Autumn in Canada #9

Autumn in Canada #9

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada

          After breakfast we took the gangway to the pier and onto the island. The weather was 61F, heavy drizzle and rained within the hour of us leave the ship, close to gale force winds. Fortunately, we brought our slickers and didn’t have to worry about the wind ruining our umbrella! As we walked off the pier there was an old man playing shanty music on his fiddle and singing Irish tunes. As we continued we heard bagpipe music, all Live!

          We stopped at St. George's the Anglican Church. It has quite a history.  It was established by Royal Decree in 1785. Rev. Ranna  Cossit was the first non-military pastor of the St. George's Church.

          We walked down Charlotte St. and stopped by Jost Heritage House (built 1784) and Cossit House Museum (built 1787) for tours but they were full. So decided to go east and walk towards downtown Sydney. As we walked we stopped at a few walking tours to hear what they had to say about the city. It seems Sydney was a steel mill town starting just before WWI and continued until recently.

           It began to rain heavily so we ducked into the Bank of Montreal Museum. We dried off, donated $2.00 and spent time reading about old Sydney. Apparently, Sydney was very much a part of the WWI and WWII efforts supplying men and material for the allies.

          They also had a story/song room. You chose between Mi'Kmaq (native American) Gaelic, or Acadian French. We listened to songs sung in each language. Janet was surprised at how much she was able to understand, reading French!

          We headed back in cold windy weather, stopped by the large Fiddle Statue (in honor of the Irish ancestry).

          After lunch everything hurt from the cold and rain. We headed to the indoor hot tub. Oh, what a relief!! By the time we got back to the cabin and showered we passed out cold. Thank goodness we had the where with all to make a wakeup call at 5:00pm.

          We went to the library to continue reading our books and have hot chocolate. We were going to stop by the Queen’s Room to listen to the violin and piano duo for a little before dinner music. However, the sunset was just beautiful and our view from the library was breathtaking so we stayed in the comfortable reading chairs with ottomans and relaxed.

          Dinner was in the main dining room. After dinner went to the showing of the movie BBC’s PLANET EARTH II put to live music by the Veendam Musicians. It was spectacular! Forty-five minutes of amazing nature footage from the entire planet and the music was perfect for each scene.

Autumn in Canada #8 Halifax

Autumn in Canada

 #8

Monday, October 6, 2019

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

           Janet is feeling much better this morning. She even had a regular breakfast! We were 2 hours late getting into port due to bad weather last night. The captain of our ship couldn’t get a pilot boat to guide us into the harbor so we had to wait. We went back to our cabin and watched out our window as we entered Halifax.

There was a very nice boardwalk we decided to enjoy the coast.  It was 57F windy, cold but sunny. It drizzled a little bit. You could feel the northeast autumn coming in strong with the strong gusts.

          We learned a lot about Halifax as we walked reading the many plaques along the way. Now it's a major business center and known for its maritime history. Waterfront warehouses are known as the Historic Properties remain from Halifax’s days as a trading center for privateers during the War of 1812. We didn't know the difference between pirates and privateers. The plaques explained that privateers were armed ships owned and officered by private individuals but authorized for use in war, especially in the capture of enemy merchant shipping. How about that!

          Along the route, there was a touching tribute to the families that had been separated while the husband set off to America for a better life. It was sweet.

Across the bay, there was Georges Island with a distinct lighthouse.  There was an old fort, Fort Charolette, named for King George III's wife, Charolette, 1755-1763 during the French and Indian war. Later the fort was used as a prison for expelled Acadians. The lighthouse was built in 1917 and still in use.

 The city is like any other city except for extremely tall skyscrapers that looked like apartment buildings. We walked to the Maritime Museum which we had planned to see. But by the time we found it we were exhausted. Bill’s excursion yesterday to Bar Harbor, and Acadia Nt. Park took a lot out of him, and Janet was just getting over a major bout of intestinal distress. So we walked back the ship, about a two-mile walk round trip.

Poutine 

We noticed every fast food place on the island was selling Poutine.  They are  French fries with brown-gray, and cheese. Apparently, they are very popular among the locals.

We went to Tea on the ship at 3:30 serving small sandwiches, sweetbreads, and the most amazing pastries!

We dressed for the evening, and headed for the library spent an hour reading (Janet began One for the Money by Janet Evanovich and Bill began reading If you lived here...I'd know Your Name by Heather Lende) with hot chocolate by the window. The sunset was amazing

We heard violin and piano music playing in the Queen’s Lounge and headed there to enjoy the pre-dinner music. It was lovely

Before we knew it, our reservations were ready at the Pinnacle Café. The food and atmosphere were exceptional. We dined for 1-1/2 hours! A real first for us.

We finished at 8:30 and decided to see the 9:30 comedy show. We headed  back to the library to read again until the show started. The show starred comedian Michael Somerville, he appeared with David Letterman, "6 times, 8 if you include re-runs". He was very good, we both laughed quite a bit.

