Baccalieuie Louie and a Killer Sushi Roll

Good morning and a happy Saturday to you all! Once again I am starting my day working in the office. Only been here 20 min so far so there are no big shakes. Of course, other than the washing machine, which was repaired and then crapped out again. Don't know when a repairman will finally get here so there will be another trip to the laundromat today. Fortunately it will be one of the other helpers who will go but it is still a pain because we have beds that need to be turned over and we don't have the sheets to do so as of yet. I will miss a lot of things about this place but laundry is one thing that I will be glad to be done with. Of course, the washer at the Skerwink hostel is still busted, from what I hear, so I guess we will have to contend with it once we are there but it's a much less hectic place so it won't be nearly the inconvenience that it is here.

 So, even though it's only been a few days since my last post, we have done quite a bit. We were off on Thursday and the weather was glorious so we hit the road, taking in the Baccalieu Trail, which is the larger of two northern peninsulas on the big Avalon Peninsula. It was a perfect day for a drive even though we did get to a late start and did not get on the road until noon or so. Took the TCH over and started the drive on the far side. This took us through many cool and quaint little fishing villages on the east side of Trinity Bay, including the unfortunate-but-hilariously-named Dildo. Legend has it that it was named by Captain James Cook because it looked particularly phallic. Then again, that can be said about any of the thousand or so peninsulas that jut out from this island. It was a nice little picturesque harbor. We popped into the museum and had a look around. Krissy says it wasn't worth it and she might be right but it's always nice to see the stories and artifacts from these little coastal communities. Of course, much of those stories read the same way - fish, fish, fish, shipwreck, fish, fish, fish, and they all end with the 1992 cod moratorium and the destruction of the fishing industry and the hard times that follow. This, of course, is not to trivialize it; it's a sad, unfortunate fate. And it is something that we have seen, time and time again, in all the various communities we have visited. After a while, I will admit, it becomes so expected that perhaps the museum visit isn't altogether necessary. But still rewarding, I suppose.

A small dock in Dildo.

This man is Captain Dildo and this is his squid.  You can't make this stuff up.

The town of Dildo.

See?  I told you I wasn't making this up.

A couple of lobster pots on the shores of Whiteway.

A piece of the harbour at Whiteway with Shag Rock in the background.

From there, you find a string of communities, all in a row - Heart's Desire, Heart's Delight, and Heart's Content. I am not making this up. They are all typical Newfoundland villages and I am sure each one has a museum and a story to tell but we did not stop in the villages. We did stop at a particularly lush field, somewhere between two of the Heart's, where we frolicked around and scrambled on rocks and took in the coast. While sitting in the field I realized that we were surrounded by wild strawberries. You see, in the Summertime, berries grow in the wild all over Newfoundland but this was our first time seeing them up close and personal. So we sat for a while and ate strawberries and even though they were tiny (often not much bigger than a blueberry) they were the best strawberries I ever had in my life. So incredibly sweet. I want to drive around with a bucket. Even though it would take forever to fill the bucket the resulting strawberry shortcake would be the greatest in the known world.

So many wildflowers here.  And hidden within this beautiful mess....wild berries.

Lush grass, blue water, clearing skies....perfect.

Hans, chuckin' stones.

Yet another piece of the amazing coastal scenery in Heart's Desire.

Wild strawberries.  Tiny but the most delicious things in the world.

They make me very, very happy.

 From there we visited a lighthouse, in Heart's Content. In stark contrast to the lighthouse we visited in the last blog post, this was the most adorable little barber-pole/candy-cane of a lighthouse. It sits high on a rock but it is easy to climb down the cliff, at least part of it, for some amazing vistas. There was a lush patch of long, soft, wavy grass and I laid down there for a while and just enjoyed the fresh smell and the sound of the sea. If we had more time, I could have stayed there all day. But we needed to move along since it was already late in the afternoon.

Heart's Content Lighthouse, against a beautiful blue sky.

If you look closely you will see me down there, lounging in the grass.  I got a few little spiders on me but it was worth it, to kick back in the most comfortable spot ever.

Sometimes the flowers grow in fields.  Sometimes a rogue sprouts right up from the cracks in the rock.

Krissy is happy to be in such a beautiful spot.

We wound further up the coast through various villages including Old Perlican, which is home to Kent, our buddy from the Skerwink hostel. We made it to the top of the peninsula in a place called Grates Cove which is yet another old fishing community that sits proudly in its little harbor. Krissy went exploring with her camera to find breathtaking sceney as well as a reconstructed fishing stage, which provides even further understanding of how life was way back when. While she was doing that I sat up at the top of the cove and enjoyed the silence. While such a silence could eventually drive someone mad I quite enjoyed it. I mean, I do enjoy the sounds of the city, of cars and people, the chatter of passers-by and seagulls alike. There is something soothing about that, at least way deep down. But the quiet?  Brilliant.

Grate's Cove

The remnants of the old stone walls in Grate's Cove.

This pile of old rusty anchors pretty much says it all.

The coast of Grate's Cove, with their tiny little lighthouse on the tip.

A detail of some of the buildings in Grate's Cove.  This is very typical of a Newfoundland coastal village.

The NL flag flies proudly (albeit backwards) in Grate's Cove.

The outside of one of the old fishing stages.

The restored interior of said fishing stage.

The window to the world.

Good old jagged coastline.

 From there we made our way down the other side of the peninsula. A little quicker than before since it was already after 5:00 and we had a long ways to go. Stopped in Carbonear, which is the closest thing to a "big town" on the peninsula and popped into a mall and I finally found a new pair of shoes which is far more exciting than it sounds. While we were driving out there was a carnival running so we stopped and walked around. Being a small town this was clearly the most exciting thing going on so pretty much the entire town was there. We decided to skip the lines and the pricey tickets and we headed out, making this the second time we visited a carnival on this trip without actually participating. Which is fine. It's the same carnie company that tours back home so it's nothing we haven't seen before or won't see again. That was pretty much our last stop of the day.

