Monday, July 03, 2006

Reporting in from Halifax

I flew into Halifax Saturday morning. When I got into town from the airport, the street my hotel (the Lord Nelson) is on was closed, there were throngs of people, and I heard pipes. Turned out it was a parade. I found a pub with World Cup on and watched Portugal finish off England with kicks. Too bad I missed the party back home. My Portuguese friends will have been out on St. Clair with flags waving and horns honking. I think this is the farthest they've gone in World Cup play. Oh my God and the mighty Brazil has fallen to France. Wow. So anyway, I had lunch in the pub, washed down with an ale, then a couple more ales. Checked into the hotel and had a little nap after that before walking down to the gallery to set up.

I had the exhibition almost completely set up on Saturday night. Sunday morning, I tweaked it and put labels on the wall, then had quite a bit of the day free. It looked like it was going to storm, but I decided to go for a drive to Halls Harbour on the Bay of Fundy. It's a lovely little hamlet. You can walk along the beach while the tide is coming in - the Bay of Fundy has the biggest tides anywhere. There is also a lobster pound and a weird but good restaurant. To order food, you have to go into the gift shop next door, order and pay, and they give you a number on a stick....you then enter the restaurant, and find a table, leaving your number there so the server can find you. I've never seen anything like that.

Today I did a lot of walking around Halifax. I stopped into an awesome used book store and picked up some reading material. I also stopped into a folklore centre music store. I thought they might have some button accordions I could play. The guy said, sorry, you missed by one province....this is a fiddle town. Go to St. Johns Newfoundland and you'll find loads of accordions. While I was in there, there was a couple asking about piano accordions, and the staff new nothing, so I stopped to talk about what to look for when buying an accordion.

Tuffy P. is coming to town in the morning. We'll be back home Thursday night, and Friday morning, I'll take my computer into the shop and see if they can fix the power problem. Hopefully it will be something simple and cheap, but more likely, it will be something complex and expensive. C'est la vie.

3 comments:

Lola said...

I hope that Canada Day was good for you!

* (asterisk) said...

Computer problems are such a huge pain in the ass, and they make you feel so helpless! It's also really scary how dependent we've all become on the damn things, whether for work or pleasure...

Hope you managed to see the fantastic Italy v Germany match, Mister Anchovy. If not, you missed a gem.

mister anchovy said...

Yes, I enjoyed Canada Day. Beer was involved, and it was good.

I have a bunch of Halifax pictures and I'll post them as soon as my computer at home is back in business.

We didn't see the Italy / Germany match as it was played....but we saw it replayed last night, and we hadn't heard who won, so it was as if we were seeing it live, but in a time warp. I agree, it was a fantastic game, very competetive, very exciting. There is no way I'm going to be able to see Portugal / France, though, and that is too bad. All my neighbours will be gathered in Elson's garage next door, watching, and if Portugal wins, the party will be very big.