McLobster's, McAnne, and the Jelly Fish Man

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Trip Start Jun 17, 2008 Previous
Entry Trip End Aug 31, 2009 Next
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  Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
Thursday, August 6, 2009

Only two more blogs to go!! Maybe it's finally time that I graduate from toilet humour and write a serious bit of prose that actually resembles a travelogue.  Nah, why start now…maybe next week.  Instead I’ll begin with some of the wacky people we’ve had the "pleasure" of dealing with lately.  But before that, for the sole purpose of giving our photos some context, I’ll mention that in the last week, we moved on from Nova Scotia and travelled through the provinces of Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick.  Okay, now on to the reasons why we (okay, mainly me) don’t like dealing with people…

-    Let’s start with the cottage “cleaner”.  To help finance this trip we rented out our house, and our cottage.  The weekly cottage renters have the option of cleaning the cottage themselves before they leave, or paying us $125 to have it cleaned.  Two of this year’s weekly renters chose to pay for cleaning, and so several months ago we arranged for a local cleaner to come in.  The cleaner, being knowledgeable in how the cottage rental business operates, charges us the exact same $125 to clean the cottage.  [Highway robbery for an hour or two of cleaning, we know!]  So, as we’re blissfully drinking Screech in Newfoundland, we discover that, despite a reminder e-mail from us, the cleaner neglected to come and clean the cottage the first week.  [Thank goodness for our amazing neighbours, who covered for her (and us)!!!]  After several unanswered emails to the cleaner to find out what had happened, Tracy finally tracked her down ten days later on the phone.  Here is how the conversation went:

Tracy: “We’re obviously disappointed that you didn’t come to clean the cottage two weeks ago.  Can we count on you coming next week?”;

Cleaner: “Yes, sorry about that.  I’ve been really busy and I forgot.  For sure I’ll be there this week.  I’ll even call the renters near the end of the week and let them know that I’ll be coming to check out the place.  I won’t tell them that I’m the cleaner, because I don’t want them to think they can leave without cleaning the cottage.”;

Tracy (with admirable patience): “But they won’t clean the cottage.  They have paid us so they don’t have to clean the cottage.  We’re using that money to pay you to clean the cottage.”

Cleaner (entering the world of the absurd): “Oh, I don’t know if I’ll have time to clean the cottage.  I’ve got a business to run!  But I will check it to see if it’s clean.”

So, while travelling itself is fantastic, dealing with some of the items at home can be a little trying.  I don’t know what we would have done over the past year without the help we received from our parents, and our neighbours, both at home and at the cottage.

·    And then there was “the patient”.  While in New Brunswick we went to Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park (more on that later).   While we were talking to one of the park’s interpretive guides, up marched a middle-aged lady from parts unknown (although her husband was wearing a Myrtle Beach t-shirt, army fatigue pants and a “Buy American” baseball cap), interrupted us, actually saluted the guide, and then said she was in need of some first-aid.  The interpretive guide (whose “doctoring abilities” I presume include little more than being able to unlock the room that holds the first-aid box) asked what was wrong.  Mistake.  The lady proceeded to explain how her (non-saluting) shoulder was hurting “right here” and there was a “twinge back here”, and perhaps it needed to be popped back into place.   (Or maybe even operated on, I thought to myself).  I’m not sure how this “emergency” ended up, but I’m thinking that a guide knowledgeable on local New Brunswick fauna, with access to band-aids and antibacterial cream from the first aid box, isn’t going to be her Marcus Welby, M.D.  Maybe this particular American didn’t really understand what our Canadian socialized medicine is really about…i.e. we’re not all doctors (although I could easily diagnose her immediate need to see a psychiatrist!);

·    And we can’t forget about the “security” people.  One of our credit card companies seems to pride itself on stopping fraud before it happens.  Very admirable, but a little common sense attached to this worthy pursuit could be helpful.  Early on in our trip, we discovered that this company (let’s call them Citibank “MC” for fun) was putting a freeze on our credit card every few days when a “questionable charge” went through.  MC’s definition of a “questionable charge” included the purchase of Peruvian air tickets or Greek ferry tickets.  Understandable I guess, but when it still happens after we explicitly tell them to expect international travel expenses, it gets a little frustrating.  Not to mention a little embarrassing.  Consider the time a Parisian restaurant owner looked down his nose at us and said (in that condescending tone that some French seem to use), “Monsieur, your credit card has been rejected.  You don’t manage your money well, no?”
 
