Salty Bear

All I did last week was hang around at the hostel, play some Ultimate Frisbee at the Halifax Commons, and went on an unsuccessful hunt for The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (the only place that had it was the library). On Friday, I set off on a 4-day tour with an adventure travel operator called Salty Bear.

(This is a long post, so you'd probably want to take some breaks and look at new photos.)

Day 1 (Walking round the room singing stormy weather)

I woke up very early on Friday morning, and it soon became apparent that I was the only person staying at the Halifax Backpackers (the "other" hostel in Halifax, apart from the HI) going on the Salty Bear tour. I was picked up by the tour guide, Keltie, who then drove over to the HI to pick up the rest of the travelers. I won't lie, the weather was pretty terrible when we set off. The forecast said that it might clear over the weekend, but that was for Halifax, and the weather patterns at Cape Breton Island was not necessarily the same. Despite that, all of the people on the trip were still pretty excited about the next few days ahead.

The first major stop for the trip was Antigonish, a small university town, where we stopped off to stock up on supplies for the next few days. It was at this point that the rain started to get really hard, and by the time we finished our shopping, we were getting soaked on our way back to the van. There was a lot of names that suggested Scottish influence in the town, a theme which is commong throughout Cape Breton Island (which Antigonish is close to) due to British settlers coming predominantly from Scotland (although some from Ireland too). The Gaelic names were particularly common throughout Cape Breton Island, and apparently a lot of kids from Scotland are sent to this region to learn Gaelic because it is a more old form of the language as it has suffered less contamination from other cultures.

After Antigonish, we stopped off at a little place at the side of the highway that did go-karting, mini-golf, bumper cars, and had a baseball machine. Unfortunately, the machine wasn't in operation due to the rain, and nobody really felt like go-karting, so we just had lunch and left for the beach. The beach stop wasn't too long. All we really did was socialize and skip some rocks. We were all eager to head over to the operator-owned hostel to drop off our stuff and then do some kayaking.

Unfortunately, once we got to the hostel, we were told that the kayaking was most likely not going to go ahead due to the adverse weather, and the only other option was to do a hike. Only two people felt like doing the hike, while the rest of us hung around the hostel and drank. It was BBQ when the people from the hike got back, but the propane tank was unexpectedly out of gas, so we ended up just frying burgers on a large pan. It was still good, though (I may be a bit biased because I prepared the patties).

Day 2 (Dipping into the Atlantic)

The entire second day of the trip involved doing the Cabot Trail, a highway that loops around the north side of Cape Breton Island, covering the outskirts of the Cape Breton Highlands national park. Before entering the park, we stopped off at Chéticamp for a Tim Horton's coffee break. At this point we had pretty much lost all hope of a sunny day, and this was evidenced by the ominous fog covering most of the view from an apparently good scenic viewpoint (presumably on a good day). We did see a young black bear on the side of the road though, which was really cool.

The first activity of the day was a hike on the Skyline, which proved to have the same sort of views - a whole lot of white. Again, I'm sure it would have been good on a good day. We then headed over to Pleasant Bay to do some whale-watching. This was probably the highlight of my sea-related tours so far. Before we even left the jetty, the captain of the ship point out a bald-headed eagle sitting on top of a tree. I hadn't seen any eagles before this trip, so this was a real treat (I actually saw one flying overhead on the way to Pleasant Bay). After 10 or 15 minutes of nothing, we finally spotted some whales. It was a pod of pilot whales, who came pretty close to the crab fishing boat that we were on. I thought this was pretty cool, but I was even more amazed when we ran into another pod of whales. This time they stuck around for quite a long time, and even started to play around after a while. Sadly, my camera ran out of battery just before they started doing really cool stuff.

I was really hungry by the time we docked back on Pleasant Bay, and while some of the others had taken the opportunity to order some cheap snow crabs for a meal for later at the beach, I hadn't gotten anything as of yet (I get a slight allergic reaction from shellfish). The plan was to stop at a diner in between Pleasant Bay and Black Brook Beach so that the people who didn't order crab would not miss out on a small meal. When we got there, we saw a sign hanging on the door saying "closed from noon on Saturday". Keltie pointed out that this was a regular occurrence on Cape Breton Island "people would shut their store down for the day because their daughter was getting married or something." We ended up just getting some snacks at the convenience store.

