Last day in St. John's

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Browsing the bookshelves
Updating the blog before
Night on the town.

I had a morning at Hava Java drinking coffee and reading the paper with Marko. The sun was shining again today but there was a cool nip in the air. I walked around some of the shops downtown again before settling into the second hand book shop near our hostel.

I must have been there for a good couple of hours just browsing the stacks and stacks of books. There were so many books I wanted to purchase but kept reminding myself that books are heavy especially since I kept seeing all of these really big books (which equals dead weight = bricks = lead pipes.) But I did pick up a few paperbacks for reading while on the train. Most notably Anne of Green Gables! Most books were only about $3 or $4 and I could have gotten about a 75% discount if I picked up a minimum of $20 worth of books BUT that would have been 20 novels (!) since $3 and $4 books were selling for $1 each. Crazy! The reason for such cheap prices is because they'll be moving. I noticed they have internet access at the book store at the rate of $9/hour! Crazy! They had tons of interesting travel books but I had to leave them... 😞 There was this one book titled something along the lines of "2000 pictures from Around the World." This book was obviously published before digital camera technology. lol I looked at the copyright and it was published in the 50's. There were tons of interesting travel memoirs to flip through and make me think about my own scrapbook I'd like to work on...the possibilities are just endless!

I went down to the basement where there were even more shelves of books to browse. Tons of fiction - too much to look at all of the shelves but I did scan some of them. The biography section is always interesting to me and I saw quite a few history books that looked quite interesting. I'll have to start scouring some of the used book stores when I get home.

I didn't look at everything since after a couple of hours my eyes were getting a little wonky and my attention span waning. Besides I had some laundry waiting for me back at the hostel.

Lucky for me the washer was empty and the internet was free, so I had something to do while waiting for my laundry to get washed and dried. So I plucked out all of the clothes I needed to get washed (that'd be everything I wasn't currently wearing! lol) and headed upstairs. Hmm, I've run out of detergent and the hostel has none for sale. Thank goodness the cleaning lady was in and was kind enough to give me some..."Is Tide okay with you honey?" Sure! Cuz beggars can't be choosers. lol

As those on the subscribers list to my blog know, I made a whole bunch of blog updates in between surfing the net, watching TV and chatting with various people passing in and out of the common room where the computer is located. Marko went back up tot he Rooms to check out the Archives and find out more information on his grandparents. I met Ruthie who is from Calgary and is in St. John's visiting for the weekend. Quite the trek but it turns out she's got a friend that works for Westjet. Gotta love connections! David, the owner of the hostel popped by and we chatted for a bit. It turns out that he and his wife used to run the hostel as a B&B but he saw the need for a hostel in the "heart" of St. John's and by charging cheaper rates he can fill more beds than if it were a B&B. He told me that in the summer they offer day tours for only $49! He's also thinking of starting an airport shuttle for only $9...$5 to $10 cheaper than a taxi! And he's thinking of getting another internet station set up. It's great to know all this if ever I wanted to come back to St. John's one day in the summer. I'll definitely have to enter a good review for the City Hostel on the Hostels.com website. It seems like most guests I've talked to have found out about the hostel through this website. I used hostels.com for a few other bookings and have been happy every time. But I get off topic.

I chatted with the cleaning lady's son as well. He's only 8 years old and was a bit shy but wanted to talk to me too. We had an interesting chat about snacks and Hallowe'en costumes too.

Eventually it was me, Ruthie and Marko in the common room and we all talked about our day and what we did and ended up going out together. Our first stop was at the "Last Drop" to check out the CD release party of Jill Horner. It was supposed to kick off around 9PM. We got there around 9 and it's pretty quiet. There were perhaps only a dozen or so people around the bar and an empty stage. So the three of us grab a stool each by the bar and get some drinks and start chatting up the two ladies behind the bar. At one point this really inebriated guy walks in and is about an arms length away from us. He looks really out of it so we sort of ignore him. He eventually leaves because he tries to light up inside...there's a no smoking indoors bylaw in St. John's.

