Halifax, Nova Scotia

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Thursday, October 10, 2013

Clay and I were up too early again. I was down in the lobby about 6:30am printing our boarding passes for tomorrow. We met Mom & Judy at 7am for our most bountiful and delicious breakfast of the trip. It makes those cold buffets with a hardboiled egg look embarrassing. It was still a buffet but there was an omelet/waffle station in addition to everything that has been all our other buffets combined. I had a ham and cheese omelet and a slice of wheat toast with a strawberry yogurt and coffee. Then I went back to get a Belgian waffle for my dessert, but the chef only had chocolate batter! It was really thick batter that she had to press and spread into the waffle iron and then it oozed and dripped out as it cooked and released a crazy aromatic steam. The aroma pretty much set off a waffle stampede. The cook said that she only had chocolate because it has been slow and it has taken her a week to use up the chocolate batter she made. Usually they have both chocolate and buttermilk batter. Mom tasted mine and knew what she was having tomorrow morning, so I hope the Caravan crew didn’t eat up all of the chocolate batter today. It was more suitable to be a dessert and now we knew why the whipped cream was on the buffet. I was putting maple syrup on it, which was what I had seen that made me want a waffle in the first place. I wasn’t expecting chocolate batter. Another woman with our group caught me as I was leaving and told me, you know you have to put whipped cream on there and she was right. It made it perfect. Clay thought strawberries and whipped cream would make it perfect. Anyway, tomorrow we leave here at 3:30am. We have to turn our tomorrow’s breakfast vouchers into Marty today for a box breakfast from the front desk tomorrow on our way out. I expect we had our only waffle. I am just hoping that tomorrow we don’t get blueberry yogurts!



We met Marty and the group at 9am. She took our dinner orders for tonight. Chicken, Atlantic salmon, or vegetarian. Mom & I ordered chicken and Judy & Clay ordered salmon. That done, she told us that we would meet beyond the lobby stairs for a family photo at 6pm and at 6:15pm we should have our drink vouchers for a cocktail party. The vouchers are good for a nonalcoholic drink or 15% off a nonalcoholic drink.

Marty told us all kinds of stories about how Sir Walter Raleigh and Blackbeard the Pirate were here in the Maritimes. She told about how Queen Anne’s Revenge was based at Oak Island which is close by here. I think she needs a fact checker. Yesterday she told us Jeannette MacDonald is a famous woman buried here in Halifax. She dressed Bonnie Prince Charlie as a woman to escape the Battle of Culloden and had to flee Scotland and she died here. Um. Wasn’t that Flora MacDonald? And she was in North Carolina too and  not Nova Scotia and she died and was buried in Scotland, so not even close to factual. What was that about? Regardless of the factuality of the stories, Marty told us stories for a very long time just outside the Marriott's side door on the stairs to the boardwalk. Finally she walked us very slowly to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic which is just down the boardwalk. 

We eventually made it to the museum and got our brochures and ID tags and were turned loose to self-tour sometime after 10am. It was interesting and the CSS Acadia, a 100 year old ship docked outside was open since the weather was so nice and we got to tour that too. There was another ship that was a later Corvette class ship the Sackville, and it had an extra charge to tour, so we didn’t. But, the interpreter there told us about it. It had a green maple leaf painted on the smokestack instead of a red one, which is now the symbol of Canada. I asked him what was up with the green maple leaf. He said that sometime after WWII, the symbol changed from green to red and so for period authenticity they kept it painted green. I asked him if he meant the whole Canada flag was green and he said yes the end pieces and the leaf used to be green but he didn’t know why they were changed. Spring to fall after WWII maybe. Something to look up. It seems like that would have been a major undertaking not to mention a major expense post-war and you would think almost all Canadians would know about it, but they didn’t and that was our first clue of it in 3 visits. There were a couple of films being shown inside the museum that were included but as we hung around we never saw the turnover between showings where you could go in and get a seat. So, we never saw the films. Maybe just as well since they were both about disasters.

