We're off for a few days

We're trundling over to Kejimkujik for a few days.

Unlikely to have internet connection, so will have to update when I get back.

Ciao.

Day 9: Rest+

• Returned to Halifax for the day, to see what we could see (see see)
• Been here over a week, still not used to all these damn polite people.
• We saw more sun (which still hasn't managed to hospitalise me)
• Spent most of the day sitting in various patches of shade, drinking milkshakes and the like.
• Heard a local spout the wisdom "The only pastry I like is donuts". Indeed.

• Took Jon and Cathy to the airport, stopped at Dairy queen on the way for another round of oversized icecream. 
• Jon impressively managed to eat a full pot of icecream whilst driving.

• Went to the store to buy some tea, James went for the sensible choice of pasta and a fruit salad, I opted for lucky charms.

• Spent the evening programming, attempting to solve some ridiculous maths problem.

Day 8: Rest

• Shattered after rafting, 
• Day mainly spent loafing about the house, complaining about the heat

• Decided to go for a light breakfast in town somewhere, got directed to a place called Smitty's
• Far too much food.
• Didn't have a camera, so couldn't take picture of the largest stack of nachos ever, and James' look of disbelief that this was the 'half nachos'
• Actually heard the waitress say "oh my god that's a lot of food"
• James declares that his "life is a joke" due his apparent inability to order small portions of food, despite his best efforts.
• His dessert of a tyre sized waffle arrives, I'm inclined to agree with him.
• James broke down completely and resorted to moo-ing at me, in an attempt to describe his desire to eat at the ice cream shop known as Cows.

Day 7: The Raft-ening

• Bit seriously behind on the blog updates now, surprisingly difficult to write a few hundred words a day.

• Day 7 was the day we chose to go tidal bore rafting, in which we clamber onto a rib and ride the highest tides in the world.
• Couldn't take my camera, for fairly obvious reasons, so no pictures I'm afraid.
• James got soaked, I managed to say dry for some reason, even though I was sat opposite him at the front of the boat.
• Wasn't so dry when I decided to go for a swim. Attempted to lower myself graciously off the side of the boat, but forgot to account for the fact that I was wearing trainers. Went straight under.
• Getting back in the boat was a similar problem, not my most graceful moment.
• Took all eight of us on the raft to drag a rather hefty kid back in after he'd gone swimming. For more information, see the previous posts on portion size, or tune in later for details about 'the doubledown'

• After the rafting was something called mudsliding.
• It wasn't for me.
• Looked to be as much fun as a really dirty slide.

• Pretty hungry after the rafting, we returned to the car and hunted out some quick food. We found a KFC, and it was herein where we discovered  'the doubledown'
• For this 'burger', KFC decided to forgo the use of bread, and opted instead to use two pieces of battered chicken. This was wrapped around bacon, cheese, sauce, 500 calories and a higher sodium content than the recommended daily allowance.

Day 6: Moon Town

• Started the day off well with two mugs of espresso, courtesy of the kind Italian neighbors.

• Successfully tamed the automatic car, arrived at a seaside town called Lunenburg.
• Spent a good while trying to find a place to eat that served something other than lobster, chowder, or lobster chowder.
• Hit up a local distiller, where James sampled most of what they had to offer. I stayed sober in order to successfully outwit the automatic car on the way home.

• Rolled up at Mahone bay to continue searching for pistachio ice cream.

• We retired to a cafe after an unsuccessful hunt and James once again manages to order far too much food. After a crepe the size of a pillow shows up, containing roughly 4 full bananas a small thickets worth of maple syrup, I decide to take a picture (included below for posterity).
• Showed James the picture, who immediately asked "Is that me?". The hordes of other people sitting opposite me in stripy tops, eating crepes soon asked me the same question.
• I ordered a homemade lemonade, which contained a suspicious amount of limes.

• Ate what was widely regarded as the best sushi ever. Planning immediately begins on how to sufficiently rub this is to people at home.
• The only thing to sully the night was my discovery of a piece of cucumber in my glass of water. I was horrified, rightfully so. James felt otherwise, which sparked a debate on the questionable evils of cucumber.
• Seeing as I run this blog, I feel comfortable in announcing that I was correct. Still, we have various double blind experiments planned to test this.

Interlude: Canadian milk storage methods.