Then pizzas from Giovanni's Restaurant are delivered and the head chef/owner sits by the bar near us and we start chatting. He's waiting around for Jill too and is also wondering where she is because he was told by her to get there by 9...it is currently 9:45. At some point the inebriated guy comes back in and we continue to ignore him until we hear..."You've had too much to drink. I'll take that beer off of you and refund your money." That's when the guy from Giovanni's pipes up that the beer was from his pocket. Finally the barkeep says inebriated guy has gotta go. He doesn't want to go until he gets his beer back and that's not gonna happen. Step in Marko who is a pretty big guy and has lots of experience working in bars. He coaxes the inebriated guy towards the door and is talking to him like a little kid. Phew! No major incidences. About 10 minutes later Jill and her posse come in. Chef actually called her about 15 minutes earlier and asked where she was etc. Then Marko says he wants to talk to her and his conversation with her is something along the lines of...he came all the way fro Maui to see her, where the hell is she? Apparently she gave Marko the impression of “Whatever!” I couldn't believe it.

So as we all predicted, when she walked in Jill did not say hi to anyone. I didn't hear her apologize for anything. And she starts doing her own thing. Rearranging where all the food is. Putting on her own music on the CD. Really quite snobby and into herself. Well, we weren't all that impressed and decided to leave. Marko seemed to be offended the most and it was kinda funny to see. Our intention was to walk over to the Ship and see this awesome six piece band...can't remember the name since I never really knew it to begin with! I think something like Rosetta something or other. They didn't start 'til Midnight. Walking the couple blocks to the Ship, Marko sees a place called the Spur...Let's go there cuz it's like a spur of the moment thing. It's a cozy little pub where we talked to some of the locals for a while. At one point there's this white haired guy with a white beard & mustache that sits at the bar and Marko can't help but say over and over in utter amazement "That's Colonel Sanders! Look! Look! It's the Colonel!" Me and Ruthie try and get him to quiet down and then we looked over for ourselves and ohmigawd! It’s the Colonel with glasses and everything! lol

We also met Doug who is this 45 year old taxi driver and really interested in how an Asian fro Vancouver, a girl from Calgary and a guy from Maui (who doesn't even look Hawaiian) all got together. Then he kept asking us when we'd be leaving so he could arrange a taxi cab for all of us. I was really reluctant to get a drunken guy to make my cab arrangements so I kept avoiding his question. lol

Then all of a sudden Marko starts waving at this girl at the end of the bar because she's wearing a lei. I'm thinking, "Wow, he sees someone he knows?" She comes to see us and then first thing she says is, "Do I know you?" Marko says, "No." It was funny.

Meanwhile Ruthie is trying to get away from Doug's younger cousin who surprise, surprise is really, really drunk. He makes Ruthie take his phone number. She humours him and after 5 minutes we're able to escape the Spur. The first thing Ruthie does when we're outside is grab a smoke from her purse and she unknowingly drops the drunken guy’s number on the sidewalk. Thank goodness he didn't see that happen. lol

We decide to head back to the Last Drop to see if our friend Jill is playing...Not yet! We're outside and Marko can't help but say to everyone going in and out, "She's awesome!" Ruthie and I are just busting a gut when we told Marko he should have said, "She's Bitchen!" About 10 minutes of this and we decide to finally head on over to the Ship.

The warm up band was still on and we had about 45 minutes to wait. So once again we found a spot by the bar and listened to the music. It started out okay but then got slower and more country western than I like. Eventually they get off the stage and after a few technical difficulties the hand (who's name I don't remember) that we were waiting for came on. They were pretty good. Cool that they have a violinist, cellist, bass and electric guitar in their line up and make it work! The lead singer was pretty awesome too. By 1AM Marko had way too much to drink so Ruthie and I thought it was time we all went home. When someone starts making an ass of themselves...dancing to no music and yelling out inappropriate things at inappropriate times you know it's time to say bye bye.

Oh yeah, one of the funniest moments was when this band was setting up and Marko jumps right in to see what he can do to help out. I turn around and see him standing there holding a cello and bow while the cello player is getting a chair. Such a funny sight.

When we get back to the hostel, Ruthie and I make sure Marko is safely in bed and then we go to bed ourselves. By this time it's I'm guessing 1:30/2AM and I'm not tired. So what else to do but surf the net since there's nothing on TV. I think I was surfing the web and updating blogs 'til about 3AM when I realized the time and also realized I had forgotten to finish writing my postcards. Doh! Guess that'll have to wait until I wake up in the morning...

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Comments

[Andrew]

the band
Just in case you're still wondering, the band is named "Hey Rosetta!"