Hotel Ile de France Saint-Pierre and Miquelon

... digestive systems much prefer grits. I spent the rest of the morning getting our trip blog started.

We left Truro about noon driving to Sydney for our ferry’s departure for Newfoundland at 9 pm. We stopped for nice lunch in a little town on the north coast of Nova Scotia called, Antigonish, and then proceeded on to Sydney. We had a light dinner of crab salad at a mostly deserted hotel ...

bonjour! arrived here a bit later than anticipated and thus lost good daytime hours and light for some photo'ing. plus everything was closed.

went to check out the bar scene at night. there are 4 bars. they are all filled with guys. everywhere is either borderline 16 or above 50. um... great. even the live ...

... 2:45 ferry, only to find out that
a) the ferry was busted and the replacement doesn't leave until 3:30
b) there's nothing to see or do in fortune
c) the 3:30 ferry was really expected around 4:30
d) 4:30 was a stretch and really it would leave after 5:00

and to top it off, mary brown's undercooked her taters!

... villages, and finally reaching marystown. there are 2 mcdonald's here. one in the walmart and one on its own. that's all i'll say about that.

here i stayed the night, but for a reason - to see my friend laura whom i haven't seen since high school graduation more or less. must say it was a really cool reunion. she toured me ...

... hour) ferry so I couldn't risk not getting back.

Fortune is a town out on its own pennisula without much else to see or do there. It was like driving to State College from Boston finding it closed and leaving. Just like the French to mess things up.

I turned around and drove most of the Way to the Capitol city of Saint John so I could see it in the morning.

Took the opportunity ...

... and you needed a special license. A good bit later he came back with a nice size trout that the chef promptly took and cooked for us. I ended up staying there so long that I got a room for the night.

When I finally had to go to bed (I needed to leave early to reeach the France ferry in time. He gave me a bill for $15 cdn which was just for my original food I had ordered.

Newfoundlander's have an interesting accent/dialect ...

... is a heavy basque influence. (guys in town playing on these big open racketball-like courts with wooden paddles, I can't remember the name of the game) My original plan was to leave here by boat, then get a bus to get the big ferry (overnight) back to nova scotia...but the idea of all that really turned me off. Lucky for me I found out there was a flight going the next day to ...

... along the water and saw the Francoforum where Jordan went to school and then went shopping for wine! I got two bottles to bring home and one small one to drink. The first bottle I selected based on the nifty shape of the bottle. It's "Gaillac, Olivier De Serac, 2000." The other bottle was recommended by the woman at the store and is "Raimbault, Gallaic, 2002." The Raimbault 2002 appears to have won some awards from the Gallaic region of France, so it had better ...

... Atlantic Jet" or "SPM Express" from Fortune to St. Pierre. It took approximately 1 hour and went at a speed of up to 31 knots. Jordan's homestay father, Yann Ruel, was working on the ferry so I got to try out my french right away! We arrived around 3:30 and checked into the "Hotel Robert" which was perfectly suited to our needs (each room has a stove and a fridge and plates, which was very useful). Then we wandered ...

... nature, birds, history), and how long (in their case a week) they want. Excite Tours hires whoever offers that type of tour (in this case, Wild Things/Wildlands and Oceans Ltd.) and contracts them to provide such a tour. They have great pairs of binoculars and stop as often as possible to look for and identify birds. I thought it would be boring but it wasn't. After a few stops, a few lessons on how to use the binoculars, and a few successes finding birds, they eventually ...