Newfie-land

"Welcome to the Rock"

So as some of you folk may know, I recently went away for a week to Newfoundland. A good friend of mine from home worked in Africa for a few years at a college, and met this Newfoundlander gal there (of all places), and they got married! I stood up in the wedding as the best man, and since my parents were also good friends with theirs, they came too.

It was a fun trip... here are some highlights:

St. John's:

I flew in to St. John's late Saturday morning (early?) without a hitch. After getting some much needed sleep, my parents and I decided to explore the city. We visited signal hill, a pretty neat site outside of the harbour, where the first wireless signal was sent across the Atlantic (such a nerdy family):

Standing on signal hill, St. John's. Coolness tip: my "hands in the pockets" stance.

Later that day, we went whale watching. There were a bazillion whales, and I was kind of hoping one would jump out of the water and eat another jumping whale, but it just didn't happen. We were lucky to see so many, and saw some porpoises (dolphins) as well. I tried to capture them on film, but the combination of my slow camera and their breakneck speed made that incredibly difficult:

This is a whale. Well... its tail. To my surprise they didn't jump all the way out of the water or eat each other.

We also toured the city, and visited George Street, allegedly the place in the world with the most pubs per square foot. I maintain that Hess Village in Hamilton would give that a run for its money, but we enjoyed the atmosphere, great folksy music, and some good food and drink.

Cape Bonavista:

After visiting St. John's, we traveled through many small villages and towns along the coast up to Cape Bonavista. We visited local museums, and stayed at a Bed and Breakfast in a place called Harbour Grace. To our surpise, in this town of probably a couple hundred, Stockwell Day was coming to this very Bed and Breakfast that evening for a press conference to discuss a possible prison build that was promised to the town in the 80's. After the moratorium on cod fishing in the '90s, many Newfoundlanders had lost their livelihood, and towns like this struggled to survive economically:

Fishing village. Probably mostly shrimp and crab in this place.

After a long day of mulling whether or not to pie Stockwell Day in the face, interspersed with enjoying the coastal scenery, I had to decide against such a noble charade for the sake of the town, and not getting a record for assaulting the Minister of Public Safety. We had a chat before his presentation, he seemed like a decent guy, but he is still a lil' bit evil for writing a letter to the Wall Street Journal condemning Canada's decision to not go to war in Iraq in 2003:

My Dad and I with Stockwell Day, whom I was tempted to pie in the face.

Lewisporte and the Wedding:

The wedding was a lot of fun. The guys had a bit of running around to do, but things weren't bad, and we managed to enjoy the driving range. All of us aren't golfers, but it was fun to whack our balls. Ha:

Bobby (L, groomsman) and Andrew (R, groom)

Things went pretty smooth with the wedding. Ceremony went well, lots of good food and stuff, and I did a speech. Usual wedding fare I suppose, and a really good time.

Twillingate:

Allegedly the iceberg capital of the world, and known for whales, we saw neither in Twillingate. I guess it was just bad timing, but we actually managed to spot an iceberg along the way in our travels, and we got our fill of whales in St. John's. It was a beautiful town, and we enjoyed a hilarious dinner theatre that was put on by the locals - a home cooked meal with lots of crazy Newfie skits, probably one of the funniest things I have ever seen... i highly recommend it.

Probably the iceberg that sunk the Titanic.

Twillingate at Twilling-ight..

Conclusion:

So this is kind of a long post. In conclusion, Newfoundland is pretty neat. A lot of the small towns are neat to see, but they are hurting for tourism as the closing of fisheries has devastated many communities. This means you kind of get some makeshift museums in 50-person villages that are a bit lacking in substance, and towns promoting themselves as things like 'the root cellar capital of the world'. A lot of young people seem to leave or go to St. John's. I didn't notice too many of them. It was still a great time though, Newfies are friendly if you can understand what the heck it is they are saying, and if you avoid to pick up their accent, you are lucky. I think I would really enjoy going to St. John's again, and if you love nature or seafood like myself, then the Rock is pretty awesome-sauce:

The most easterly point of th'Americas. East is relative anymore these days.

Another picture, from a camera. This one is in colour.