First Shore Day
The other day, I posted this post, but Blogger had other ideas about adding my photos (as in, they didn't think they needed to do that on that day!) Here are the promised photos!
This is entering the harbor - there is one lone guy standing there near the humongous planters, watching the ship turn and dock. Note that I did no cropping of this picture. The harbor was a tight fit for that big ole' ship!
Zac with a moose statue outside the farmer's market area.
We found (free!) beach volleyball on our way back to the docking area.
This is "slack tide" on the reversing falls. Notice the boat trying to get through. He'd been there for about 30 minutes, trying unsuccessfully (not a powerful enough engine to go against the massive forces here). He made it through about 5 minutes after this shot, as the tides began to work against his motor less. Hence, "reversing" rapids!
A carved statue of Glooskap - the Indian god who was responsible for the reverse of the tides, according to legend. On a different note - where are The Boy's hands going?
Day Three of our trip the ship stopped in Saint John, New Brunswick (Canada). Thanks to the great balcony, we watched the ship pull into the harbor and get tied up by the pilot boats awaiting our arrival. It was very entertaining, and we watched people on the shore watching the boat maneuver around in that small space. I would have DEFINITELY been watching had I been on land!
Since our shore excursion wasn't until later in morning, we took our time, watched the docking, then made our way to the restaurant for breakfast this time. Yum-o to the french toast (one of the only yum-o's from the restaurants, which I don't rank quite as highly as the one I experienced on Royal Caribbean) and the bottomless coffee urns!!
After breakfast, we headed off the boat, asked about a cab ride to the town, and paid a measley $7.00 to go into town and be dropped off directly where we (I) wanted to (yarn shop). I didn't want to waste time trying to find our way on foot there and back, so I thought the cab was a good way to go. Come to find out, we could totally see the ship when we came out of the mall (more on that later), so we did walk back to the pier to catch up with our tour. This worked out perfectly, and I was able to get in some good shopping at Cricket Cove, which was an amazingly nice shop INSIDE A MALL. That never happens here in the states, so I'm not sure if this is a normal occurrence or not. I wasn't that impressed with the fibers in the shop, so I stuck to yarn, and wound up coming out with some sock yarn containing aloe for my mom, a kit for a Fleece Artist hat, and about 400 yards of some lovely, lovely alpaca that I can't seem to put my hand on here at home or find online either!
So, with packages in hand, we strolled back through (part of) the town to the pier again, stopping long enough for The Boy to take a picture with a moose and (try to) play a little beach volleyball. It's a good thing my little guy has an athletic dad, 'cause his momma's hopeless. I was trying to show him how to serve, with my 8th grade gym class serve (I'm noticing that serve is NOT seen on the beach at the Olympic Games!!), and not quite "hitting the mark" as the saying goes! Oh well, we had fun anyway.
Back at the pier, we managed to get sucked into buying a trinket or two at the pier shops while waiting for our tour to take off. We are such suckers! The tour was informative and took us to all the major points of the city - the great market, the Reversing Falls (which we saw at "slack" tide, which happens only for about 20 minutes each day - just as the tides are beginning to reverse), and gave lots of historic and factual information in-between. Overall, though, the stops the bus made were too quick to get a good feel for each place. We got only 20 minutes in the market (good thing we'd already been earlier, looking for yarn). We stopped for the bathroom and to get a snack - an asian pear/chinese apple that was so huge, we shared it and had a nice treat. At the reversing rapids, one of the major attractions for this shore stop, we only had about 10 minutes. The last spot, a park situated up on a hill where there were wood carvings depicting Indian legends, we had about "5 minutes" although The Boy and I ran out, took a picture of him at the feet of Glooskap (supposedly responsible for the reversing rapids), and were promptly ushered back on the bus. Boo.
After the tour I wanted to walk a path that ran alongside the water, to a historic point where they used to hang people, but The Boy was worn out, and we got back on the ship. It was a morbid thought, anyway, but looked like a nice walk and would have been a different vantage point for seeing the tiny city. Saint John is a nice city, but not very big at all. I did love all the references to the Native/Indian culture there, and the fact that their beliefs/stories seem to be known by the average person there, such as the reversing rapids being a creation of Glooskap - the Indian "god" who created the reversing falls so that his people could have an easy time going up the river for 20 minutes each day - he didn't want to be too easy on them! Being so tiny, though, it was a good starting point for our "adventures" and let me know that The Boy would be up for the bigger city and all it's sites the next day.
Tomorrow, I'll get to Halifax, which was the next stop, but for now I'll just show pics from Saint John.
Scratch that, BLOGGER!!!! I'll post pics when this site gets it's act together!
