Andrea and Anna
We are moving to Halifax and driving across the country to get there. Take a peak at our (mis)adventures over the next 2-3 weeks!East Bound
Travel Blog Posts
September 29th 2009
Andrea’s musings on the Maritimes • Tax - the tax here is a bloody 13% and I never know how much anything is going to cost. At 5% I could do the math in my head and have a basic idea of what am item will cost with tax. But here I’m clueless and it always amazes me when you bring up an item that’s supposed to cost $18.99 and it ends up costing 72 dollars. Seriously, the tax just kills me. It always sounds like a good price until you take it to the till. o The only good thing is when you’re tipping the waitress - then you just tip the tax. • The people are so nice and really friendly. When Anna and I were trying to move the heaviest TV ever made ... read more
September 29th 2009
New Brunswick and Halifax Yes, it’s been a long time coming but here it is… the last stage of our cross Canada trip… So after Montreal we ended up spending a week with the Hallyburton family in New Brunswick. It was great to stay in one place for more than a couple of days! Also managed to do some catching up with friends --lived it up at a nice little “Welcome back to the Maritimes” party courtesy of Pamela (thanks a bunch, chickie!) and enjoyed spending some time visiting Sarah & Matt at their new diggs in St. John (oh, the games, the Paderno, the wine - sooooo gooood!) After about of week of socializing in NB, we realized….we really need to find a place to live in Halifax!! So we started looking for apartments ... read more
August 23rd 2009
•Montreal: Oooooh....SO great to have beer and pizza waiting for you after a long and stressful drive (TO and Montreal in the same day - shudder). And not just any pizza - super delicious pizza from a private little mom & pop’s place and drool-worthy black currant beer (by Montreal’s Ephémère microbrewery) - thank you, Chris!! Ah yes, it’s all about the Montreal eats and sights - thanks for giving us the tour, Chris - and for driving - thank the gods we didn’t have to deal with Montreal traffic! The second day in Montreal found us consuming smoked meat and fall-off-the-bone roasted chicken - eee-gawds it was tasty! We followed up with a tour of picturesque Ste Anne De Bellevue on the water (helped along with a little taste of sangria). The evening brought us ... read more
July 23rd 2009
So I have to say that driving into Toronto was one of the scariest things that we’ve ever done. Careening around the expressway with an overloaded car and an occasionally retarded GPS - now there’s something to get the adrenaline pumping and the sqabbles going! We love our GPS and we hate it. It’s wonderful, but for gods’ sake - don’t forget your MAP and some COMMON SENSE, ‘cause the GPS can be awfully short on the latter at times… But hey, the beauty of Niagara Falls and the winery routes made navigating the perils of the TO highways TWICE (had to double back) worthwhile. We emptied out a bunch of stuff from the car so that Sarah (Anna’s sis) would fit in the car for the ride and off we went. Lovely day trip. Andrea ... read more
July 23rd 2009
Well, one thing that driving across the country does for you, is it really teaches you your geography. We had no idea that Manitoba and Northern Ontario had so many lakes. And although we’d seen Ontario on a map before one has no idea of how BIG it actually is until we tried driving across it - it took us a week to cross Ontario alone! Hm - we may never understand why people live in southern Ontario (too big, too many people, too much traffic!!) Northern Ontario was actually quite lovely. There are so many lakes and beautiful things to see. Driving on single lane windy roads with lots of semi-trucks going really slowly could have been frustrating - nothing but - but luckily for us we weren’t in any hurry so we could just ... read more
July 13th 2009
After we left Manitou Beach, SK we stopped in Yorkton, SK and Rhein (pronounced Ryan - anybody see how? Me neither) to visit my cousin and her family and my two uncles. It was really good to see them again - we spent some time visiting and what was supposed to be a quick stopover (I was thinking one or two hours) turned into an entire evening including supper and a trip to get ice cream. It was nice - I don’t see that side of my family often enough, and the realization that I was moving even further away and I see them even less made me a little sad. After visiting, Anna and I stayed at Good Spirit Lake provincial Park, SK. We were just gonna stay one night but we were so exhausted ... read more
Good Friends in Langham and Manitou Beach, Saskatchewan
Published: July 9th 2009North America » Canada » Saskatchewan
July 9th 2009
MANITOU BEACH, Watrous As I write this, we are burning down the vast expanse of highway 365 in SK….a grand highway with 1.5 lanes of dirt road! Also some gravel drift going on….please keep us on the road, Andrea! Our first stop was spent lounging in luxury for 2 days and nights at Russ & Dani's place (they feed & house us - this is quite luxurious by camping standards!) :) We will miss parties & games with you guys! Second stop: Manitou beach, home of the famous salt lake of Saskatchewan! We were looking forward to bobbing around in these briny waters (also known for the healing / rejuvenating properties of the mineral content) but they didn’t mention the reams of green weeds or the SEA MONKEYS! At least that’s what they looked like….thousands ... read more
July 3rd 2009
Andrea: It's a strange thing to leave a city after 31 years of living there. Anna and I had a going away party on June 30th and a ton of people from my past and present turned out to say goodbye. It was great to see everyone and I'm so glad that I got a chance to talk to so many people before I left. Having never lived anywhere but Edmonton it's surreal to think that I just can't call up my friends and go for a beer or a movie or something. I'm going to miss everyone so much, and I wish that I could just take you all with me! Check out the pics from our last party in town. Thanks for coming out and seeing us off! Anna: I have enjoyed Edmonton but ... read more
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