Black Brook Beach was a nice little beach on the eastern end of the national park. It wasn't that big, but it wasn't bad, and there was a small waterfall on one side of it. I decided that, despite the coldness of the water, I would take a dip in the beach for a few minutes just so I can say that I've swam in the Atlantic Ocean. This soon turned into a "who can stay in the cold water the longest" competition. I was going pretty well, but after about 5 or 10 minutes catching some waves, I caught one badly and got smashed head-first into the sand, the side of my head and my neck copping a fair beating. I still have whiplash from that. I figured that I should probably get out of the water after this happened. It was a strange sensation getting out of the cold water and actually feeling warmer.

I noticed that a bride and a groom had shown up on the beach to take some post-wedding photos. I ignored it at first, but Keltie got really excited and started talking to these people. It turns out that these were the people that worked at the diner that was closed, which was a really strange coincidence after what she had said about things closing.

Dinner was fajitas, and again we finished the night off with some drinking. Carman, the owner and sole operator of Salty Bear, showed up late at night, and was surprised to see everybody still up and having a good time. In fact, he was so excited that a group had stayed up all night on the second day (apparently this had not happened before) that he offered us some of the rum that he had brought along. He was a really cool guy doing something that he seemed really passionate about, which was great. I ended up sleeping really late, which would turn out to be my undoing for the next morning.

Day 3 (Crossing over)

I woke up feeling rather tired from the whole free alcohol thing from the previous night, so I decided to opt out of the kayaking, which was rescheduled from the first day. Instead, I hung out back at the hostel, and read the start of a book called Freakonomics, which I found really interesting, and I definitely plan to read the rest of it some time in the future. After the others finished kayaking, we hurried along over to Caribou, where we were to catch a 75-minute ferry to Prince Edward Island, famous for two things - Anne of Green Gables, a popular fictional character, and the Confederation Bridge. On the way to Caribou I had a chat to Rachael, who joined us on the second night, and it turns out that she was heading over to Invermere, the closest town to Panorama (where I worked for the winter), which was another really freaky example of the whole 'six degrees of separation thing'.

I was lucky enough to get a small amount of sleep on a bench in the ferry, and we landed on PEI, where there was red sand and green fields as far as the eye could see. The population of PEI is pretty small, but they get about 2 million tourists per year, so the service industry is huge. It is the smallest province in Canada, and was also the "Birthplace of Confederation" due to the first meeting involving the confederation of Canada (in Charlottetown), eventually leading to the Articles of Confederation being signed. On our way to Charlottetown, we started to play a game called "tractor", which had people yelling out "tractor!" every time they saw a tractor during the drive.

Charlottetown was quite possibly the first city that lived up to the "small city" image that I had coming into the eastern provinces. Halifax and St. John's, while both fairly small, were still both fairly large in that they had a substantially-sized downtown area, with many surrounding neighborhoods and a large overall metropolitan area. Charlottetown had a downtown area that could be explored in a very short period of time, and the outlying developments didn't give that sense of "largeness". It was really cool, though I couldn't imagine myself staying there for a week. Our accommodation for the night was a university dorm, where we were split to two people per room. It was spacious and clean, and I was very impressed overall by the accommodation that was picked out for the trip. We ended the day with dinner at a local brewery where we were once again joined by another traveler, filling up the van to full capacity.

Day 4 (Green Gables - The Ride)

Anne of Green Gables is a really famous novel that documented island life (it was based on PEI), and was published way back in 1908. Due to its (seemingly unreal) popularity, Anne of Green Gables is one of things that makes PEI a tourist attraction, and some people go out of their way to visit the place. Keltie was telling us that our first stop of the day, Cavendish, being the place where Lucy Maud Montgomery (the author of the famous book) grew up, was so popular that she once met a woman who was doing a 4-day tour of the whole of Canada. Her 4 stops were Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper... and Cavendish. This blew my mind, seeing as I had never heard of the book before coming to Canada.

Our main activity for the day was a bike ride around Cavendish, which was really fun and quite beautiful in that rural kind of way. We also had a stroll around the beach once we finished the main trail. Some people also wanted to check out the Green Gables museum, but this involved a fee, so a lot of us just stayed in the parking lot and played around with a Frisbee.

We left PEI via the Confederation Bridge, which was a 1 billion dollar construction project connecting PEI to New Brunswick in the mainland of Canada, and is supposedly the longest bridge crossing over ice-covered waters (in winter) in the world. The toll for crossing the bridge seemed incredibly high ($40.75 for a 2-axle vehicle), though I guess that crossing over wasn't really an everyday activity for people. On the other side, past the viewing area for the bridge, were some moose models that somebody had made using only driftwood, which really odd.

