Day 12 - Getting to St. John's, NL

Hello friends, today was our longest drive yet, and also the furthest I've been away from Waterloo in years. Last night, after Anthony and I drove up to North Sydney, NS and chatted with the nice ladies working at the Marine Atlantic Ferry Terminal about our trip, we got onto a ferry for the first time and ventured towards the only part of Canada that we couldn't get to by car, Newfoundland! It was actually quite an exciting experience getting to drive my car onto the ferry, and when we actually got to our deck, we were blown away by how nice the ferry actually was. I don't know what my expectations were going into it, but it was so much nicer and fancier than I could have ever imagined. The ferry ride to Newfoundland was about 7 hours long, and I surprisingly managed to get a decent amount of sleep (I woke up kind of sore, but I was just so exhausted from the day before). The kicker was that we then had a 9 hour drive over to St. John's, so we started our drive at around 7:30 am NDT (6:00 am EST, because Newfoundland is special and has the only half over time zone deviation in Canada) and got to St. John's just past 4:30 pm. Today was the first time on this trip that Anthony got to drive my car, which allowed me to take a half hour nap on the way to St. John's.  The weather was quite weird today, as it went from raining, to sunny, to foggy, to sunny all within an hour, and just alternated throughout the drive. As they say, if you don't like the weather in Newfoundland, just wait 5 minutes. Fun fact: St. John's is the oldest city in Canada!

When we got to St. John's, we met up with Kyle Dover, who is kind enough to give us a place to stay for the 4 days that we'll be spending there. We dropped some stuff off and went for a drive around the city. We stopped by Avalon Mall for dinner and walked around it for a bit; it's pretty much your run-of-the-mill mall, but it was close to the Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN), so it's nice to see where some of the MUN students go to hangout. We then drove downtown, and as usually parking downtown was a nightmare, but we found a pretty good spot in the end. We first went to George Street, which is a street in St. John's that houses many different pubs and bars, and is one of the busiest areas in all of Newfoundland. Fun fact: the street is open to traffic only in the mornings so that the bars could restock, but is only open to pedestrians during most business days. We walked by the waterfront, and there were some fantastic views of the mountains around the water. We went somewhere known as "Jellybean Row", which is a street where every house is painted a different bright colour, resembling a bowl of jellybeans. The reason for this is because a while back, the fogs were quite bad and people couldn't find their houses, and so the colours helped people find where they live. Last stop of the night was visiting St. John the Baptist Cathedral, the architecture of which was stunning. We then went home and watched Forrest Gump (my first time seeing it), and that was such a heavy way to end the night.

 The overall architecture of St. John's is fascinating because a good chunk of it is on a hill, and the early settlers built things not really considering the expansion of the city moving forward, so sometimes things are places awkwardly and no one really bats on eye. But what I love about St. John's so far is the history and culture that you can see all over the city. A wonderful city so far, and I am excited to go explore more of it tomorrow!

 Getting to St. John's: www.instagram.com/p/BiqZ0_nlT6O

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