Minus a stamp & Beaver Tails!!

I apologize for the delay in posting, life on board this ship is hectic! Please find below one of two blogs I intend to post before reaching Barcelona on 6.24. I have pictures to add to this but because the internet is so slow on the ship I decided to post without pics. Will add pictures soon. I miss and love everyone, please leave comments and thoughts!! Four days until Barcelona!!!! 

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We arrived in Canada in the early morning of June 14. I am very lucky to be in a room with a window so immediately upon waking up I saw land! I have never been so excited to see buildings and the various trappings of a dock before in my life. Although the trip to Halifax from Ft. Lauderdale was relatively short, 4 days, I grew tired of being on the ship for such a length of time. So I was so very excited to look out the window and see land! As has become my habit, the first thing I did was take a picture of what I was seeing out of my window. I literally started jumping up and down at the sight of land. Anyway, I think you get the picture……well if you don’t here’s the picture of what was outside my window upon arrival to Canada!

 So it took a little while before we could get off the ship because there was some confusion about whether or not each person individually had to go through customs. After about an hour or so the ship got the all clear and we were allowed to disembark the vessel (like my use of nautical talk?). One of the major reasons I was so excited about this trip was because of the lure of EIGHT stamps added to my passport. Don’t you know those sneaky Candians didn’t stamp our passports. I tell you I was bit peaved but oh well, just gives me another reason to come back to Canada, although I doubt I will make it back all the way to Halifax again.

 a group of us decided that we had to pick up some stuff and go explore Halifax. Being the frugal shoppers that we are we set off to find the nearest Walmart---who goes to Canada and then looks for Walmart…a bit embarresing I know! But before embarking on our Walmart quest we went looking for Beaver Tails….what are Beaver Tails you may be asking. Whatever you’re thinking is probably wrong and likely to be very similar to what I initially thought. Beaver Tails are a doughy, deep fried concoction of warm, cinnamon sugar goodness! It’s a local favorite and we walked almost a mile along the waterfront to get some. Let me tell you, it was worth the walk. I had one, wanted to get a 2^nd one but figured my arteries might rebel. Here I am enjoying a Beaver Tail!!!

                                    

So after consuming two day’s worth of calories. We got directions on how to take public transportation to Walmart. For $2 we got to ride through Halifax and see beyond the area immediately surrounding the port. We saw typical suburban/urban detached homes, a beautiful botanical garden and this gorgeous church. We rode the bus for 20 minutes out to a shopping mall area where we found the Walmart, Best Buy and all the typical stores you find in a shopping district. They took our USD in the store and it was almost impossible to tell we were in a different country. The one tell tale sign of Canadian was that all the items in the store were labeled in English and in French. One of my friends asked about that and I had to gently remind her that French is also an official language of Canada.

We only really got to enjoy Halifax for a few hours because we had to get back to the ship for some meetings…. (I had lots and lots of meetings on the ship-some more enjoyable than others)…but one thing that did happen to me which is worth noting is that my phone broke. For the specific purpose of this trip, I had purchased a quad band phone to use. When I got to Halifax, I was able to make a couple of phone calls but then all of a sudden the phone stopped working. I have a couple of theories on what happened but the important thing is the phone was dead. I started FREAKING out because while I was at sea I was not able to send or receive any calls and I was really looking forward to talking to folks when I reached port. I was so upset about the whole thing and tried to figure out a solution. Since we had such a limited amount of time in Halifax, I would not have time to go back out to get a new phone, battery or charger. NEEDLESS to say I was freaking out when thinking about the possibility of not having a phone to contact my family and friends for the duration of the trip. But then I thought what if I contact the folks where I purchased the phone to see if they could help me. So I emailed them that same day and explained the situation. In a few hours I got an email back from them. They offered to send me a new phone, charger and battery to BARCELONA! Isn’t that AMAZING. So I ordered this phone from a company called Travel Ready Phones on EBAY. They were wonderful!!! They communicated well with me, answered promptly, gave me tracking information for the phone. I found out the phone reached Spain on Friday so it should definitely be at the port by the time I reach Barcelona! How excited am I? ESTACTIC!!

Such was my time in Halifax. It was marked by a lack of a stamp, beaver tails, Wal-Mart, a broken phone and a very considerate merchant. AMAZING!

The students boarded the ship on June 15, 2010 beginning at 8am. We set sail at 5pm and the adventure has begun! Next blog: Life on a Ship, the good, the bad and ugly!