We walked back to Beavertails after and everyone made their choice. Mine was maple and I thought it was delicious. They fired the noon cannon at the Citadel while we were eating in the sunshine on the boardwalk and they rang the bell on the Acadia too. We were right at the ferry terminal where we planned to return and take the round trip ferry to Dartmouth just to see the harbor from water, but we sadly did not go in. If we had, we would have learned that they were not running any ferries between 3:15 and 6pm. So, when we did go in later in the afternoon, it wasn't an option. Oh well.

We walked up the hill slowly since it is very steep. It is less than a mile probably to Halifax Public Gardens, but it feels longer since it is such a steep climb. The Gardens were really crowded. I don’t know how many were locals out because of the spectacular weather or if it was from the Princess and Carnival ships that we know were in port here today. The Gardens were just stunning. The Dahlia plot was amazing. I have decided I want some Dahlias in the yard next year. I wrote down the names of the pink and white ones I saw and liked first, but there were so many I just stopped. Mary’s Jomanda, Brian’s Dream, Parkland Rave.

We walked back down to the waterfront on Spring Garden Rd. and we stopped at several shops. We found some OMG’s at a drugstore. We went in Alexander Keith’s Brewery Market and skipped the tour but Clay got a t-shirt and a beer with Judy. We walked back to the Marriott on the boardwalk. We stopped and watched some glass workers at Nova Scotia Crystal. We found we couldn’t take the ferry. We stopped at Cows and Clay got some more expensive ice cream. We came in and I printed Mom & Judy’s boarding passes in the lobby. Clay wanted to go out for a real walk and he dropped his jacket and his string pack off in the room and changed from a heavy long sleeve t-shirt to a light short sleeved one. He had been too hot for hours.

The ladies thought it was nap time and I am going for one now. Later. That was quick. As soon as I got the blackout curtains pulled an industrial vacuum cleaner started working outside our room and kept me awake. Instead, I worked on packing. I cleaned up for dinner.

Clay returned and he packed some. He told me he walked down to the Farmer’s Market which is not open today at Pier 21. He told me 2 ships were docked down there. He said he went through the permanent shops over there and he found a dairy shop. He walked in and found an empty slot about 3 feet wide with one package left in it. He picked it up and turned it over to find at last, cheese curds! Before he could register it, the woman working the counter called out to him, Are you going to buy my last package of cheese curds? He did. He wanted to have a little snack time before going downstairs but at 5:30pm Mom & Judy were not answering their door so I assume that they got to sleep before the vacuum cleaner showed up. I will say that it is kind of noisy here. We get street noise in room 341, but loudest is the noise from the hall whenever people are loudly passing by. I am sure they must not realize how the sound carries through the room doors. Back later with a report of the rest of the evening.

So, we had a group photo taken on all our cameras by our 2 wait staff. We then went immediately into the restaurant where we had breakfast this morning and we all crammed into the room. Our 2 wait staff offered the coupon’s complimentary beverage of freshly brewed local iced tea with blueberry syrup to no takers. Clay and Judy each ordered a beer. They delivered drinks and bread baskets as well as finding out who had ordered what and what we wanted for dessert. Dessert choices were cheesecake with strawberry sauce or apple spice cake. It was all weird again. Mom and I each had a half of a tiny bird carcass. It tasted like chicken but it was a very small bird to be chicken. We had some weird stiff kind of flavored smashed potatoes with skins and other vegetables. Clay & Judy had Atlantic salmon with the veggies and roasted potatoes. Clay had the apple spice cake and said it was very cinnamony. The cheesecake was just weird. It had no crust, a pile of crunchy white crumbs on the side and very tart berry sauce. We all wound up leaving Judy to settle the drinks bill because the wait staff was overextended for the size of the crowd. Clay and I have to get up at 2am to catch our airport shuttle for our 5:30am flight home and we needed to get to sleep. Mom was just too tired to keep sitting there as we waited for checks. Clay left more than enough money to pay for his beer. We said our goodnights and see you at Christmases and left. Clay is in the shower now and I am waiting to brush my teeth.

Marty spoke for quite a while between ordering and eating. She also handed out certificates that were pretty cool. Member Order of the Good Time Nova Scotia.

I will try to type up some notes about the trip home when we get home. I will get through Clay’s photos as soon as possible and get these entries posted from home later. Good night!

Photos