Our final stop of the trip was the Masstown Market, which is just what the name suggests - a marketplace at a place called Masstown. What made this place special was that they sold local produce (apparently good quality), and had an ice-cream shop that had some phenomenal tasting ice cream. Michael and I had won ourselves a free large ice cream after we were both declared winner of "tractor" by virtue of the fact that we were the only ones that persisted with playing it throughout PEI. After the ice cream and shopping break, it was time to head back to Halifax. We hung around at the Economy Shoe Shop before finally heading our separate ways after one of the best guided tours I have ever been on.

Salty Bear tour overview

Days spent: 4
Salty bears: 0
Tractors: Lots
Theme song/s: Gogol Bordello - Start Wearing Purple

The 'lost' photos

There was a moment in St. John's when I had forgotten to insert a memory card into my camera before going out sightseeing. As a result, I had to use the limited amount of space in the camera's in-built memory, meaning I could only take a total of four shots at high quality. These pictures are what I refer to as the 'lost' photos, since they're still on the camera, and I've been far too lazy to dig out from my bag the cable to connect the camera to the laptop (I currently use a card reader to transfer all my photos). If, some day, some photos turn up that seem out of place, this is the reason why.

The four seasons

I only just found out about this today. There are three different ways to determine the current season, which are astronomical, meteorological, and traditional. I only found this out because I was wondering when summer officially ended, and read that it actually depends on where you go.

According to the meteorological reckoning, which is the one I was used to, the seasons are broken up into batches of 3 months, determined by the temperature, with summer being the hottest quarter of the year, and winter being the coldest. So, in a country that uses meteorological, such as Australia, summer would begin on the first day of the hottest three months of the year, December 1 in the southern hemisphere.

However, and this is what confused me when winter officially ended, other countries, such as the USA and Canada, use the astronomical reckoning to determine the seasons. That is, seasons start at the solstices and equinoxes. So, autumn would begin at the autumn equinox, winter at the winter solstice, spring at the spring equinox, and summer at the summer solstice. It kinda makes sense, but it means you have to remember specific dates, and it's not necessarily the same every year. In short, I'll be stuck with summer for another month yet.

The traditional reckoning is based on solar radiation but I won't get into that because it's not going to affect me any time soon. In any case, there's a whole explanation on it at Wikipedia.

Backtrack

The backtracking phase of my trip officially begins today. Until now, I haven't gone back to any place I had already visited during the trip, unless it was on the way to another location. Now, it's time to slowly make my way back west on the slow road home. The first repeat is Halifax.

First impressions suck (and, evidently, so does Notepad)

I seem to have a knack for having a first impression of certain places that never last. When I first arrived at St. John's I was demoralized due to a perceived boringness of the city, and indeed the province as a whole. But then... well actually, I had the next few paragraphs written up, but the laptop decided to close the window I was typing in without saving, and I'm quite sleep-deprived, so I'll spare everybody the details. Here's a quick rundown: I liked Newfoundland despite first impressions; I'm the supreme Scrabble player; Stardust was good, but the novella was better; St. John's airport sucks, but Tim Horton's did an excellent job of keeping me awake and (relatively) sane.

St. John's overview

Days spent: 12
iPod thieves: At least 1, that bastard
Places named 'Dildo' visited: 1
Theme song/s: The Waifs - Lighthouse

Oh yeah, and I bought a blues harp (harmonica) today to keep me musically entertained while I can't enjoy my music in pre-recorded form. Got pulled up by airport security for having a suspicious object. I thought that was amusing. I'm pretty sure they knew what it was, but they checked it anyway (which I had a feeling might happen), so it's good to know they're doing their job.

Thieving rascals

Let me get this out of the way first: a few days ago, my iPod was stolen. Now, I've been meaning to upgrade to an video-capable iPod for a while, but it doesn't diminish the fact that I'm utterly irritated at the gall of some people. I would say that 99%, perhaps more, of travelers are generally easy-going and well-mannered, but that 1% are the ones you have to worry about. Some people can just be so self-centered and don't take into consideration that they may be ruining other people's experiences by doing things such as stealing some food from the fridge (which had happened to Matt a few days prior) or worse, stealing valuables. Now, part of this is my fault, I admit, as I should have had the iPod under lock and key, but, in my defense, I have been keeping my valuables under tight guard during this trip, and until recently have not been keeping things out. I only happened to leave my iPod out after listening to it late at night, and had forgotten that it was not secure the next day. It wasn't too unreasonable not to expect the thing to get stolen straight away. I'm particularly annoyed at this recent development because I still have a good two months left in my journey, which will now be without music, save for the stuff I get from YouTube.

