Day 3 – 1 night, 3 bars
So, it was St. Patrick’s Day and you know what that means… The Irish spirit was out in full force! We woke up around 10AM and left the room around noon. My cousin was going to meet up with one of his friends from the island around 4, and I was planning on taking a walk around 6:30 to watch the sunset from the other side of the harbor. I went to the St. John’s War Memorial and read all the placards available. They were really interesting. Did you know Labradors have webbed toes?
It was really cloudy by the time I left so I decided I wouldn’t be able to see a decent sunset and skipped it. What a huge mistake that turned out to be. At one point I saw this building that was this beautiful pink color out of the corner of my eye and it was a reflection of the sunset! I was so sad I didn’t get to see it from the other side of the harbor, but it was far too late to start walking. I ended up just going back to the hotel after that.
My cousin and I tried to message each other through PayPal, and it worked on Wifi which is hilarious, but it didn’t work over cell data and I have no idea why lol. I need to figure out a way to have text and voice while I’m overseas. Anyway, he came up to the room with his friend Georgia and then we left shortly thereafter to go to the bar. They made me pick, and knowing nothing, I ended up picking this one, “Kelly’s”. It was super loud in there and we couldn’t hear each other. Georgia’s friend Katie showed up and we told her not to come in lol. We finished our drinks and left.
After that we ended up going to “The Embassy” which was the same place I went day 1. It was quiet enough. We played like 2 games of pool and then went back downstairs for a bit. By this time it was like 11:30PM. The bar had kind of cleared out and we were the only people downstairs. It was apparently open mic night. I kinda wish I could have convinced my cousin to get up there. He’s pretty good at guitar. Instead, Katie was in the middle of a story and the guy up there kept bothering us about what song to play. We asked him to play something and then went back to the story and he got mad after that we ignored him lol, so we just left.
Last bar was “O’Reilly’s” and it was a $10 cover charge for like the last 30 minutes of some band. I danced a bit, had a good time. But like, I really don’t know how to do any traditional kind of dancing so it was a bit embarrassing. Like, it did make me realize I should learn to spin a woman properly at the very least. We did do the “arm lock and spin” thing, which was fun. It did make me realize that like, if you 3 step instead of 2 step, it looks close enough to something traditional and Irish lol. Maybe I’ll take dancing lessons when I get home. I ended up chatting with Katie until about 3AM and by the time I got back to the hotel my cousin was fast asleep. I don’t blame him. Long night!
Day 4 – Beach Fire
Okay, this part is actually cool. So my cousin’s friend and his significant other (I don’t know their status) suggested a “Boil Up” which is when you go to the beach, light a fire and cook food. What an amazing idea! We went to this place called “Beachy Cove” which was incredible, pics below. There was a natural waterfall that was roaring with all the snow melt. If it hadn’t been overcast, there would have been a gorgeous sunset since the cove faces pretty well to the West toward Bell Island. The cove itself has an incredibly sheltered rock structure and we got a good spot for the boil up early. After about 30 minutes like 6 more families rolled in to enjoy it too. We had bought some sausages at Sobey’s and some souvlaki kabobs. I wish I had been more hungry! I’ll say, this new medication I’m on really suppresses my appetite. I don’t eat nearly as much as I used to and it’s both a blessing and a curse since I’m always “saving it for later”. I will be ordering less food from now on.
The fire was amazing, we found this really nice spot sheltered off to the side and everyone agreed it was the best fire they’d ever had down there due to the spot. Now we know for next time! I don’t think words can do it justice so I’m just gonna post some pics of it.
We started the fire at like 4:30 and ended around 9. It was such a good time, and we talked a lot about the political climate both in CA and USA. It was actually quite interesting to get a really in-depth perspective about someone who has lived in NL most of their life. After the fire, we had to cross the river back to get home and rather than jump on a bunch of rocks in the dark, I took my shoes and socks off, rolled up my pants and forded the shallow part. The current wasn’t too bad, so I wasn’t concerned but oh my God was it cold! I used my gloves to dry my feet, put my socks back on and then we went back to the hotel to wind down.
Day 5 – WTF ITS 1:30 AM
Day 5 was pretty uneventful. We needed to take it easy as I’ve been coughing and had chills on the night of the 4th. Woke up kind of late and Ethan needed to take care of some paperwork so I thought I’d go do my laundry at the local coin-op. Turns out there IS NO LOCAL COIN-OP! Closest one was like 2km away and an Uber would have been like 17 CAD. I’m not paying like $30 to do laundry. So I stopped by the laundry service place near me and they said soonest they could have it was next day at 3PM. I said, “You have like 9 washing machines and they’re all empty, I don’t need it folded, I can’t get it in like 3 hours or maybe even at like 11AM? “No”. Welp. So I came back to the hotel ready to get raked over the coals for their services and they said the same thing lmao. I was about to resign myself to dirty clothes for the rest of the trip. Turns out the AirBnB (Yes, I know, I should not be using AirBnB) has a washer/dryer and they even left me some detergent. What a gracious host! I’m gonna make sure that place is immaculate before I leave.
Anyway… After Ethan got back, we grabbed a beer at a local taphouse and it was nice. We had tried to go there day 1 but it was jam packed, so I’m glad we got to go. Then we went for Sushi Island at this all-you-can-eat place. Ethan had actually worked with the owner for a while so we all chatted for a while. We didn’t eat a lot so he cancelled the all you can eat and just charged us individually lol. It saved us like $20 so it was super nice of him. The food was incredible and I highly recommend checking it out. They also have these insanely cute cat robots that bring your order to you!!! I’m actually going back today for lunch haha. If I get a better pic of the cat bot, I’ll upload it here :3
Ok, so the title of this part is because after we had sushi we went back to the room to watch LoTR and hang out. Around 10PM we went to Fat Bastard Burritos (also really good) and then got back and finished the movie. Ethan fell asleep and the movie ended at like 12:30AM. I was still up so I put on Bo Burnham’s “Inside”, which I hadn’t seen in a while. It still holds up.
Then at 1:30AM there’s all this banging and screaming in the hallway and people running around and yelling. I have NO idea what was happening but it was loud as hell and really disconcerting. I think someone was like, trying to get someone else to go out to the bar or they were like, cheating and this person found the room or something but there was like a ton of screaming and it was horrible. This went on for like 5 minutes, then stopped. Then 5 minutes later they were back at it again but worse. Then some dude comes out and she’s screaming at him about ruining everything, then she goes back to pounding on the door. Then there’s a bunch of yelling from the dude about “I got her” and then a bunch running up and down the hall. They were clearly not in their right mind, so I wasn’t gonna add to it with commentary or cops, but man I was so mad. Legit what the fuck is wrong with people.
Anyway, I’m writing this on Day 6 right now after getting pretty mediocre sleep because of this bullshit. I really should be more liberal with my earplugs. We’re checking out of the hotel today and then headed south!
