Beaches, Beer, and Beautiful Skies

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What more could you ask for?! That's what I thought. Nada.

Welcome one and all to the beginning of my global adventures... for the rest of the summer I will take you into the world of Antigonish in all of it's small town glory. The town has a population of roughly 4,500 and is located 2 hours north of Halifax, about a 10 minute drive in any direction from long stretches of sandy beach opening out onto the Atlantic ocean. Beautiful indeed! The weather finally started to turn this past week and we have been enjoying hot days in the mid 20s with a nice breeze -- none of this muggy Ontario business! With good weather comes the beginning of beach adventures, the most current being my first experience with jellyfish! We couldnt' go swimming becasue the shore was PACKED with jellyfish. I'd never seen a jellyfish before, let alone in packs of hundreds, but I picked one up and it was pretty cool. All squishy and gross and full of nasty tentacles.

Moving on! Antigonish is treating me well. The town is homey, small, and quaint and I am enjoying it's relaxed pace after having the pulsing energy of Toronto pumping through my veins for the last three years. It is very much a university town with the population doubling in September when the students arrive, so I am enjoying the down time while I can! I am living with an old friend from high school, Marc Rodrigue, who is a fantastic individual and we are having a smashing good time. He's introduced me to lots of cool 'Nisher's and found me a great job working with a professor at St.FX. Essentially life consists of work during the day and any number of activities from volleyball to beaching to drinking at night! Weekends have become the time for traveling though! Thus far I have only been to Halifax and some smaller surrounding towns (such as New Glasgow, which is the closest town with a movie theater screening Harry Potter.... haha), but my first ventures into the rest of the East Coast begins this weekend -- a trip to PEI to see Aerosmith! It is apparently to be a weekend full of camping, drinking, and hours of music -- Bring it on I say! The adventures continue as next weekend is a camping trip to Kejimkujik National Park, followed by the August long weekend in which the dashing Andrew Newman will be joining me for another trip to PEI (Marc got a free cottage on the beach for the weekend!). Following that you will see me traipsing to Mabou, Cape Breton where the lovely Lisa Rankin, girlfriend of a freind from home, resides and has promised us the most amazing Cape Breton weekend complete with lobster boating, skimming, and square dancing!

All in all, the summer is going well and there are only more good times to come! I will post a few more entires and pictures up this summer, but ultimately I created this blog for what awaits me come the fall. I just received word last week that I will be going to Accra, Ghana (the capital city of Ghana which is located on the coast of West Africa) departing on October 7th for 10 months!! For those of you not familiar with why I might be going to Ghana -- I am to complete the co-op portion of my degree in International Development with an organization called Uniterra. No news as of yet about the job description -- welcome to the world of development -- but I will keep you all posted!

So until then, enjoy the world of Antigonish and get ready for what promises to be a crazy experience in West Africa!

Courtney

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Comments

[Nathalie]

No Way!
Hey! Apparently we both ended up finding the coolest blog! I'm also on this site! I just dont have much on it yet.. But West Coast is coming.. so check it out too! Did I sent you the link? Maybe I did.. i don't even remember~ See ya! Miss East Coast! Nath

[Angie]

Green with Envy
You adventures sure beat the hell out of summer school! I'm totally envious, you know that...especially about the Ghana part!! Good to hear all is well with your summer in the land of my birth.. Happy strutting! Angie

[Sonya]

Awesome blog Courtney! I'm jealous of your summer adventures. Keep up the blogging, so I can leave vicariously through you and other travelling IDSers. I would jump on the blogging bandwagon too but I think it will have to wait until Tanzania.