From Dildo to Heart's Content and beyond

I've worn myself out in the past few days. The day after the long hike from Cape Spear to St. John's, I decided to join a hostel-run tour of the southern shore of the Avalon Peninsula. We ended up doing the Irish Loop, which follows the road along the southeastern shoreline of the peninsula. The first stop was Ferryland, a beautiful town, whereupon we visited the historic lighthouse and ate some lunch. We followed the road along coastal towns, occasionally stopping by scenic landmarks. One of the more interesting stops was the sub-arctic tundra, which featured a rather curious tree-less vegetation expanse, where one could walk along and experience an odd sinking feeling, almost as if one were treading on a field of sponges.

The trip was made rather interesting by the presence of a fellow traveler who persisted with stupid or otherwise pointless questions and requests along the way. Kathleen, Anna, and I had been previously acquainted with one another, and were comfortable with the dynamics of our personalities, but this new companion (if you could call him that) was just so intent on talking as much as he could about anything he could think of, even if the conversation seemed fruitless. Needless to say, everybody else in the car (being the three of us and the driver) were quite tired of him by the end of the journey.

Kathleen and Anna actually offered to accompany me to Gros Morne National Park, as they were hiring a car from Deer Lake, which would have been excellent, but I figured that I wanted at least a couple of days, probably more, at the park to fully appreciate it, so I kindly declined their offer. I'm hoping that I will eventually make a trip back here some time in the distant future to fully appreciate the province. My view of Newfoundland & Labrador has definitely changed since getting here - I know appreciate that there is a lot to see in this province, certainly more than meets the eye upon first arrival.

Yesterday, I took another tour around the Avalon Peninsula, this time around Trinity Bay in the northeast of the area. It took another full day, and it was with a new group of people. Our first stop was Cape Spear, which I had already been to (so I did not bother with the camera). After that, we headed to Trinity Bay, famous for various firsts, such as the first transatlantic telegraph cable (Heart's Content), and the site of the first transatlantic flight by a female pilot (Amelia Earhart from Harbour Grace). We did visit Heart's Content, but we didn't actually go to Harbour Grace due to time constraints.

We did, however, go to the place that I had been meaning to go to since landing on the island - a place called Dildo. It's pretty self-explanatory - I wanted to go to this place purely for the name. Sure, it was actually a nice little town, but the name itself was worth the price of admission. We ate at Dildo (say that three times quickly) Dory, a local restaurant, and had a quick look around, taking as many photos of signs with the word 'Dildo' as we could. We stopped off at some other places, sightseeing and berry-picking (something that I had gotten quite addicted to after meeting Kathleen and Anna), but I think Dildo was the highlight of the entire trip. I feel as if my time in Newfoundland was well-spent after that.

Today was spent doing not much at all, mainly due to recovery purposes - I have been outside for the past three days straight - but also because I had been meaning to read Neil Gaiman's novella, Stardust, the movie adaptation of which had previously premiered at theatres nationwide, and which I want to see. The story was rather good - brilliantly written, and in the style of old fairytales. I can see, judging from the trailers, that the movie has had several changes from the original material, presumably to appeal to the masses... whether or not this will do movie good or bad is something I shall determine when I finally view the film (hopefully in the next few days).

And the photos. Oh my goodness, with the photos. I have barely touched them since I arrived in Newfoundland, mainly due to the fact that I've been snap-happy since I've been here, and there are so many to go through that it would take a long time to sort out the good from the bad (which I would say would be a rather low percentage). Hopefully I'll have them up by the end of the week.

The great outdoors

I've found out in the past few days that mostly everything that can be done in this island is one (or both) of two things: 1) something outdoors, and 2) something that is only accessible by car. Because of this, a lot is dependent on the weather, which can be really disagreeing in Newfoundland.

The first real outdoorsy activity that we did was the hike up Signal Hill, a national historic site famous for various things, like being the site where the first transatlantic wireless signal was received. The next day, we headed over to Bay Bulls to do a whale- and bird-watching tour. We saw a tremendous amount of puffins, due to the fact that we went by Witless Bay, which has the North America's largest Atlantic puffin colony, and is an ecological preserve. We also spotted a couple of humpback whales during their lunch break.