Our latest credit card block came because we were apparently charging too much money for gas (like it’s my fault gas prices are too high!).  The MC security consultant in his best “lawyer for the prosecution” voice said, “Well sir, I see that you charged $125 to buy gas in Toronto on the morning of July 6th, and then later that day, you charged another $125 for gas near Quebec City.  Does that make sense to you??”  I guess our “alibi” of driving that day from Toronto to Quebec City didn’t occur to him.  And, I won’t even start ranting about the problems we had trying to explain to him that, upon moving out of our house, we no longer had a phone number…“I’m sorry, sir.  Our system requires a phone number.  I’ll have to contact my supervisor if you continue refusing to give me your phone number!”;

·    And then there was the Starbucks barista in Nova Scotia, with the good old fashioned Maritime sense of humour.  In purchasing a Chai Tea “treat” for us, mine was marked with a black marker to distinguish it from Tracy’s “soy milk” version.  Normally they put a mark the side of the cup, but this time the black marker was on the lid.  I have a sneaking suspicion that the barista’s true intent, which was achieved to perfection, was to have black marker transfer from the lid to the tip of my nose as I drank my tea.  Tracy was nice enough to eventually point this out to me;

·    And, as our final character, in Exhibit 1, all the way from the ocean off Prince Edward Island, I present to you Beached Jelly Fish Man.  I liked him, as he didn’t say or do anything dumb the entire time we were with him.  I think he even would have happily cleaned the cottage if I’d asked him;

Okay… I’m half way through this blog and I haven’t said anything of consequence (though I have been able to accomplish my usual weekly goal of good naturedly poking fun at the Americans and the French).  Now, let’s get on to some serious touristy stuff.

Prince Edward Island is a charming, scenic province best known for its trademark reddish brown soil and its potatoes.  It’s also home to the world famous fictional character, Anne of Green Gables.  Cavendish, the late author’s home, is overrun with “Anne” sights including the national historic “Green Gables” site and a full sized mock-up town of Avonlea (Anne’s fictional hometown).  There are literally thousands of “Anne” souvenirs and, to top it off, all the local burly policemen wear fake red Anne pigtails under their constable hats (OK, I made that last one up, but you get the idea).  I made the comment to Tracy that Cavendish has “a bit of a Niagara Falls feel to it” with its amusement parks, mini golf, ice cream shops and strip malls.  For those of you not familiar with the way we have “compromised” some of our national treasures, this is not a good comment.

Regardless, we (especially Tracy and the girls) all enjoyed visiting the Green Gables National Historic Site (not once but twice…boy, that combo National Park/Historic Site annual pass is really coming in handy!*).  And, of course we had to drive the 50 minutes to Charlottetown to see “Anne of Green Gables, The Musical”.  This show has been entertaining Anne groupies for 45 consecutive years, and is Canada’s longest running musical.  Who would have thought a red-headed freckle-faced girl could generate so much attention?  In the lobby of the theatre there is even a three foot high model of the “Green Gables” house made entirely out of sugar.  It was created and donated by some Japanese citizens enamoured with the Anne of Green Gables books…and with apparently nothing better to do??  (Japanese, by the way, is one of 17 languages that the books have been translated into.)  Surprisingly, this act of goodwill from Japan had no effect on Tracy.  She still “suggested” to the gaggle of Japanese tourists who, during intermission, had moved to three empty rows in front of us (and effectively obstructed our poor little Sarah Loo Hoo’s view), that perhaps they “should move right back to the seats they came from.  Chop chop!!”  Apparently, nobody gets between my honey-bunny and her Anne of Green Gables fix!

