Halifax

The sun decided to shine on someone else today, but the grey skies didn't bother us as we had to drive 3 hours from Moncton to Halifax.  On our way we decided to do some further planning for the trip.  We had reservations through Wednesday night but not beyond.  Our philosophy of traveling for this trip has been to not plan too far out ahead so that we cannot change our plans if we find an irresistible opportunity that we want to take advantage of.  So far it has worked well for us.  But today we hit a bit of a snag.  Our next stop after Halifax is Newfoundland which requires a ferry there and a ferry back.  One ferry is 5 hours and the other is 14.  Our intent was to book a sleeping berth on the longer leg.  However, when we inquired about doing so all of the berths were booked until August 18--way beyond our time frame.  So after investigating and talking about our options, we decided to go ahead and take the ferry without the sleeping berth.  We are on a waiting list for one, but who knows.  We have flown 14 hours to China on a skinny airplane, so I think we can survive 14 hours on a ferry with free wifi and entertainment.  The ferry we booked leaves at 5pm on Friday and arrives at 8:30am on Saturday.
We'll let you know how it goes.

Upon our arrival in Halifax, we checked into our newest college dorm.  It is becoming a bit of an adventure and curiosity to see what each one will look like.  We are staying at Kings College, part of Dalhousie University--unfortunately our room is not really fit for a king, but quite adequate. We are staying in Alexandra Hall which I would compare to Ball Hall before the renovation.  The room is quite large with 2 twin beds and a bath down the hall. The college is quite charming organized around quads with Gothic style buildings.

Our first stop in Halifax was to visit the Halifax Citadel National Historic Site. This is a massive star-shaped fort among the best preserved in Canada.  We spent about 2 and a half hours there, taking a guided tour and visiting the different parts of the fort.  In own part there was a school room and a "soldier" explaining how both soldiers and children were educated in the classroom.  The picture in this post is of a slide projector from 1869--educational technology from the 19th century powered by an oil lamp!

 After the museum, we investigated the waterfront and its many ships and curio shops.  At the end of the water front we found ourselves at the Halifax Casino and checked it out.  The house always wins when I play so I kept my money in my pocket.  We did have our picture taken with Frank, Sammy and Dean, who must have died gone to Halifax!  We had dinner in the Casino at table by the window watching the growing clouds which finally brought lots of heavy rain.

Diane

Today we didn't have to drive as much. We only had about a three hour drive from St. John, New Brunswick to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Diane worked the phone dealing with our follow-on trip to Newfoundland, and I just had to drive and enjoy the scenery. Still few people from the US on the roads. I might have counted less than a total of 15 US licenses all the way over.
 
The scenery here is like a cross between Seattle here in Halifax to lush rolling hills balanced between farmland and heavy wooded areas in the rural parts. Canadians take great care of their land, their houses, and their environment! The rural areas are well taken care of, and the cities, like Halifax, are (in my mind) much cleaner than a similar size US city.

Diane asked a good question as we drove along today. Why did the 13 colonies from maine south revolt and secede from the British, and the colonies to the North (like New Brunswick and Nova Scotia , and the rest of Canada not revolt and not secede. That's your test question for today. (We'll come back to this some other day.)

I like Halifax. As I mentioned, it reminds me of Seattle. It has about 390,000 people, and is a large city. Their water front is well developed, the downtown area has a lot of theater, places to eat, commerce, tourist atteactions, etc. The bay and harbor are integrated well. It is quite prosperous, as far as I can see.  As I understand, the bay and harbor never freezes during the winter.

Our university room at King's College is very nice, except that the men's washroom and shower area are in the other part of the building. So I have a little walk. My dream of living in a women's dorm has come 40 years too late!

As you can see, I like our Canadian friends here in the North country. Today I saw a military museum, where they sacrificed much during World War I, II, Korea, and are with us in Afghanistan. But they have a different perspective on our "American" revolution from the British in 1776, even though they received their own freedom in the early 1900s. They continue to have a great allegiance to Great Britian, and generally support western democracies on most major issues.

However, they have their own sense of their role in the world, and it is not as "interventionist" or world leardership oriented , as the US, even though they are the second largest geographical nation in the world. Maybe with the cutbacks coming across the board as the US attempts to resolve our economic and debt crisis, cut back on our military force structure, and also reduce our military and political commitments and presence around the world, we should further study the Canadian foreign and national security approach as a possible way of the future. Remember it was George Washington who said to beware of "permanent," entangling foreign alliances, and Dwight Eisenhower told us to beware of the military-industrial complex. Maybe these great US military generals and Presidents were thinking of the Canadian model when they made their prophetic comments.

So much for tonight!

Joe