The trip to Gros Morne National Park was ultimately scrapped. Matt had to leave earlier than anticipated due to a miscommunication on the part of Matt's travel agent in regards to his flight to England, so he didn't have enough time to swing by to the west side of the island for a few days. I, myself, could not justify doing the trip alone, so I decided to just stay in the east coast for the remainder of my stay, which will now last until the 18th of August after some travel plan changes.

For the time being, I've decided to see as much of the Avalon Peninsula as possible. After a few days of rain, sunshine finally broke through the clouds again, and made for better conditions for outdoor activities. Today, a few of us from the hostel (myself plus Anna and Kathleen from Toronto) were dropped off at Cape Spear, from where we would hike all the way to Fort Amherst, which is on the other side of the St. John's harbour. We started off by doing a bit of whale-watching off the easternmost point in North America. I actually spotted a lot more whales today than I did during the other day's tour (though I guess that was mostly for bird-watching). I believe they were minke whales, though I think I also spotted some dolphins, though I can't be 100% sure on that.

Anyway, the hike took quite an effort to complete. We were told that it was around a 15km hike, but what we were not told was that it involved lots of steep climbs and descents. We started the hike at around 11:30 in the morning, and didn't really get going for a while because we were too busy picking blueberries, which were growing freely along the trail. After a while, we decided that this would take up too much of our time, and we soldiered on. At about the halfway point, we were really starting to feel the strain on our legs, and after lunch time we were working up quite a sweat. About an hour or so before the end of the trail, I landed awkwardly and twisted my ankle, which was not too pleasant, but I kept going, and by the end of the trail, we clocked a good 6 and a half hours worth of hiking. It was a beautiful and brutal trail (and incredibly tasty too), and my legs are still aching from it.

St. John's

Halifax overview

Days spent: 7
Percentage of time spent sleeping: Close to 50%
Change of plans: 2
Theme song/s: Architecture in Helsinki - Vanishing

Newfoundland

I was quite excited to leave Halifax and move onto a new place. St. John's in Newfoundland was the destination, and though I was to spend a seemingly unreasonable span of time in Canada's easternmost province, I was hoping that the island would be filled with things to do. Alas, upon landing at the provincial capital, my hopes were dashed. It's a small city, just like Halifax, but for some reason it didn't feel the same way. It felt more isolated, with less things to do, and indeed less people around. I hear the pubs are big at night, but that wouldn't really keep me occupied for too long (well, ok, it may be able to, but that would involve lots of money). Of course, that being said, I still haven't had a good look around and see what I may be able to do around here, but at the moment St. John's doesn't seem like a place that I want to stay for more than a week.

The rough plan that Matt and I have in mind to get to Gros Morne National Park is still in the works, and I'm hoping that eats up at least half a week, providing some fun in terms of hitchhiking and just plain hiking, as well as other activities the park has to offer. The original plan included a trip to L'anse aux Meadows, the Viking settlement at the north tip of the island, but after talking to a few people, it doesn't seem like it would be worth the long trip. Ironically, it was because of this (going to Newfoundland early so that I could have somebody to travel around with) that has made my stay in Newfoundland longer than I anticipated.

I've already started to make some contingency plans for what is to happen after we get back from that little journey. I've called the owner of a little Maritime operation called Salty Bear Adventure Travel to answer a posted advert to work at Cape Breton Island for free accommodation and food. I am awaiting the exact details of this, and am hoping that this will work out, especially according to my schedule, but failing that, I might look for something to keep me occupied for two or so weeks here in the island.

The hostel of infinite sleep

Halifax is a really nice and laid back city. In fact, it's perhaps a little too laid back. In the span of the last week, I haven't gotten up to a whole lot. Most of my time has been spent hanging out at the hostel either on the computer, sleeping, or talking to the other guests. The company has been great - everybody I've met has been nice, and it's always great to talk to other travelers. For some reason, though, I've been sleeping quite a bit. I can't explain it - every time I come back from going outside of the hostel, I've headed straight for bed for a nap that usually lasts a few hours. When I wake up, it's dinner time, or close to it.