High-tailed it back to St. John's and crashed out pretty hard. It was well-earned after driving about 200 miles or so. It was a good day. Woke up yesterday and had work to do. Krissy opened up the office and I dealt with the cleaning. It rained all morning which was a bit of a bummer but it cooled this place off so that was nice. Being that we only have a week left in St. John's, and there is so much that we still need to do, we compiled a list the other day. So the afternoon/evening was spent checking various things off that list.

Our first stop was the Anglican Cathedral Of St. John the Baptist. Every afternoon they serve high tea in the crypt. It was pretty cool. Being that it is a crypt, I was kind of hoping for a creepier setting but instead it was bright and painted, with tables and doilies and all that other stuff that goes with high tea. The tea itself was excellent and they brought us a few plates of scones, breads, pastries, tarts, etc. Many of the things they brought were delicious. Some of them were weird. Our only problem was that, unlike some other high teas that we have been to, this one did not offer little sandwiches, or anything savory. It was all sweet. Which means that, by the end of it all, we both felt kinda gross.

Hans gets all proper-like in the crypt.

Krissy loves her tea.

From there we visited the Newman Wine Vaults. Once upon a time, wine - port, in particular - was a big export from this area and there were many vaults and cellars built around the city to house it all. The Newman family was the big name and they occupied this particular vault until booze came under stricter government control and it was all moved to a more modern facility. There wasn't much to the vaults but I still enjoyed being in there and I thought about how cool it would be to set up and play inside one of those places. The acoustics would be fantastic. We got to sample some of the port which was awesome. I am not a wine drinker but I appreciate port wines. It's like boozy liquid candy. And it was even better for being free.

The cavernous Newman Wine Vault.

No, those barrels don't still have wine in them.

After that we headed over to Quidi Vidi, to visit the brewery but they were about to close up so we just drove past and made a note to try again today, or sometime before we leave. Our next stop, after popping by the hostel to change and grab some things, was to Signal Hill, to see a performance of "All's Well That Ends Well". You may remember me mentioning about a local Shakespeare festval that is running all summer. We had previously seen "Taming Of The Shrew" in the park a few weeks ago and picked up tickets for the "All's Well" while we were there. Given that it was a paid performance, it was much much better than the performance we saw before. It was performed outside and they made great use of the natural scenery. While few of the actors were particularly "Shakespearean" some of them were quite good, especially the guy who played Parolles. That dude was a trip and I would love to see him in something else someday. It was a bit windy and chilly up on the hill and the crowd was quite thin but it was a great time. It threatened rain while we were there but we didn't get much more than a little moisture in the air.

We were a bit starved after that so we went to Sun Sushi for dinner. Now, I don't know if it is because we have been in Newfoundland for so long that we've forgotten what good sushi tastes like but that place was spectacular. I got a teriyaki chicken roll and Krissy got a spicy mushroom roll and then we split something called the Newfoundland roll which had all kinds of stuff going on. Very delicious, and excellent spring rolls too. The place is not cheap but it's worth it. We will definitely be going there again. Possibly even today.

On the way to the car, I popped back in to Fred's and picked up both of Sherman Downie's CDs. After my rant the other night about how awesome he is and how much you guys need to check him out I figured I probably should own some of his music, rather than getting it all on YouTube. I'm looking very forward to listening to those many, many times. When we were driving the Baccalieu Loop the other day we listened to all of the CDs I bought at Fred's on Wednesday. They were all very, very good. The big winner for me was the album by Rogues. It's that perfect blend of Celtic and not-Celtic and is very upbeat with great songwriting. Again, if you haven't checked them out yet, you should. They are actually playing tonight at the Levee but it won't be until very very late and I doubt that I will have it in me to go but we'll see.  Stay tuned to the next blog for the answer to that.  We also picked up a cheapo live Leonard Cohen album because we really need to know that man's music more. A national treasure in all parts of Canada, we definitely feel like we are missing something by only knowing him for his biggest hits. That is an issue that shall soon be remedied.

Came back to the hostel and spent the evening in the parlour playing Apples to Apples with Felix, Martin, and Stefan. Had a couple of beers and shot the bull and it was a good time. The one downside (and it's not really a bummer) to having our own room is that it is too easy to sink into our sanctuary which leaves us far less sociable than when we were at Skerwink. While it is nice to have that, and I would not trade it for anything, we also always have a great time when we do hang out. Hopefully we will do more of that over the next week or so.

And that pretty much brings us up to date. I'm halfway through my office shift and it is another rainy day in St. John's. Our plans today are mostly contingent on how long the rain lasts but I imagine that the day will end up taking us to the Quidi Vidi brewery, the Johnson Geo Centre, and maybe dinner at Yellowbelly and some music perhaps. If it dries out perhaps we will go to Pippy Park and see the botanical gardens and Fluvarium. Those are all on the list. We will get to them at some point in the next week. Stay tuned to the next blog for further tales.

Lastly, before I go, I want to pay tribute to my old friend Maureen Wolf, who passed away yesterday after a long and difficult battle with cancer. I worked with Maureen at Baskin-Robbins for many years, all throughout high-school and part of college and she was always great fun. During that time I was very close to her family and she was always like an awesome cousin to me, or something. She was ten years older than us and she made us feel grown up while we made her feel young...we just met in the middle and had us a time, all the time. My heart goes out to every member of her family and I will surely miss her a great deal. But she is at peace now and is no longer suffering, and that is comforting for all involved. RIP Mo.