Gloomy Montréal and Canjet to Halifax

Main objective of today was to get to Halifax in one piece. My flight wasn't until this afternoon so I had a good chunk of the day to use up doing something worthwhile in Montréal. Not sure it could be classified as being "worthwhile", but I did spend most of the morning watching the latest stunning Kournikova/Sharipova clone "Nicole Vaidisova" playing in the early rounds of the French Open.

Despite the gloomy weather outside, I checked out, put my bag into storage (the hostel has an excellent set-up for this) and headed down to the Old Port district I visited with Mickey late last year. The weather wasn't any better than last time and despite being early Summer there weren't any more people around than last time, so I killed some time by heading right to the very end of Clock Tower Quay and climbing the 192 stairs to the top of the Clock Tower which was built back in 1922 to honour the mariners who perished at sea during the First World War. From the top you get awesome 360 degree views of Montréal city and the St Lawrence River so I'm glad I made the effort.

 

 

 

 

In the end I decided to head to the airport a little earlier than probably scheduled in an attempt to beat the worse weather I had heard was moving in. The last thing I wanted to be doing was standing out on a street corner in the rain waiting for a bus with my pack on my back. Done that before a number of times and it never gets any more entertaining.

I flew with "Canjet" from Montréal to Halifax which was a bare bones experience to say the least. I know they are a budget "no-frills" airline, but seriously... no juice for the non tea or coffee drinkers? Come on now!

Met up with my old mate Kevin and his girlfriend Jenn at the very modern Halifax airport. I met Kevin while backpacking through Southern Ireland back in 2001 and he has been bugging me to come and visit him in his native Nova Scotia for years now. It's not like I needed much persuasion, his generous hospitality is both welcomed and appreciated.

On the way back to Kev's apartment, we did a quick orientation tour of the city and Kev, who has worked as a tour operator in the area for some years and therefore really knows his stuff when it comes to geography and history of the area, gave me the full spiel on the great explosion that occurred in Halifax Harbour back in 1917. I won't go into it in detail in this post as my attention span isn't good enough to keep typing long enough to fully explain it, but let's just say it was understandably a massive event in the lives of the people of Halifax with the aftermath shaping the way people live and interact in the city today. It's well worth reading up about and the Wikipedia article on the subject is a great place to start.

Back at Kev's place, we had a quick beer, a chat and shared a few reminiscing laughs from our trip in Ireland before calling it a night and getting some sleep.

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