We awoke this morning to the rapping of the housekeeping staff on the door. It was 10:00am after all, but it seemed like 5:00am our time. We dragged our bodies out of bed and headed out to explore Halifax.
We walked 18 blocks to a restaurant that had a pub on the top floor. We had read about this place in Vancouver and didn’t want to miss it. During our travels we learned that Halifax had more pubs per capita than any other place in Canada; but to offset this Halifax also has more university (5 different universities) students per capita as well. Anyway, for breakfast Andrew ordered basted eggs and the waiter had no clue what that was. Those types of eggs must just be a west coast thing. This was a very nice spot all-in-all.
After breakfast our first stop was Citadel Hill, the military fort on the highest point of Halifax. It was very impressive and had a lot of cannons. Steven asked Andrew to take a picture of him shooting a canon but a security guard yelled at Andrew to get off of the hill area. Andrew sure had to jump to avoid getting put in the brig.
We used the free downtown bus service to get around (the bus’s name is FRED – Free Rides Everywhere Downtown), then went to Canadian Tire to buy a beverage cooler to put drinks and sandwich fixings purchased at the “Sobeys” (Eastern Canada’s version of the Safeway).
Then we went for a tour of the city on an amphibious bus called the “Harbour Hopper” and learned many things about the history of the city. We learned that Halifax locals call their two bridges the “old” and the “new” bridge, even though the “new” bridge was built in the 1950’s. We learned that an ammo boat exploded in the bay during WW-I and that the explosion was felt 100 miles away. Boston sent up a ton of doctors and others to help and to thank them, every year, and still to this day Halifax sends an extremely large Christmas tree to put in a Boston square. Then we went out for dinner (Halifax Lobster) and then came home to reflect on the days events.
Oh yes, its completely frikkin hot here (32°) and it is quite humid too.
Tomorrow: Museum Tours!
Andrew & Steve