New England/Canada Cruise. Day 6. Halliefax.

We woke up this morning already late for the day.  We were supposed to be at the theater by 8:45 for our 9:30 tour of Halifax, Nova Scotia, even though no one was even allowed off the ship until 9:30.  Tzvi went to the dining room to gather provisions for the morning, including Hallie’s breakfast.  While there, he stopped for a quick bagel, cream cheese and lox and a cup of coffee.  I stayed behind with Hallie.  Nice that he was well fed though.

We got off the ship and made our way to a group of four tour busses waiting for us.  We got on bus number 3 and settled in for the long journey, an hour from the port to Peggy’s Cove, a small fishing community that apparently everyone visits because something special blah blah blah.  Okay, let me just get this out of the way right now.  If you ever find yourself on a cruise that stops in Halifax (because honestly, no one is just coming here as a vacation destination), and you only have one day here, you don’t need to go to Peggy’s Cove.  I know that everyone says its beautiful and a landmark and you have to go, but take it from me, you don’t.

Basically, we got on the bus, drove an hour with a restless Hallie so that we could spend an hour walking around a cove where the three most exciting sights are (in order of excitement), a lighthouse, a bunch of rocks, and a parking lot.  Then we got back on the bus and drove another hour back to the port with an even more restless Hallie.

Oh, and did I mention today was deathly hot?

I welcome thee

Oh, did I mention the rocks?

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, I’ll mention a couple of other things.  The way to Peggy’s cove was a bit windy and by the end of the ride Hallie said she didn’t feel good.  I think she actually got nauseous and we had to quickly find an empty bag in case she needed to throw up, which thankfully she didn’t.  I should also mention that there was a guide who wore a kilt and said some interesting stuff, but I remember none of it now.  At Peggy’s Cove Hallie gave a dollar to a bagpipe player.  We got an iced coffee at the one restaurant. We also made a stop at the Citadel, an 18th century fort built (I think) to defend against attack from the USA.  We didn’t actually go in, we just saw the outside, and the flags flying over the entrance.  In honor of July 4th they had an American flag flying higher than the Canadian flag; you would never see the inverse in the USA no matter what holiday it was.

Around 1:30 the bus dropped us off at the port and we started making our way back toward downtown.  Tzvi was very anxious about getting a Starbucks mug.  After failing to get a Maine mug, he had called three Starbucks in Halifax until he found one that had the Canada mug.  So we walked, about a mile, mostly uphill, until we found Starbucks and he got his mug.  Thank God.  We made a stop at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, a store where almost everything was kosher, and then made a stop at Roots where we bought a ton of clothes because the only Roots in America are in Beverly Hills and Colorado (though they said they’re opening 20 stores in America next year, so hopefully we’ll get one in NYC).

After buying out the store at Roots we were all really hungry.  We walked a bit more but couldn’t find anything, until we found a street with a bunch of restaurants.  After figuring out what was wrong with the first three restaurants, we settled on the fourth, a place called Two Doors Down, though I don’t know what it was two doors down from.  All the other restaurants?  They only had one high chair and it was in use, so Hallie sat in a big girl chair.  I had a dish that had rice, broccoli and a really spicy sauce but was pretty good.  Tzvi had a really weird fish dish that had potato chip crusted fix over risotto that had smoked haddock mixed into it.  He said it was weird.  Hallie basically just ate carrots, which weren’t even cooked that much – they were pretty hard – but she loved them and ate a ton of them.  So lunch was fine, but it took forever.  After lunch we walked back to the ship, about a half-mile and mostly downhill for a change.

Once back on the ship we decided to take advantage of the hot weather and went to the pool.  Hallie splashed around for a while and then it was time to get ready for dinner, our second fancy night in the dining room.  Dinner was same as usual.  We got our usual table and wait staff and everything was good.  Mama was showing Muhamed the pictures from Avery’s wedding that we just got today.  Muhamed asked how long the wedding takes, which we thought was an odd question until he told us that Muslim weddings usually last for three days.

The view from our room.  So I guess we didn't need to drive an hour just to see a lighthouse.

with Muhamed

I think they were trying to race us

enjoying her "coffee" (milk)

After dinner we walked around the ship and went to the July 4th celebration on the promenade deck.  It was so late, but we were walking around the promenade and Pop Pop went to buy a watch.  He was having trouble closing the one he picked out and I think the salesman was getting irked, but whatever, he bought the watch. As they were finishing up in the store, the July 4th celebration began.  It consisted of the cruise director coming out and wishing us a Happy July 4th, someone singing the national anthem, and then balloons dropping.  It was very nice and ended around 1030.  We finally took Hallie upstairs and put her to sleep.

After that, Tzvi and I went out for a night on the town. By that, I mean we walked around the ship looking for something to do. First we went to the casino to use my free five dollars of slot machine play. We ended up making 6 dollars. When we cashed out they gave us 11 dollars cash, which makes sense, but when Austin did it he only got the cash value of the money OVER the 5 dollar credit. Good for us. Then we walked around some more. We stopped by the pub to hear the singer and drunk people singing along.  We stopped by the 80s party but it was kind of lame and then we went to find what was supposed to be the “white party” (whatever that means).  I think they cancelled it because it was too windy, and not because it sounded overtly racist.  Finally it was 12:30 and we decided to call it a night.  Good night.

it was windy on deck 4