Road trip!

So I can finally write a bit about travelling Canada! Before I came here, I was hoping that I would be seeing a lot of the country. It's not that easy though for a number of reasons...
1. Canada is huuuge! Seriously, I'm pretty sure that to get from one end of Nova Scotia to the other would take about as long as it would, or maybe longer, than it would to travel from one end of Scotland to the other. And this is one of the smallest provinces.
2. Travel is expensive. I suppose it might have something to do with my being in Wolfville that there are only two buses per day to Halifax, with a four hour gap in between, at a cost of $30 dollars each way (approx. £18, in my head anyway). Halifax is only an hour away, so it's nothing like home where Megabus will take you all around the UK for much cheaper. Travelling by air is obviously quicker, but tickets for this are also quite pricey, especially if you haven't really planned travel in advance (comme moi).

3. University is intense! So many midterms, quizzes, assignments... Add that to the fact that all of your friends' assignments and tests are not on the same days as yours, and it's difficult to find people who have enough time (as well as money) to travel with you.



Olena filling up the car



November 11th is a national holiday in Canada, called Remembrance Day, and this year it fell on a Thursday. A couple of other exchange students, Olena from Spain and Sarah from Germany, who I met during international week asked if I would like to come with them on a trip over this weekend, and despite the reasons as to why travelling a lot while studying is not easy, we made a plan. Originally four of us had been going on the trip, the third girl a Canadian who would be able to drive a rented car. However she had too much work to do, and so the driving was all left to Sarah, who had never driven an automatic or driven outside of Germany - and she still did an awesome job! (Slightly off topic, but I really don't think I used the word awesome before these Canadians started to rub off on me..)

We had thought about driving to Quebec City, then realised that it would take at least one day of non-stop driving to get there, so the plans changed to visiting Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada's smallest province, and then spending a couple of nights in Halifax, Nova Scotia's capital.

After an early start, a bit of confusion as to how to read a map, and 5 hours of driving we arrived on PEI. It was really pretty and small, and so we stopped in a few of the towns to have a look around. We also took many pictures and acted like total tourists which was awesome (there I go again..). We all had the impression that PEI would take only about 45 minutes to travel around, but actually it was bigger than that. If we had known that it might have been nice to stay overnight in the capital Charlottetown which seemed like a nice little city with it's own university. However as we already had a room booked in a hostel in Halifax, it was back on the road to arrive before 8 and avoid the $5 late night entry charge.



PEI

 After making it just before 8, we saw our hostel which was really cool, with a lovely coffee shop in the front and upstairs the beds, bathrooms and kitchens. Had a wander around downtown Halifax, which took less than 10 minutes to walk to, had some dinner and then went to bed to recover from what had been quite a long day.


$42.50 to cross this bridge and reach PEI



Halifax at night

Halifax harbour

Pier 21

The next morning we awoke early once again and walked downtown to the harbour. The waterfront is all being regenerated, kind of like Dundee is being I suppose, although the work on Halifax is way more ahead. We walked all the way along the waterfront to reach Pier 21, an immigration museum quite similar to Ellis Island in New York although on a smaller scale. Pier 21 was Canada's main immigration port after the Second World War until the 1970s, and it was interesting to learn about immigrant history, which was especially of Europeans, in a country as diverse as Canada. After fun in Pier 21, we walked back to our hostel, stopping by Halifax farmer's market which is massive and so awesome (I sense a theme here?) with so many stalls selling all sorts of delicious foods and other beautiful things. The afternoon took us on a drive outside of Halifax, to Peggy's Cove which is a famous lighthouse and sort of an iconic image of Nova Scotia. We took a drive around the countryside outside of Halifax at the same time.. Canada is soo pretty!  That evening we headed back to Halifax to visit Mic Mac mall, where Olena had to return some things she had bought a few weeks ago. We were wondering why the mall was so busy on a Friday night and then we found out it was no tax day - AWESOME!! When you buy things in Canada, the price on the shelf is different from what you actually pay due to the tax being added on. It's basically like VAT I think, except for some reason it isn't added onto the price you are shown. But whatever, it meant cheaper clothes to buy, so we stayed there for quite a long time and had some good food from the food court. Oh and my favourite purchase from that shopping trip - a build-a-bear-factory Hello Kitty wearing a pink Toronto Maple Leafs (a hockey team) shirt. She is so cute!




