Année : 2004

There are four men on the roof but it feels like there’s an army up there. They are taking off the old stuff from our flat roof and rebuilding it almost from scratch. The house is shaking, the fireplace is sending off little bits and pieces of bricks all over the place and it feels like thunder is hitting the house every 2 seconds. I need to stick around because I have to approve any additional expense they might charge us every time they run into a problem.

I don’t know what is scarier: the noise they make or the bill that will come at the end of the day.

I’m going to go hide in the basement with the cat. Maybe I’ll never come back up.

Before the memories from our trip to Nova-Scotia start fading away, here are a few observations and a photo album to accompany them.

-I thought that nothing would ever top the sight of the dramatic cliffs in Big Sur, California. I am glad to say that Cape Breton offers you even more drama. (And no, dear locals, I am not talking about the kind of drama you used to find in Meat Cove.)

-Traveling off tourist season has its advantages. There’s nothing more amazing than finding a gorgeous beach and to have the spot entirely for yourself.

-Traveling off tourist season has its inconvenients, most of them revolving around food issues. A lot of restaurants in Nova Scotia, particularly around the northern part of the Minas Basin (the Glooscap trail) close their doors in late September because the tourists are gone. There’s not a lot of choices and the places close as early as 7pm.

-I got quickly tired of eating fried fish (the other offering on most menus was hamburgers). I don’t want to see another fish and chips plate for quite a while.

-I had 8 seafood chowders in 10 days. They were all different and delicious. I never grew tired of them.

-I found a beach that had the coolest pebbles, the kind you pay a fortune for at a garden center. Roundish, smooth, blue grey, japanese garden style. I went crazy and reverted to my childhood habit of collecting rocks and brought a bunch of them back home. Blork had to keep me from renting a truck so that I could bring back more.

-I suspect the rocks in my luggage might have been the reason why our bags were late. Maybe they had to send them to a lab to check if they were bombs or something.

-Our lost bags were delivered home about 18 hours after our return. Two different men drove to our house to deliver each bag, with 6 hours of difference between them. Talk about efficiency.

-Everybody in Nova Scotia calls you dear. It’s a fact. I now call Ed « dear », because I can’t get used to « Eddie », as the rest of his family calls him.

-We only had one day of rain during the whole 10 day trip. This was the day of our biggest hike on the Cabot Trail, in Cape Breton. We chose the Skyline trail, which took us through some dense wood to a dramatic overlook. By the time we arrived at the overlook, the wind picked up so hard that it blew me off the wooden walkway, where you are obligated to stay in this fragile ecosystem. I wanted to turn around and see if a cop was going to give me the promised fine of 2,000$ for not staying on the trail, but I couldn’t turn my head around because it was too windy. I never knew wind could be scary but it was very, very scary, as we were of the edge of a very steep cliff going straight into the ocean. I couldn’t even breathe normaly because the wind was blowing up my nostrils (that was kind of cool, actually). We had to crouch down on the ground until the wind calmed down. (Blork published his own version of this story, with pictures.)

-I loved being in Ch�ticamp and speaking French with the locals there. I love the acadian accent, the way the consonants are much softer than in qu�b�cois French.

-As we were driving, I spent a lot of time trying to get Blork to hear the difference between the word « Ch�ticamp », said with a qu�b�cois accent, and the same word said with an acadian accent. He couldn’t quite hear it so I kept repeating it, over and over again until he seriously considered driving the car over the cliff. I did get him to say « Acadie » with an acadian accent though.

-In Ch�ticamp, I learned that it is okay to call the local women hookers.

-In Cape Breton, it is okay to lick a chick.

-The blueberries in Cape Breton are much, much bigger than the ones in Lac St-Jean.

-We saw the Queen Mary 2 twice, in Sydney and in Halifax.

-It was wonderful to arrive in Halifax and eat something else than fried fish. We had some great meals there and I loved hanging out at the Economy Shoe Shop, a strangely named bar and restaurant. It was reassuring to see people drink wine, talk loudly and have fun since all the people I had seen at restaurants in other areas were very quiet, didn’t drink at all and just dined and dashed.

Still curious? Take a peek at my photo album. Blork has also posted some great panoramas.

Ma m�re disait: « St-Antoine de Padoue, celui qu’y a le nez fourr� partout, aidez-moi � retrouver (objet perdu). »

Je me disais que ce n’�tait pas en lui parlant comme �a qu’il allait avoir envie de nous aider mais bon, �a semblait marcher.

Hier soir dans le Quartier Latin de Montr�al, j’ai perdu un collier que j’aimais beaucoup. Le probl�me c’est que j’y ai pass� la soir�e: Un resto (Juliette et chocolat), un magasin de disques (Archambault), un salon de th� (Camellia Sinensis), un film (Cin�ma du Quartier Latin, Les Aimants), etc. J’ai appel� partout, sans succ�s pour l’instant.

C’est une petite pi�ce rectangulaire faite de trois couleurs de bois diff�rentes, mont�e sur un simple cordon de soie noire. Je l’avais achet� � Antigonish, la ville universitaire de mon amoureux. J’aimais l’histoire qui voulait que l’artiste avait sculpt� cette pi�ce � partir de morceaux de bois d’arbres qui avaient �t� abattus lors du passage de l’ouragan Juan en Nouvelle-�cosse.

Le bijou a peu de valeur mais j’y tenais. On perd toujours les bijoux qu’on aime le plus (ceux qu’on porte, �videmment).

Je me demande si St-Antoine a un compte AIM?