Oh Canada!

This was my first time in Canada. My favorite joke I heard on the cruise: Do you know how they named Canada? They put letters in a hat and drew them: C-Eh!, N-Eh!, D-Eh!...hahaha. I learned on this trip that I LOVE Canadian accents!

Here is a map of our journey:

Our first stop was Saint John, New Brunswick home of the Reversing Falls. It was cold outside! We wore long pants, sweatshirts and raincoats. The Bay of Fundy has the greatest change between high and low tide and in Saint John the direction of the river actually changes from low to high tide, including the rapids. We only saw it going only way and starting to slow down.We would have had to wait 2 hours to see the change. So instead we headed to a pub. Did I mention this whole trip was essentially a New England brewery tour. We went to Sebago in Portland, Atlantic Brewing in Bar Harbor, Moosehead in Saint John, and Alexander Keith in Halifax.

On the way we stopped in a candy shop called the Freak Lunchbox and got some goodies! 

Saint John, News Brunswick on a rainy day

Reversing Falls. They had thrill rides on boats attempting to go up the falls and spinning around where the water was slowing

Reversing Falls Sign

Town Clock

French everything in Canada. It made me happy!

Our next day we were in Halifax, Nova Scotia. We had to sail out of the the Bay of Fundy and sail around the the tip of southern Nova Scotia and the Cape Sable Island. It was a bit of a rough night at sea as we were rounding the cape. I went to bed early and tried to sleep through the rocking. Later I realized the best place to be when the boat started rocking was in the pool. You just feel like you are in the ocean with the waves moving around you. It was still chilly in the morning but before our excursion in the afternoon we had to go back on the ship to change into shorts. The chilly weather was so nice compared to this monstrous heat. 

We were told two things about Halifax: eat the Poutine and Beaver Tails. Poutine is french fries with gravy and cheese and Beaver Tails are heavenly fried dough with toppings you can see later.

We walked through the town to the get to the Citadel, unfortunately up some steep hills (burning off more of the food we ate!) Then stopped for lunch and walked back along the waterfront stopping to get some Beaver Tails. Then we did our only excursion the whole trip a pub crawl of historic pubs and local ale with a few twists.

Alexander Keiths Brewery, a famous Canadian beer

Toothy Moose a cute store we passed on the way to the Citadel

The Town Clock. It was historically built by Price Edward to help with tardiness

A view of Halifax from the Citadel

The Citadel

The guard and Citadel. We also saw the noon firing of the gun and changing of the guards

Halifax

The town clock from the bottom

Theodore the Tugboat who gives harbor tours

Poutine-gross but Nick loved them

DELICIOUS! I WANT MORE AND MORE AND MORE! Fried dough that's flat a topped with your choice of toppings

Nick's mom and I got the cinnamon sugar

Nick and his dad got his Apple Cinnamon

Then we did our Pub Crawl. We got the fisherman's hat to keep and went to three historic pubs in Halifax where we were given local brewed beer. On the way we were escorted by a bagpiper and entertained with a traditional Irish band for a Ceili or Ceilidh a Gaelic social gathering involving Gaelic folk music and dancing.

Our fisherman's hats that we wore the whole time

Our bagpiper who escorted us to each pub

Katie our first bar in an old bank drinking Alexander Keiths

Alexander Keith's

Nick had a Garrison Stout (yuck!)

The Irish music at the first pub

Our second pub

The second pub

Gaelic music

Nick's parents in the second pub enjoying a special ale only made for and served at this pub

Here Nick tried another dark beer the Rickard's Porter

Pretty walk way to the harbor with the Canadian flags

Our third pub which was very old

Nick is getting a bit silly at this point

In the evenings we continued enjoying the food in the dining room. Of course karaoke, gameshows, trivia and the casino were on our nightly agenda. I'll write about our adventures on the ship in the next post when I share about our days at sea.

Now onto our days at sea and Boston!