headstones...across the little bridge over the train tracks and past the docks to point pleasant park...there's an old military fort there, that's crumbling and boarded up but you can climb in.

2. ask the hostel and take the bus to the titanic graves a little ways outside of the city. you can see a grave with the name "jack dawson." james cameron visited this cemetery while writing the script for titanic and named leo's character after this grave. nothing else is really known about the person who lies here.

3. make sure you check out the historic properties. if jj rossy's bar is still there, that's always a good time. they have different drink specials depending on the hour. a bell rings...9pm-10pm $1 shooters...a bell rings 10pm-11pm $2 highballs...and so on...

4. the lowerdeck bar on the waterfront is a wild maritime bar, with wooden picnic benches, live music...bang your frothy pints together and dancea jig.

5. the liquor dome is not to be missed. five or so separate bars all connected by a giant domed room...it gets confusing when you're drunk and it's packed, lots of fun

6. of course, go see the clock tower and the fort on the hill

7. the waterfront is beautiful, walking along the boardwalk...look for hundreds of tiny ball shaped jelly-fish that get washed up into the rocks and the cool sculpture, called "the wave"

8. "your father's moustache" is a good place for eats off the waterfront...

9. "the economy shoe shop" is a famous little place for breakfast just off barrington in downtown

halifax is definitely walkable. you won't need much public transit once you get your bearings. it's a small city.

10. i highly highly highly recommend you find a way to take the lighthouse route to peggy's cove, which is one of the most picturesque and photographed places in canada. it is excellent. bring a post card or buy one there, as during the summer, the lighthouse is also a post office and you can mail letters with a peggy's cove post office stamp.

these are just some of my memories of halifax. i love it! hope you do too.

feel free to ask me any questions, i've been to the city 5 times...

 

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