The other part of PEI that we found interesting was “Confederation Bridge”.  This bridge was built in 1997 and connects PEI to New Brunswick.  This engineering marvel is 13 kilometres long, takes 10 minutes to cross, and almost wasn't built for fear that Anne would escape.  It has 1.1 metre high guardrails on each side, so for anyone unfortunate enough to not be travelling in “The Big Zeke” (or a reasonable facsimile), there isn’t much of a view.  To avoid driver boredom (and I presume accidents), they intentionally put some curves in it.  And the best part is that there is no toll to cross this bridge when driving onto the island.  But if you want to leave?  Well, that’s where they get you.  Then again, who would really want to leave PEI when you can buy a different “Anne” themed maple sugar candy for every day of the month?

And then, it was on to New Brunswick where most of our activities revolved around their amazing tides.  For reasons that are too boring to get into, the Bay of Fundy area in New Brunswick has the highest tides in the world.  In some areas they rise an astonishing 17 metres (51 feet for our American brethren).  These funky tides allowed us tourists to witness the following:

·    A “tidal bore” in the city of Moncton that occurs when the tide comes in.  There is a river that flows through the town and into the ocean.  When the high tide comes in, it actually causes a single wave (up to a foot high) to roll back up the river, and then effectively the river changes direction and the water flows away from the ocean for the next six hours;

·    The volume of water flowing into the funnel shaped Bay of Fundy during every high tide exceeds 100 billion tonnes of water, and is greater than the combined average 24 hour flow of all the rivers in the world;

·    At Fundy National Park [Did I mention that the combo National Park/Historic Site annual pass is really coming in handy?] we stood on a deck that had water lapping just beyond its base during high tide, but at low tide we couldn’t actually see far enough to spot any water;

·    The Hopewell Rocks was another neat area that was covered with water during high tide but then allowed you to “walk on the ocean floor” at low tide.  The pictures are better than words here (as is the case with most of our blogging).  And as a bonus we saw a juvenile bald eagle there;

So New Brunswick, PEI and Nova Scotia were all enjoyable stops, but, in our collective opinion, none of them could match Newfoundland. 

Let’s close off this blog with a few miscellaneous tidbits:

·    You know you’re in the Maritimes when a McDonalds, built to look like a lighthouse, is serving up something called a McLobster.  No thanks…and in fact, as a “cultural experience” we went for the real thing in New Brunswick…a 5-pounder to be exact;

·    One of my favourite places in New Brunswick was a lookout called Cape Enrage.  It was completely fogged in so we didn’t actually see it, but you have to love the name!;

·    As part of one of those “nearing puberty” discussions we had with Michael, we told him that he was now becoming an adult.  At that exact moment, he accidentally sprayed himself in the face with a squirt gun;

·    And for little Sarah, who enjoys one tiny sip of our wine at dinner time…One day she decided that she would no longer drink wine on Tuesdays and Thursdays (…for who knows what reason).  The first Tuesday rolled around, and before her sip we reminded her of her recent decision.  Her response? “But it’s a Merlot!” and she happily broke her pledge.  What have we done to her??;

·    And as sad as it may be for us, our RV and friend, the Big Zeke, is now officially for sale…priced to sell (for anyone who is interested)!;

So that’s a wrap on another week.  We’ve survived the Screech of Newfoundland, the McLobsters of Nova Scotia and the tides of New Brunswick.   And, we’ve said goodbye to the cute little red haired, pigtailed legend of Prince Edward Island.  And now, as we high tail it through Quebec (without, I hope, me having to talk to anyone) we look forward to our last official touristy duty of saying hello to the beavertail** selling guy in Ottawa…

* That’s my way of apologizing to Tracy for suggesting that “we will never get our money out of the combo National Park/Historic Site annual pass”).

** Canada’s own deep fried doughy and sugary pastry treat!!

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Hopewell Rocks, High Tide	Hopewell Rocks, Low Tide	McDonald's. Nova Scotia	Michael With Our Dinner
Near Cape Enrage, New Brunswick	Bay of Fundy - High Tide	Bay of Fundy - Low Tide	Juvenile Bald Eagle, New Brunswick
Catching Fairies in New Brunswick

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