Peggy's Cove





 

The road trip was so much fun. It felt nice to be outside of Wolfville for a while and just take a few days to see the area, and not do univeristy work. My only regret- that we didn't think about the possibility of hiring a car sooner, since it is pretty cheap and you can go wherever you want. Never mind though, my current plan is to spend a night in Toronto the day before I fly home, and possibly return to Canada next summer and see more than the East coast - I love this country!!

HALLOOOWEEEEEEEEEEEEN!

Although it marked the end of October, and therefore the beginning of my last full month in Canada, Halloween was so much fun! It started early, with pumpkins appearing on the porches and lawns of many houses from the start of October. As the month continued, pumpkins were everywhere and the windows of the shops in Wolfville were full of halloween decorations. 

       Then the Halloween events began. On the Monday before Halloween there was a pumpkin carving competition in Dennis. Pumpkins and tools were provided, and I decorated one as an eye. The winning pumpkin was a face with teeth spelling the word Dennis, which looked really good and of course showing house pride is always a good thing! A girl who has spoken to me before about her obsession with the BBC got a Doctor Who stencil and carved the tardis and David Tennant onto her pumpkin - I think her and I were the only two who understood what her carving was!



eye pumpkin!



         A few nights later a house trip to the nearby corn maze was organised. This was a house council event, so only had to pay $5 to and from the maze which included a taxi both ways and entry to the maze (normal price $8). The corn maze is literally what it sounds like - a maze built in a corn field, where the corn plants are really tall so you can't see over the top of them, and they're pretty thick too so you have to stick to the path. I heard about one in Truro, which is about an hour from Nova Scotia, which is a haunted one and so the staff chase you with chainsaws and scare you in other fun ways.. The one we went to was just for fun, not scares, but I still did get quite freaked out due to the darkness... I'm glad we remembered a torch! When we had all gone round the maze, the owners organised a bonfire for us and marshmallows were toasted!



Corn maze (should be called maize maze, haha!)



         Halloween was celebrated in both of Wolfville's clubs (yes, there are TWO!) on Saturday the 30th. I went as a cow (another word which I say funnily, according to the Canadians), wearing a onesie pyjama suit which I bought from Primark before I left, complete with homemade udder! We had meant to go to a Haunted House, held in the residence called Seminary which is the oldest building on campus and apparently home to a ghost or two, but by the time the group of people I was with were all ready it was after 11, which is when the haunted house closed. Some other friends told me about it though, and said it was extremely scary, so I'm a bit disappointed I missed it. Anyway, we went to the party in the union bar (called The Axe), which was good fun although definitely not as busy as Dundee Union last year - there was actually space to move!

          One final halloween event, which actually happened on Sunday 31st and which I didn't take part in due to a lot of rain and cold, was Trick Or Eat. The concept of food banks seems to be quite big in Canada - just yesterday I was at a coffee house night which was raising money for the local food bank - and this is what Trick Or Eat is also about. Basically, you go round the neighbourhood in groups of your choice, dressed in your halloween costumes, and instead of collecting sweets (although usually you get some of these anyway), you ask for food donations to give to the food bank. It's a really good idea, and if I wasn't such a baby I would have taken part. In general I've noticed that volunteering for charities is a more popular thing to do over here, at least when comparing Dundee and Acadia Universities. There are all sorts of charities which students get involved in - from helping out at the food bank to going swimming with disabled children once a week. Unfortunately I haven't gotten involved with any of these groups, as I didn't want to commit myself to a cause only to leave after first semester is done. It's definitely the sort of thing I'll want to get involved with next year at home, though.

Anyway, that's all the stories I have to tell about my Halloween experience. It's definitely a bigger event over here in Scotland, which I was expecting, and which all added to the excitement!

 Until next time, over and out!