It's Raining, it's Pouring!

So Julie and I have reconsidered our first opinion of Halifax. We’re not sure if it would be our favourite city to live in. Today when we woke up, it was drizzling out, but drizzling here in Halifax is completely different from “drizzle” in Ottawa, or Southwestern Ontario for that matter! Here, drizzle is a constant and persistent, but at the same time somewhat lighter, rainfall. It’s the kind of rain that is light, but falls in big drops that soak your clothing quickly. Just going from Cloud 9 to the Walmart to go to the bathroom this morning meant getting very wet.

Determined to finish up our tour of Halifax (we still had the Halifax museum and Pier 21 to go), we both bought $5 Walmart rain jackets, Julie bought an umbrella (because her previous one died) and we headed for the bus stop. Julie, the fashionista that she is, decided the rain jacket looked stupid, so I wore mine, and she opted for her umbrella. I’m pretty sure she got less wet than I did. It’s not that the rain jacket didn’t work, it really did work well, but I wanted to keep my big bag covered too, and it didn’t fit very well under the rain jacket – that and there was a lot of sideways rain…I hate sideways rain.

Anyway, we braved the weather and headed downtown, completely soaked from the hips down by the time we got to the first museum. That’s when we decided we wouldn’t want to live in Halifax all the time. It is a beautiful city, but we were both not sure whether we could deal with all the rain all the time (apparently it rains there a lot…).

Pirate that greeted us at the museum

The Halifax museum was a good place to pass the day, though the exhibits had a lot of text to them. We saw artifacts from sunken wrecks near the Halifax harbour, we learned a little more about Sable Island, and we even saw artifacts directly from the sunken Titanic! The Titanic sinking is kinda a big deal in Halifax considering a lot of the recovered bodies are buried in a cemetery here. We also walked through an exhibit titled "Hello Sailor", which depicted the life of gay and lesbian culture in the navy. The exhibit seemed a little half-baked though, and I don't mean drug-wise. Julie and I were both a little disappointed. Neither of us really got a good idea of exactly what the exhibit was trying to portray.

They had a lot of these impressive models

Personally, my favourite part of the museum was the display on the Halifax explosion. I didn’t know much about it beforehand (though Julie had filled me in a bit…she’s so full of Canadian facts…I should be ashamed to claim any sort of Canadian citizenship in comparison!), but the exhibit was really informative and touching as well. It’s crazy to think that the Halifax explosion marked the largest non-nuclear explosion to date.

After we finished up the Halifax museum (we didn’t do the boat), we walked down the boardwalk all the way to Pier 21. Of course, it rained all the way there, until we arrived, and then it decided to clear up. Just our luck. 

Wet and tired, we entered Pier 21 to find an interactive and most enjoyable exhibit. The display really put you in touch with the feel of Pier 21 as it used to be, when thousands of immigrants and soldiers alike passed through its halls before, during, and after WWII. The display featured a setup of the waiting area where immigrants sat, waiting to speak to immigration officers; a mock train that visitors could enter, and that also included different compartments (complete with sliding train doors) in which played the stories of various immigrants who had passed through Pier 21; and a ship deck on which visitors could walk. Inside the mock ship was also a theatre in which was played a bunch of stories from Pier 21 through the projection of haunting, ghost-like holograms onto a stage that was dressed with actual set-pieces. It was really neat!

Overall, Julie and I loved the Pier 21 museum. It didn’t feature a huge display, I think it only took us about an hour to get through it all, but it was very interesting, and extremely personalized. You really felt, when you left the museum, that you knew some of the people who had been through there so long ago.

Finished up with museums for the day, we ventured back towards the downtown, hoping to catch a bus. We popped into the Keith’s brewery to snap a few pictures of Mr. Keith, when the idea of hot soup popped into our heads. And there, above our heads, hung the sign for the Red Stag Tavern. We entered tentatively, not sure if we should commit to eating out when we had so much food back in the van, but when we were told they had a significant selection of chowders, Julie was convinced. Neither of us wanted to cook either, so it worked out well. Julie filled her craving for seafood chowder (well almost filled it…the seafood chowder was not nearly as good as the chowder we’d had in St. John’s), and we both got a warm meal to tide us over on our way back to the van. The only downside? Barrett’s Privateers blared over the tavern’s speakers almost as soon as we sat down. But that’s okay…nothing’s perfect!  

-Nicole