But enough of that - now to the trip!
I have been wanting to go to Newfoundland for years now, but until last weekend, have only made it as far east as Quebec City. When Vanessa invited me to her wedding there this September, I decided (after much hemming and hawing) that come job or come no-job, I was going to make it out there.
I flew out Friday morning, and was blessed with a fairly uneventful flight. I was met at the airport by Vanessa and her maid of honour, Joanne, who was my host for my first two nights there. We spent some lazy, resting time at Joanne's house in nearby Paradise (really - that's the name) - Joanne trying to get through a cold, and me trying to recover from the travel lethargy that always grips me. Check out the view from my guest room window.
Next, Joanne drove me into St. John's, where we saw the main streets and the harbour, and then headed up Signal Hill to see the city from above. By this time, it was dark, so the picture isn't great.
We met up with a bunch of people who were going to be attending and involved in the wedding for dinner at the Keg, narrowly avoided a screeching in on George St., then headed home to rest up for the big day.
The day of the wedding was lovely and sunny and warm. Perfect. The ceremony was beautiful, the church impressive and gorgeous, and I got through my reading without stuttering or cursing involuntarily, so that was good. I also didn't fall down on my way to the pulpit, which was a real danger. I seem to be falling down for no good reason fairly frequently.
After the ceremony, I met up with Keith and Rikke, two friends I get to see far too infrequently. I have to say, though, that meeting up in Newfoundland was probably a lot more fun than meeting in, say, Mississauga would have been. We wandered around downtown, visiting shops and seeing the sights. And I snagged my first purchase of the trip.
Which interested nobody but me. When we stopped for a few pints at a pub on Water Street, I got to sit and pet my yarn possessively between sips of Strongbow.
We eventually headed for the reception, and were seated at the "George Street" table, which should have tipped us off immediately that we were in the place to be. We sat with a bunch of Vanessa's friends from work, who were all crazy and funny and made dinner a hoot.
Later in the evening, the sudden appearance of a man dressed in a bright orange rain slicker and carrying a broom made me wary. Sure enough, shortly after, all the 'come-from-aways' were called to the front of the room to be officially 'screeched in' and made honourary Newfoundlanders. As honoured as I am, I could go for the rest of my life never kissing a fish again. Though the screech was kind of tasty. There seemed to be an awful lot of it in that little glass. We had to repeat a heavily accented, slangy Newfoundland phrase, eat some bologna, hard bread, and a peppermint knob, wash it all down with a generous miniature of screech, and then kiss the fish. It's not so easy to find a cod as it once was in Newfoundland, so we were invited to pucker up for a trout.
I don't have any pictures of the screech-in, as I was one of the victims - er, I mean 'honourees', but I'm hoping someone else's camera caught some of it. But here is us proudly displaying our certificates declaring our Newfoundlandiness.
I'm going to save the rest of the trip for another post, because this is becoming very long and I am hungry.
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