Seatt..ly I couldn’t make it to the tournament
So, I had something family related come up last minute and decided to cancel my trip to Seattle, much to the chagrin of some Grand Archive community members. Instead I’m in Newfoundland, CA with my cousin. I must say… This place is absolute gorgeous. I did think Seattle would have been awesome as well, but I think traveling anywhere is always a pleasure. I’ll have a ton of pics of the landscape here as it’s so far removed from the Massachusetts landscape.
Second time in Canada
So last time I was in Canada I was in Toronto for 5 days with my friend Mark and it was really fun. I have some great memories from that trip and it was really nice walking around the city, visiting some cool spots and keeping in mind it’s only a 2.5 hour flight really, I will probably visit it again sometime and maybe drag my cousin along seeing as he’s gonna be living in Newfoundland and it’s only a 3.5 hour flight from Newfoundland to Toronto. I really enjoy traveling to our northern neighbor, regardless of the current political climate. I will say though, when people find out I’m from America, I get a lot of questions about what I think of the current administration and it just ends with us both saying, “yeah it’s really messed up.” a lot. While this is a travel blog, not a political one, it helps to paint the picture of my experience here in Canada.
Heading out; or Sleep is for the Weak
Getting started: I decided I would play in my local card tournament on Friday and arrived to the store, went 0-3 and then hung around for a while. It was already 10pm or so by the time the tournament ended, and I would have had to get up at 2am to prepare for the trip so I decided to stay up and hang out at the store until around midnight. What a mistake. We left for the bus at 2:30am and then got to the airport around 3:30. I’m not sure why we left so early. My experience is that these flights you can usually just leave yourself about an hour to get through security. Even if it’s slammed, they do a good job of getting everyone through pretty quickly. If I’d had an extra hour I probably would have tried to get some sleep. Less than 4 hours just always feels kind of like a waste. Our flight left at 6:10, and I got about 1.5 hours of sleep on the 2.5 hour plane ride. That’s fine, I’ve got a 2 hour layover and can then sleep for another 3.5 hours. At least that’s what I thought…
Our connecting flight got delayed another hour after we landed. So now I had to wait 3 hours before I could go back to sleep. I was practically dying at the airport. I grabbed some avocado toast from which I will never financially recover, and a beer to help me pass the time and hopefully knock me out on the upcoming flight. We had a yipping dog and a crying baby. Thankfully after my Japan trip, I come prepared with a sleep mask and some really nice headphones and earplugs lol.
I think I am going to go back and read all my other blog posts so I don’t keep making the same mistake of not sleeping before the flights. It always feels really bad, but after that one time I almost missed picking up Mark and overslept by a lot, I don’t wanna run the risk. Anyway, onto the fun stuff.
Day 1 – Putting the “Unity” in Community
After we arrived and picked up the rental car, we drove to the hotel to drop off our stuff. Then my cousin gave me a tour of downtown and he grabbed some food at one of his favorite places. Turns out we’re here during “Burger Challenge Week” and every restaurant has a different burger they make for a challenge where people rate them on a website and the highest voted wins. That’s so cool. The sense of community here is absolutely amazing, and I’ll get to that more in a bit. After that we met with my cousin’s friend who works for the coast guard here. What an awesome dude. We went to my cousin’s favorite bar, The Embassy, and it was PACKED. Oh yeah, did I mention it’s also St. Patrick’s Day Weekend???
That’s fine, we walked in, found a table and camped out for like 4 hours just chatting about everything. All the while there was a local band playing live music and everyone was having a blast. They did some really good covers: Bad Moon Rising, Mr. Brightside, etc. but the highlight was they sang this very Newfoundland-y song called something like “I’m an Islander” and the passion for it in the room was palpable. Everyone was stomping, clapping, singing along and man– it really highlights how much the people here love where they live. My cousin put it well when he said, “It’s a tough life during the hard times, and a lot of people don’t like that, so they move away, and the ones that stay, love it.” After both the bands played, we went outside and Colin, my cousin’s friend, played us some of his new band’s music they just recorded. It’s pretty sick. We then bid farewell, went back to the hotel room and fell asleep to Grandma’s Boy (a movie that if you haven’t, you should see) on the TV.
Day 2 – Tour of the Island and Taking Care of Business
I can’t pretend to remember all of the places that we went, as it was a lot to take in. We started the morning a little late, and got some incredible food at the hotel restaurant. I was thoroughly impressed with the dish I got, it was something like eggs on rice with chili crisps, green onions, cabbage and sesame seeds. It’s actually something I had a lot over at my friend’s house so I was really happy they had it. After breakfast he asked me what I wanted to do first and I said, “Let’s go to Signal Hill, I wanna see that place all the coyotes chased you around.”
Signal Hill is a landmark of Newfoundland and very well maintained. It overlooks “The Narrows” which is the point of entry into St. John’s bay. Directly opposite is Fort Amherst. During the great wars, there was a large chain net they would stretch across The Narrows to prevent U-Boats from entering the harbor itself. There were gun mounts for anti-boat and anti-aircraft guns. Newfoundland was an incredibly important port for the Americans to send troops and supplies to England because it was the shortest distance by sea, which exposed them to less open sea warfare. Something where first strike is at a premium, and with the Atlantic being patrolled by U-Boats it was very stressful on resources when things were sunk. There was a placard up there with the amount of souls lost and how many ships during what years. I have pictures of the War Memorial here as well.
The Landscape – Nature’s Majesty
I can’t really put into words how beautiful this island is. The landscape itself, the downtown area, everything. It’s all very quaint and surreal. Everything feels walkable from downtown. The hills are crazy gradation though, so there’s a lot of stairs everywhere.
Some of the places he showed me are his favorite parts of the Island itself, and I can see why. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. Many of these places have names I can’t recall because it was a lot to take in, but I do remember Pouch Cove because I saw the sign when he said “Pooch Cove” and I said, “Oh you mean Pouch” and he’s like, “No” and I realized it’s the same thing with about vs “aboot”. Speaking of, the accent is really interesting here. There’s a heavy Irish influence combined with a very Canadian pacing. They have many of their own words. B’y is short for “Buddy” apparently? Interesting stuff. I like learning local slang. Anyway here’s a bunch of pictures before I wrap this post up.
After Taking the Tour and Moving Boxes
We met up with my cousin’s friend John, who is like, super chill and such an awesome dude. He showed me his significant other’s Darkwave Synth record she put out, which is rad as hell tbh. She did it in like a month. Super impressive, I can’t even make myself stitch a wallet in a month and people be out here making records haha. Anyway, he also gave me a tour of the yard where he has a small garden and has tapped some maple trees for syrup. Then we went back in and he let me try some of his homemade cherry cider. Really good! He explained it’s actually really easy to make. Maybe I’ll make some! I think my brother would appreciate it too.
We went to a local shop where I grabbed a beer and a zipper pull as a souvenir that has utility. Very excited to put it on my bag. The beer I bought was actually really cool. They add a bunch of algae to it and it’s like, green. It was called Skele-Phone and the can glows in the dark! Ended the night buying a burrito at Fat Bastard Burritos, which for a chain was very good, and watched Dazed and Confused.