Got back to our cabin, all made up with new towels. We had  most unusual towel object on your bed. Looked like an animal body with...no head!?!

Autumn in Canada #7

Autumn in Canada

 #7

Sunday, October 6, 2019

Bar Harbor, Maine

          Janet had a horrible night-sick as a dog. She didn’t get much sleep all night.

          When the wake-up call came at 6 AM, it was obvious she was in no condition to go to breakfast, let alone on the 3½ hour long shore excursion we booked for the tour of Acadia National Park and Lobster Bake. We figured we should use one of the $130 tickets. So Bill went on the tour and left Janet where she needed to be – in the stateroom, so she could sleep and do what she needed to do.

          At 7:30 AM Bill went to the showroom where the excursions assembled before leaving the ship. He met three women from East Texas and Louisiana.

          It was a large group for that toured and it took several tenders from the ship and two large motor coaches to accommodate everyone.

          Bar Harbor is the largest city on Mount Desert Island (part of Maine) and is lush with forests and lakes. Most of the lakes are reservoirs for drinking water for the towns on the island, so no swimming is allowed in many of them. This island was for years, a refuge for the ultra-wealthy families of the 19^th and early 20^th century. Gilded Age…Families like the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Ford, Carnegie, Mellon and others all had “cottages” real estates along the shore. John D Rockefeller built much of the infrastructure and carriage roads on the island.

          Our tour took us through much the Acadia National Park (the first national park in the nation) and up to Cadillac Mountain (the highest peak of coastal US.) the weather was cold, about 42º with a 20 mph wind. It was freezing. The fall colors were only at about 30% but they were impressive.

          We got to the top of 1,530 ft high Cadillac Mountain for the 360º view of the island and national park Bill could see the Veendam (our ship) off in the distance.

          Our driver took us through some more of the Park and then back down to town and the exclusive Bar Harbor Club for a luncheon of a whole Maine lobster, mussels, corn on the cob, potatoes, and blueberry tarts. Bill sat at a table with two groups of tourists. One from Washington State and the other from Ohio. 

          Afterward, Bill excused himself and walked up the hill to part of downtown that wasn’t too touristy. On the way back, he was stopped by a man and his wife who looked at Bill’s LBCC sweatshirt hoodie and asked, “Is that Long Beach City?” The man lived in Bar Harbor and graduated from LBCC in 1971. He was shocked to see an LBCC hoodie in Bar Harbor! Small world

          Bill took the Tender back to the ship and met two retired farm families. Ones from Eastern Washington and one from Central California (Merced).

          Janet woke from her nap and felt well enough to try the buffet for something bland. She got a plate of boiled white rice then sat at a table head in left hand wondering how she was going to get it down.

          A couple of servers saw her alone with her plate of rice and asked if she was feeling ill…anyway  about four different staff members, including the supervisor and chef came to see her. The chef made some clear chicken broth and a baked potato especially for her and explained how she could get gluten-free items anywhere on the ship. Others came by with different home-remedies to make her feel better.  They were very sweet

Autumn in Canada #6

Autumn in Canada

 #6

Saturday, October 5, 2019

Embarkation

          Hotel checkout and cruise boarding day. We are going to miss this gigantic room here at the Boston Sheraton. We need to be at the Cruise port before noon. After breakfast and last-minute packing we headed for the port. The weather was 46º...brrr. Janet was not feeling her best.

          Bill scheduled an Uber to pick us up at 11 AM. Our driver arrived right on time and got us to the port on time. One thing we’ve learned about Boston is that there seems to be no direct way to get anywhere and traffic is always terrible – even on a Saturday morning.

          We arrive at the cruise port and our ship – Holland America Cruise Lines, the Veendam (one of their smaller, older ships), only to discover we weren’t allowed to bring aboard the 24-pack case of spring water we’d bought for the cruise. We gave it to our drive, who has small children. (We could tell by the toys in the back of his mini-van).

          Security has become much like the airport. We had to unload our pockets and run our backpacks through the X-Ray scanner.  We got our ID photos taken for our digital stateroom keycards and boarding pass for when we get on and off the ship at the different ports of call, and proceeded to the waiting area.

          The PA announcement stated that our staterooms were ready and we boarded. We found our stateroom on the main deck of the port (left) side, we head up to deck 11 for lunch at the Lido Market (buffet).

          After lunch, we headed to our cabin to prepare for the lifeboat drill at 3 PM. That turned out to be quite a mess with a lot of confused older people stumbling around and not understanding the crewmembers (many of whom had very strong accents from different countries) After the “all clear” sounded we went back to our cabin to unpack

          We dressed for early dinner at 5:30 PM in the Main Dining Room since all the later slots were filled.  It is quite beautiful. We were joined by two women from Utah. The older one was there because her husband was ill and couldn’t make the cruise.