Despite this, what little I've been doing has been pretty cool. The first day I went out was when I first got into the hostel. A few of us went and had a stroll around, checking out a few landmarks, then checked out the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, which was free on Tuesday evenings. That night, we all went to the local pool hall to have a few games and some drinks. The next day, we went to Point Pleasant Park, which was nice, although I didn't do all of it because I was too tired from walking around. I headed back to the hostel early to crash. After having dinner, a few of us headed over to a pub oddly called The Economy Shoe Shop. They had awesome nachos, supposedly the best in town. I didn't stay out too long, because I wanted to make sure I woke up the next day, when we were to head to Peggy's Cove for a half-day trip.

Peggy's Cove was cool. A prototypical little town by the sea, lighthouse and all. In fact, Peggy's Cove's lighthouse is renowned as the most photographed lighthouse in the world. I don't know how much of that is true, but the amount of tourists that were there seemed to back up this claim. We got there fairly early, so I was lucky to get a couple of photos without people in it. On the way home, we stopped by the graveyard set up for the victims of the Titanic disaster. Apparently, when the Titanic sunk, the two closest ports were Halifax, and St. John's in Newfoundland. I had something to eat when we got back to the hostel, then I went to the cinemas to watch The Simpsons Movie, which came out the previous week, but I didn't want to see it in French. It was pretty funny.

Yesterday, I watched two movies. Well, technically speaking, I watched one of the movies today, but who's counting. The first one I watched was The Bourne Ultimatum, part three of the Bourne series loosely based on Robert Ludlum's series of spy novels. I'm not sure if they'll make a next movie, but this installment was as good as the last, perhaps even better. The second movie I watched was at midnight, as part of an outdoor film festival that Halifax is holding for the month of August. I saw Donnie Darko on a screen projected on a small screen hanging from the roof of a warehouse at the pier. It was a pretty cool experience, both figuratively and literally. I should have brought my jacket.

Today has been filled with more nothingness. I went to the waterfront to check out the market they have every Saturday, but when I got there, there wasn't a lot to see, so I headed back to the hostel and got more sleep. Now, as always, dinner time is looming.

New photos are up. There's a few shots from the end of July, and several from Peggy's Cove.

Halifax

The last day in Québec turned out to be, by far, the best in terms of the weather. The humidity had miraculously disappeared, temporarily removing the thick layer of haze from the city's skyline. You could particularly notice this by the beautiful yellow sunset, as opposed to the hazy reddish-orange sunsets that had been the order of the past week. Alas, check-out time was 11 in the morning, which meant that I had to babysit my backpack (I didn't feel it was worth it to pay for a locker), so all I could think to do (apart from eating) between then and the time I was to walk to the train station was to go and find an English copy of the latest Harry Potter and read through as much of it as I could. I'm actually quite impressed at how much I managed to get through in the one day. I must have read at least half of it. The train delay later in the day also helped.

Québec overview

Days spent: 7
Humidity: Extreme
Awkward language moments: At least 10
Theme song/s: Regina Spektor - Summer in the City

I took some photos on that last day in Québec, but I'll wait to post them up until I get some from Halifax.

Somehow I was expecting this

I gave the Canadian rail system too much credit after my incident-free trip from Toronto to Québec just over a week ago. The train that was to take me to Halifax turned up about 3 and a half hours late. After waiting that long, it was about 2 in the morning when we got on the train, and all I could think about was sleep. I didn't end up getting a whole lot. I only managed about 3 or 4 hours. I spent the rest of the trip reading a book, listening to music, and writing.

The hostel in Halifax in which I was planning to stay was very close to the train station, so it didn't take me long to walk there. Unfortunately, since I was expecting the train to be delayed, I didn't book ahead, and when I got there, it turned out that they were booked out. So, I took a taxi to a small guest house across town, which was charging fairly cheap prices for a private room.

The next day, I headed back to the hostel, and met a few fellow travelers with whom I hung out with for most of the day. We went to the library, the park, and played pool at a pool hall at the end of the night (which involved drinking and kebabs). When we were at the library, we saw Ricki Lake (as in, the talk show host) doing some filming outside for a made-for-TV movie. Go Ricki.

Harry Potter

Well, it only took me about 4 sittings to finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Despite not having bought the book, I really couldn't help myself. I needed to know how it ended. I don't usually read that quickly, so it goes without saying that it was quite a page-turner. A great end to a series that I, admittedly, had ignored until recently. I think the only other time I read a book so quickly was when I read the second half of Speaker for the Dead in an afternoon. The book brought closure, but also gave me that annoying feeling of "gah, now what am I going to do?"