:/
This is entering the harbor - there is one lone guy standing there near the humongous planters, watching the ship turn and dock. Note that I did no cropping of this picture. The harbor was a tight fit for that big ole' ship!
Zac with a moose statue outside the farmer's market area.
We found (free!) beach volleyball on our way back to the docking area.
This is "slack tide" on the reversing falls. Notice the boat trying to get through. He'd been there for about 30 minutes, trying unsuccessfully (not a powerful enough engine to go against the massive forces here). He made it through about 5 minutes after this shot, as the tides began to work against his motor less. Hence, "reversing" rapids!
A carved statue of Glooskap - the Indian god who was responsible for the reverse of the tides, according to legend. On a different note - where are The Boy's hands going?
And here is the original post, for more details:
Since our shore excursion wasn't until later in morning, we took our time, watched the docking, then made our way to the restaurant for breakfast this time. Yum-o to the french toast (one of the only yum-o's from the restaurants, which I don't rank quite as highly as the one I experienced on Royal Caribbean) and the bottomless coffee urns!!
After breakfast, we headed off the boat, asked about a cab ride to the town, and paid a measley $7.00 to go into town and be dropped off directly where we (I) wanted to (yarn shop). I didn't want to waste time trying to find our way on foot there and back, so I thought the cab was a good way to go. Come to find out, we could totally see the ship when we came out of the mall (more on that later), so we did walk back to the pier to catch up with our tour. This worked out perfectly, and I was able to get in some good shopping at Cricket Cove, which was an amazingly nice shop INSIDE A MALL. That never happens here in the states, so I'm not sure if this is a normal occurrence or not. I wasn't that impressed with the fibers in the shop, so I stuck to yarn, and wound up coming out with some sock yarn containing aloe for my mom, a kit for a Fleece Artist hat, and about 400 yards of some lovely, lovely alpaca that I can't seem to put my hand on here at home or find online either!
So, with packages in hand, we strolled back through (part of) the town to the pier again, stopping long enough for The Boy to take a picture with a moose and (try to) play a little beach volleyball. It's a good thing my little guy has an athletic dad, 'cause his momma's hopeless. I was trying to show him how to serve, with my 8th grade gym class serve (I'm noticing that serve is NOT seen on the beach at the Olympic Games!!), and not quite "hitting the mark" as the saying goes! Oh well, we had fun anyway.
Back at the pier, we managed to get sucked into buying a trinket or two at the pier shops while waiting for our tour to take off. We are such suckers! The tour was informative and took us to all the major points of the city - the great market, the Reversing Falls (which we saw at "slack" tide, which happens only for about 20 minutes each day - just as the tides are beginning to reverse), and gave lots of historic and factual information in-between. Overall, though, the stops the bus made were too quick to get a good feel for each place. We got only 20 minutes in the market (good thing we'd already been earlier, looking for yarn). We stopped for the bathroom and to get a snack - an asian pear/chinese apple that was so huge, we shared it and had a nice treat. At the reversing rapids, one of the major attractions for this shore stop, we only had about 10 minutes. The last spot, a park situated up on a hill where there were wood carvings depicting Indian legends, we had about "5 minutes" although The Boy and I ran out, took a picture of him at the feet of Glooskap (supposedly responsible for the reversing rapids), and were promptly ushered back on the bus. Boo.
After the tour I wanted to walk a path that ran alongside the water, to a historic point where they used to hang people, but The Boy was worn out, and we got back on the ship. It was a morbid thought, anyway, but looked like a nice walk and would have been a different vantage point for seeing the tiny city. Saint John is a nice city, but not very big at all. I did love all the references to the Native/Indian culture there, and the fact that their beliefs/stories seem to be known by the average person there, such as the reversing rapids being a creation of Glooskap - the Indian "god" who created the reversing falls so that his people could have an easy time going up the river for 20 minutes each day - he didn't want to be too easy on them! Being so tiny, though, it was a good starting point for our "adventures" and let me know that The Boy would be up for the bigger city and all it's sites the next day.
Tomorrow, I'll get to Halifax, which was the next stop, but for now I'll just show pics from Saint John.
Scratch that, BLOGGER!!!! I'll post pics when this site gets it's act together!
:/
posted by Heather at
8/18/2008 07:15:00 PM
3 Comments:
Sorry to hear that the food wasn't consistently that great! In Uruguay, there was a yarn shop in a mall (actually, it was Manos del Uruguay!) that we didn't get a chance to go to but we heard about as I saw a person carrying one of their bags. I didn't know that there were mall yarn shops in the Canada though!
What's the difference in fiber and yarn? Are you taking about roving for spinning?
That sounds like a wonderful time!
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