Halifax: Part 1
Myself and Ben came to Halifax on Wednesday morning and a lot of you will be wondering why, apparently that’s a common reaction.. people seem to be underwhelmed with Halifax. I, however, just like travelling and seeing new places. I love a new adventure, wherever that is. I have been to Halifax before but I was a wee one then so I don’t remember much besides Theodore the Tugboat and getting to see the Halifax Tattoo. This fall Ben and I decided to come to Halifax for 5 days for a few reasons. The first was, well, we needed a break - or maybe we wanted a trip, I know I did! I have had a severe case of wanderlust since my return from Italy and this was my way of pacifying that at a relatively low cost for the time being. The second reason was to come volunteer at We Day Atlantic Canada, if you don’t know what that is I’ll explain a little later. And the third reason is made up of the combination of Taco Bell, Forever 21, H&M, the fact that it’s the last real alone time Ben and I will get before he leaves for 4 months as well as the trip being reasonably cheap given that we got it on Air Miles and got a great hotel deal. SO - that is why we came to Halifax!
With that out of the way, I wanted to discuss how incredibly similar Halifax and St. John’s are. Downtown Halifax is JUST like downtown St. John’s. It’s mostly on a hill, given not as steep. There’s a bunch of hotels, the stadium is down here, it’s right on the water.. and the other day there was sun, rain and snow in the span of 10 minutes! I could definitely live here, it would feel just like home. Except with a better bus system, better stores and increased access to Starbucks.
We caught a flight here on Wednesday morning, super early in the morning. It was a West Jet flight to Halifax/Toronto and the flight attendant was super funny. He joked about if we needed anything could we please keep it to ourselves because he woke up at 3:30 that morning - too funny. We were lucky enough to have the 3 seat row to ourselves. I’m pretty sure everyone else on the flight was headed to Alberta. I just wrote a research paper about fly in/out jobs and Newfoundlanders working in Alberta so it was interesting to see all the men, young and old, load onto the plane with their Syncrude and Suncor hats, jackets and backpacks. There was like an instant brotherhood between them, because they knew they all lived the same life. I overheard a couple of them talking and you would think they knew each other since birth and then they would ask where the other is headed and I realized they’d never met. Maybe there is a camaraderie research graduate degree in sociology for me in there somewhere.. Anyways, when we got to Halifax we weren’t sure how we were going to get to the hotel but I had read that there was a city bus you could get for $3.50 versus the $17 for the shuttle we would have had to wait another hour for. City bus it was! And it was easy - the driver was kind and helpful! Got to the hotel no problem and our luck continued - we could get in our room at 10 AM! We took a nap and then before we knew it, it was time to head towards the We Day Atlantic Canada volunteer orientation and grab some food on the way. We Day is an awesome event that Free The Children holds to reward youth involved with their organization for their work and effort to help change the world as well to inspire them to further that change. The tickets don’t cost anything, but they aren’t free. School groups earn them through the work that they do year round. The event features inspiring speakers, music and information about other ways to make change in the world. Ben and I signed up to volunteer to help but also because we wanted to experience the day and see exactly what happens there because Free The Children has always been an organization I’ve liked and I very well might apply for some of their jobs when I graduate in May. Volunteer orientation was great! We got posted to the Education First (EF Tours) kiosk on which we had the job of helping teachers to enter to win a trip for them and 3 students to the Amazon with Me to We by scanning their electronic bracelet. So learning the ins and outs of that was easy enough!
After training we took our time going back to the hotel and stopped in to Freak Lunch box. Funny enough, we have this store in NL but getting downtown to go shopping isn’t something I get to do often. Bought some yummy stuff in there - Ben got a case of Vanilla Coke, so he was stoked on that! When we got back to the hotel we vegged out and enjoyed the pool and hot tub!
On Day 2 we got up and got the bus to the Mic Mac Mall, which was about a 20 minute bus ride away, also pretty easy to manuever with the help of Google Maps. Did a little shopping but nothing too crazy. Then we made our way back to the hotel and then on to Ronald McDonald House Halifax. As most of you probably know, I work at Ronald McDonald House Newfoundland and Labrador and absolutely love the organization. So I thought I would try to come and see the Halifax one while I was here and thanks to RMHNL’s lovely Executive Director I got that chance. Ben and I went for a tour of their house and even the Family Room in the IWK. It was awesome to see how they are different and the same in many ways. The Family Room was a big highlight for me, if you don’t know what it is, it’s basically a room in the hospital for the use of all the families in the Children’s hospital. So the goal is to be a mini Ronald McDonald House really. It has a kitchen for the use of the families, dining room area, living room area, shower, and other amenities that vary depending on the resources of each Family Room. I think it would certainly be a lovely addition to the Janeway, maybe in time!
After our awesome tours we ended up going out to the Halifax Shopping Centre to scope that out, once again on the bus, and once again it was easy! If only Metrobus were that easy (and on time), I would use it all the time! After checking that out we got the bus back to our hotel and then walked to Cafe Chianti where we were having dinner. We had scoped the place out online and made a reservation. It was supposed to be an authentic Italian restaurant but they had box pasta which made me a little sad, with that said, everything else was awesome!
Day 3, today, was a super EARLY rise. Had to be at the stadium for We Day 7:15 AM which was a little unnecessary for us because of our specific post but I understand why they just told ALL volunteers 7:15 AM, it would have been way too confusing to tell everyone different times and after having run a few events that need volunteers myself, it’s better for volunteers to be there early than too close to the time or too late. We manned our EF tours kiosk and did our absolute best to get all the teachers we could to enter to win the trip, it was actually pretty fun because it wasn’t trying to sell them anything, it was a total win-win! After that booth closed down we got to stick around and watch the rest of the show which was about a solid hour so it was cool to see what we did - Amanda Lindhout, Kweku Mandela, Craig and Marc Kielburger.. and I also got a glimpse of Amanda Murphy who has an amazing story! Look up those names if you want to be inspired, such incredible people.
After the show we went down to the harbour front and explored a little bit. Took a selfie with Theodore the Tugboat who is all decked out for November, ya know, the usual. We went to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic which was actually way cooler than I expected it to be. I learned about the Halifax explosion which I vaguely had heard about but it was interesting to hear the full story, there was artifacts from the Titanic like pieces of the gorgeous stairwell and a sun chair from the deck which was really cool, and they have a Parrot there named Merlin! That was super cool and he even said Hello to me!
Once we were done at the museum we came on back to the hotel and have vegged out ever since. Our feet are gone! I’ve walked more than 10,000 steps everyday since we got here (according to my phone, so its approximate) and 14,000 yesterday alone! My usual is around 3000/4000 so that’s a lot for me! But it’s good because I’ve been doing my best to be healthier, besides the delicious chinese food we ordered in tonight LOL but seriously, I even got a workout in on day 1!
That’s pretty much it for Part 1 of my Halifax journey, I’ll be doing a video of it all when it’s done of course, probably two separate ones, one for the week and one for We Day alone. Thanks for reading my uber long post and look out for part two which will likely be up Sunday or Monday night!
Ciao!
