Last Day in Newfoundland!

So today was our last day in Newfoundland. I’m kinda sad to be leaving. We had beautiful weather again today (which Kristin insists is a complete anomaly) and Julie and I decided to explore the downtown core a little more. Plus, we were on a mission to find a nice bumper sticker to put on Cloud 9 upon our return tomorrow. We woke up late again – I swear we’re still functioning on Ottawa time because we wake up at 10am, but in Ottawa, it’s only 8:30am, so though we feel like we’re sleeping in, we really aren’t. That’s my excuse anyway.

We took our time getting ready this morning, hoping we’d hear from Amy about a day trip outside of St. John’s. An email from her never came though, so we lathered on the sunscreen, and headed out for our final day of exploration.

The weather couldn’t have been more beautiful, with lovely clear blue skies overhead, and a nice cool breeze filtering by us everywhere we went. Our first stop ended up being a Newfoundland Historical site that we simply happened to stumble upon – the Newman Wine Vaults (Yes Nick, we did think of you, even though Newman isn’t spelled the same way). Cost us $3 to get in, and we happened to come right at the start of a tour, so we actually had someone telling us all about the history of the site. According to the guide, the Newman Wine Vaults were built to hold a shipment of port that was en route from Portugal to London, but that was redirected by French Privateers and bad weather to the coasts of Newfoundland. Since the sailing couldn’t be completed during the winter months, the port was wintered in St. John’s, and when it finally made it to England, the connoisseurs discovered that it had gained a smoother, and fuller flavour than it had had before. From that point on, port was aged in Newfoundland. Neat story huh? The other thing the Newman Wine Vaults are known for is their ghosts. Apparently there was a wedding there recently during which a photographer got a picture of a man’s ghostly torso. Julie and I took a couple pictures of this room where the ghost had been, but I don’t think we were as lucky to catch a ghostly image on camera.

Can you see the ghostly image?

After emerging from the Newman Wine Vaults, Julie and I slipped in and out of a few souvenir shops in search of bakeapple jam – jam made from cloudberries, only available here in Newfoundland, or so we’ve been told. We found it in the place we ended up finding our Newfie bumper sticker as well. The lady who owned the shop was very nice, giving us all sorts of recommendations on where to explore and what to see and do. Once we had our bakeapple jam though, we were on our way to another of Newfoundland’s historical sites. En route, we came across the Newfoundland Chocolate factory. Julie has been craving chocolate recently, so we popped in for a gander. We ended up coming out with a bag-full of truffles of sorts. They all ended up being delicious, but the best one, surprisingly enough, was the chocolate made with screech in it! Who knew? (For a more detailed assessment of all the chocolates we tried, please visit Julie’s “Chocolate Testing in the Park” blog)

Julie and I ended our day by meeting up with Kristin for a beer at the Yellow Belly pub located at 1 George Street. Though the waiter was a better-looking version of Will Farrell, he was certainly on-par with Will Farrell’s normal dunce characters, charging us for food we didn’t ask for but ate because we were under the impression we got what we ordered. Anyway, we enjoyed chatting about parenting styles and our siblings (sorry guys!).

We bussed back home, well not all the way back home. We ended up getting off the bus at the bottom of an extremely steep hill, up which we had to walk to get to Kristin’s. Walking downtown was no issue because it was all downhill, but walking back, now that was another story. The hill literally went straight up. No word of a lie. Kristin will corroborate my story I’m sure. She was telling us that her mother is so nervous about driving up the hill that she’ll take the long way around to avoid it. THAT’s how steep it was.

At the top, Julie and I were huffing and puffing – clearly we’re on our way to being in better shape. When we made it to Kristin’s we were exhausted. Julie even took a mini-nap while I worked on emails and University stuff (Queen’s course registration process is really confusing and complicated. So far, neither Julie nor I have been able to figure things out!). Once Julie was up and about, we spent the rest of our evening packing and watching a couple movies. Overall, the Newfoundland experience has been awesome. Tomorrow morning we’ll be departing at 7:50am. All I have to say is, Nova Scotia, here we come!

-Nicole