A quick recap

Last night, after an 18-ish hour drive, the hard working duo of Dave and El Jefe pulled into Quebec City. The not-so-hard-working duo of Gabby and Bowen sat stiff in the front seat, piled on top of one another trying to stay warm in a frigid car (there was cold air blasting in the car to keep the driver awake and on the lookout for those damned moose).

We're about to set out AGAIN on the road to Montreal for a couple days so I have to be quick:

Seal flipper pie was extraordinarily good, better than I thought. My camera died so I couldn't take a snapshot of the food. It was served kind of as a stew, with root vegetables and other veggies, along with homemade Newfoundland pastry. Yum.

We were supposed to leave on the 20th but that was a Fail. The rain kept pouring, making it difficult to pack the trailer and the wind picked up, causing concern that the weather conditions would be too dangerous to drive in. We decided to leave on the 21st instead.

At 5 in the morning on the 21st, we woke up and stood at our bedroom window, staring at our view of the Narrows for the last time. The fog obscured the view of Signal Hill a bit and looked gloomy and sleepy, just like us. It was emotional and hard to say good bye.

Newfoundland is HUGE. I'd done the drive before with Dave last January (in the opposite direction) but I'd forgotten how huge and boring Newfoundland is to drive through. The east coast and west coast are both stunning, with vistas to make you gasp and clap your hand to your mouth with wonder but that whole in between bit? 14 hours of yawns.

We took the overnight ferry at Port-au-Basques on The Caribou after a Newfoundland dinner of pan-fried cod and pea soup. David (who is Quebecois and is very proud of the Quebec pea soup with its whole peas) grudgingly admitted that the Newfoundland pea soup with its salted pork and split peas was quite excellent.

The next morning we arrived at North Sydney, Nova Scotia. Hauling our grumpy and long suffering dog with us, we drove another 10ish hours down to West Green Harbour, Nova Scotia, where David's parents have a cute little house on the South Shore. It was so lovely, I'll talk about it more later to better give it justice. Plus, there is a nice little story about a dog stealing and eating an entire salami to recall.

We were so tired from the journey that we decided to stay an extra night and relax by the sea. It was worth it.

Yesterday morning, we got up at 5am again and set off....

Here we are. 4 days later and we've barely managed to make it out of the Maritime provinces. I've only just realized what a huge adventure we've set out on.

Uh-oh! I'm being called to the truck! See you later!

WE'RE MOVING??? PT. 2

All too quickly moving day has arrived. After a series of pleasant/cloudy weather days, it has started pouring rain. And I mean pouring. The rain started to fall pretty much as soon as Dave pulled the U-Haul trailer up to the curb. Rivers of water are flowing down the hills, making for soggy cardboard boxes and rain-stained glasses. The dog is soaked and stressed, and getting in the way. It is a very sad day.

We had a fun weekend... the Junos were in town. 100s of bands played in various venues and you were granted access to whatever show you wanted to see with a little blue bracelet. Well, whatever band managed to make it into St. John's... fog and ash seem to be wreaking havoc with flights this weekend. While Dave was at the sessions, I took advantage of a few of the bands: on Friday I saw Duane Andrews, The Subtitles, and Alex Cuba at Dusk. After that, I met up with Dave and the boys at Yellow Belly for the Dardanelles. On Saturday I went to The Ship and saw Mercy The Sexton and Amy Millan, followed by The Dardanelles again at Green Sleeves. Of course, interspersed with these bands, I caught a bit of the Irish music sessions. Dave also played a gig at Nautical Nellie's on Sunday. That night, I had one of the best restaurant meals I've had in a very long time at The Cellar with Dave and Graham. I ordered the special (following the wonderful appetizer of oysters): a tenderloin with a blue cheese sauce, quail coated in coffee grounds, beet and red pepper salad, horseradish mashed potatoes, and asparagus.  The quail was RIDICULOUS. Everything was amazing but the quail changed my life, it was so good.

Tonight, there is a get-together of musicians for seal flipper pie. As well, Dave's making a tortiere to bring to the dinner. I can't wait. Seal flipper pie is something of a tradition here, a must-try. Well, as long as there are no claws.

I didn't get to spend too much time here in St. John's and most of that time was spent living sort-of vicariously through Dave's social life, but I'm so glad that I got a chance to be here. The people are so lovely, like nobody else in the country. The town is small but there is immense charm in that. I know Dave's gutted to leave, he's made some wonderful friends who in turn have been wonderful to me.

WE'RE MOVING???

The tragedy of a dirty camera lens

At some point, I will have to a) get my camera cleaned, b) buy some quality lenses, and c) learn how to use Photoshop to edit my pictures to make it look like I have a clean camera. Anyway, this is the view from our balcony showcasing the many faces of St. John's. Most of these were actually taken on the same day.

Trad Irish rock star playing at The Ship tonight at 9:30pm Newfoundland Time - BE THERE

David is a rock star now

Hi all. My (two) voracious readers have requested that I update this blog... I'm embarrassed to have neglected it! Here it is, an update:

The truth is that there isn't much to say. I had a quiet week what with Dave off recording a traditional Irish music album. He has been quite hilarious this week. With him gone much of the day and then him strutting around the apartment proclaiming that he's a rock star and then Irish music blaring through the apartment at full volume, I haven't had much help in terms of packing (read: any). haha. And then the dog was just so demanding of my time that I didn't get much packing done...

Actually, I did a bunch of reading this week. I read the first couple of chapters of my Vertebrates Comparative Anatomy textbook, a lot of articles in the dozens of New Yorkers we have lying around (that I'm using to pack our kitchen wares in... it's easy to get distracted by interesting articles when you are packing with them!), and A Confederacy of Dunces. A Confederacy of Dunces, if you haven't heard of it, is a novel by John Kennedy Toole about an extraordinary man set in 1960s New Orleans. It is hilarious. I rarely vocalize while reading but I was in tears from laughing so hard, it was just that hysterical.

(By the way, I'm not THAT big of a nerd, I'm reading a textbook because it appears that I will be heading back to school in the fall and I'm reviewing what I've forgotten for some classes.)

Apart from that... we've been battling mice. There doesn't seem to be a single house in all of St. John's that doesn't have a problem with mice but that fact doesn't do much to placate me. We were informed that it's mating season, which explains the increased activity and noise in the walls. They are too smart to enter the mouse trap that we set up and are brazen enough to walk across the living room while we are sitting on the couch. ugh. If St. John's really has that big of a mouse problem, someone should set up a cat-rental service with some good mousers. I'd rent a cat for a few days. We've had to transfer most of our foods into heavy-duty tupperware containers but the other day, we most tragically lost a bag of rye flour. David was quite doleful for a while. The dog of course, pays no attention to these rodents. In fact, he seems to get in my way whenever I'm searching for the mice, making funny noises and sticking his face into mine. Dave and I have come to the conclusion that he's in cahoots with the damn things.

C'est tout pour l'instant.

It's begun

I'd been trying to do it as tidily and discretely as possible but now it is impossible to ignore the evidence all around us.

Boxes, boxes, boxes. We are starting to swim in boxes. We're definitely moving now! It's the two week countdown. It's kind of scary. I've never attempted a move on this scale before, with so much stuff and hauling it over such a great distance. It's also a bit depressing. It doesn't feel like this is our home anymore. Just a giant storage space for our boxes.