This post is mainly for the benefit of Dave, who asked about the logistics of storing milk in bags. I don't blame him, it makes no sense.

The first picture shows the milk in it's natural state. Bagged. It is at rest here, but should still not be trusted.


Now how should we deal with this strange abomination you ask? How shall we extract the milk? Good question.

We cut the corner off.

Now the next problem that presents itself is that we have two litres of milk in a polythene sack with no structure, and it now has a hole in the side. Hence the following solution:



Place the bag into a jug.

No, don't pour the milk into the jug, actually wrestle the flacid bag into the jug. Then leave it there.

A strange situation, I'm sure you'll agree. The whole thing seems pretty backwards. Made even more confusing by the fact that preliminary explorations made James and myself have show that milk CAN be purchased in a carton. People just choose to live this way.

(For extra points, you could have noticed that in the first picture, there is a contraption in the fridge known as the Milk Bag organiser, bearing the slogan "Finally, a milk bag organiser!")

Day 5: Day of the '-eries'

• Day started as a trip to go to a 'U-Pick' for strawberries.
• Found two wineries instead (they seem adverse to the term vinyard), awesome wine. Contemplated spending all my funds on wine, opted for a smaller amount of bottles instead.
• Next stop was a cheesery (may have actually been called a fromagerie)
• James found pistachio icecream at aforementioned shop. Had to buy it in accordance with his pact. Only problem was, they only had it in half litres, and there was no way to store it in the 30 degree car.
• 20 minutes later and James has eaten .5l of pistachio gelato, states that "he has felt better"

• In other news, you can customise your reg plates for your car here. As a fan of the work of A.A.Milne, one of the neighbours has opted for the plate of POOHFAN
• Cathy informed me and James that scented deoderant and perfumes are banned here in schools and work places due to allergies. Strange place. "No sense in scents" is the tagline they use, apparently.

Day 4: The Drive

• First foray into the world of automatic cars. Completely different to driving a manual. Not sure why I thought otherwise.
• Nearly put James through the windscreen when I set off and tried to put my clutch in.
• Made it to Peggys Cove, featuring the most photographed lighthouse in Canada. James figures this is because Canada musn't have many lighthouses.
• Strange signs at Peggys Cove, telling us we should be jealous of the fog. Bit strange.

• Waved at a lonely looking tour guide, James thought it was a bit weird.
• Got given what I was told was tartare sauce with my meal. Tasted suspiciously like Big Mac sauce. Pretty sure it was Big Mac sauce.

• Ridiculous amount of adverts on Canadian TV.
• In the course of this ridiculous amount of adverts, I learnt that they serve a quad XL bacon double cheeseburger at burgerking. Also that the Canadian Prostate Cancer society has the tagline of "We're behind your behind".

• First purchase at Tim Hortons that resulted in me getting the coffee I asked for. Every other day has resulted in them first thinking I asked for an "Ice Cap" and then me agreeing to whatever they offered the second time they misheard me.
• Black Coffee seems to be the way forward.

Day 3: Canada Day

• Went on a brewery tour. Claimed to be serving IPA. Bit of a stretch.
• Exceedingly warm.
• Plenty of patriotism, good to see it in a form that doesn't involve beating up minorities.
• One guy was wearing a hat that looked like a lobster, holding a Canadian flag in each claw. It was AWESOME.
• On a related note, almost everything here is related to lobster in some way.

Day 2

• The coffee and the donuts taste the same. And that's not to say that the donuts taste of coffee.
• Halifax is suspiciously empty.
• Standard sandwich size appears to be longer than my forearm.
• Sugar is in EVERYTHING, lots of it.
• Tipping is weird, as is sales tax.
• Went to a massive tattoo, watched 50 mounties dance to we will rock you.
  

Things are different here

Backdated notes from yesterday.

• Milk comes in bags here. May be indicative of larger problems.
• I was correct! The national chain of coffee shops have no idea what an espresso is. Dark times indeed.
• Any alcohol can only be purchased from one string of government run alcohol dispensaries. Mild totalitarianism. That said, they stock some good pinot noir.
• Must remember to tip people, would like to have the option of returning to food places.
• Pedestrians have the right of way on the roads. Very strange. Spent ages confusing a driver by waiting on the pavement for them to go first.

Exploration begins tomorrow, it involves a ferry.