Saturday, December 28, 2019

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.




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