Punk Rock Adventure in Halifax: Part II
Let’s begin this part of the adventuresome article with some fun facts! Those are always both fun and factual! Woo! So yes – here’s some fun facts about the Howard Johnson Hotel and Inn (mostly concerning the architecture, but there’s some other stuff too).
1. Our room was divided almost into 2 rooms: the part with the bed/kitchen, and the first part (with a pull out couch and the front door). One interesting fact about the front door part is that there were no lights in there! The nearest light to the front door is down the little hall, on a desk in the bed-part. Convenient!
2. Another fun thing about that front room was that the ceiling stopped about a foot before the wall started, therefore we could se up into the piping/wiring of the HoJo.
3. The shower in the bathroom is constantly on “vibrate” mode. By these I mean that despite the relatively new appearance of the plumbing, it shakes violently when turned on. No matter how lightly it is turned on. Vibrate mode!
4. The staff doesn’t seem to know what’s going on (though that might just be that they were busy).
5. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the architecture was something that is fairly common in hotels. Those sun-roof holes at every level leading to the bottom (usually to a fountain, or at least the lobby). The HoJo had such a hole… cept it just went to the SECOND floor, and then just stopped. They even built up the walls of the second floor hole (so that no one fell in) but in the walls was just floor. Weirdest thing ever. Here’s a picture!
But, enough about the Howard Johnson! Let’s get back to the meat of this adventure! Today that meat consists of a trip across the harbour to Halifax.
Getting to Halifax requires either driving across one of the bridges or a fun ride on the ferry. We opted for the ferry (about 4 times that day). It was a pretty grey morning – sorta drizzly, but nothing too terrible. Colder than it was the day before, but still fine. Nothing that would stop us from getting to our goal! Our goal that morning? Breakfast!
However, before getting to breakfast we would meet some celebrities! Here’s just one of them that Erin had to get a picture with: Theodore the Tugboat! Apparently he lives at the Halifax Ferry Terminal, and I guess he enjoys it (based on his smile even though the weather was getting crappier). He signed some autographs (despite his lack of hands) and we were on our way yet again!
But, when we were on our way again, we managed to get lost wandering the streets as we accidentally went left instead of just going straight at the ferry terminal. That ended up killing about half an hour or so, so it kinda sucked as we were on fairly limited time, but eventually we made it.
And the place that we made it to was Cora’s, the best damn breakfast place in the world! That’s Cora pictured above. She’s not often at the restaurant, but she showed up today. I guess she heard that there was a PuddingStore adventure going on, and she just had to be a part of it. Ignore the fact that she looks like she’s on paper. She’s not. She’s there in person. But, she left before we could get further evidence of that. She’s a busy lady.
Cora’s not the TRUE star anyways. The true star at Cora’s is breakfast itself. Here’s what we all ordered: Brent ordered the same thing he got when we went for the AUIC (I dunno what it’s called, but it consists of apple, nuts, syrup, cheese, and assorted other fruit pieces); Erin ordered a raspberry crepe, and I also ordered the same thing I ordered last time: the best damn French toast in the world. Except this time, I had it covered with strawberries and bananas. If we had come to Halifax purely for that food, it would have been well worth it. AD FOR CORA’S!!!
After breakfast it was off to one of the best stores on earth: Strange Adventures! A comic/toy shop of epic proportions! We hung out in there for about an hour (which is a lot considering it’s not an overly huge store). I always take way too long in there, because there’s so much stuff in there that I definitely want to buy. PLSU they were playing Indiana Jones! Why would I leave? However, eventually we did leave. I left a Bane figure and copy of Superman: Red Son richer. Then it was back for Ferry ride #2!
We had to go back to Dartmouth to check out of the HoJo. During this time the weather got crappier again, and it actually began raining. Not a whole lot, just a bit more than drizzle. Then it was BACK on the ferry!
Our destination this time was one of Erin’s favourite stores: Kung-Fu T-shirts (a place where you can get whatever you want printed on t-shirts… I guess by ninjas…). However, soon after leaving the ferry terminal, the little rain turned into full-blown regular rain. And the walk to the store was about 30 mins. We got very wet and pathetic looking. However, we remained diligent. And punk! I haven’t mentioned that we were punk in a while, and the rain only made us punker. If you thought we weren’t punk anymore… well… fuck you, we were.
We did a bit more shopping (though we got a cab from the t-shirt store back to Springgarden road) at HMV and a pewter place before we were off to MexiCali Rosa’s (an awesome Mexican restaurant) for supper! We met back up with Christian there, and we all enjoyed “outrageous chimichangas” (well, except Erin… she doesn’t eat meat due to a common mental disorder). But, good times were had by all. I had a picture for this, but it was decreed as “no good” so it got deleted, and I forgot to get another one. Yeah… this part of the adventure had a lot less pictures. Sorry folks. Imagination is more punk anyways. DIY.
Near the ferry terminal (which we had to walk to again for trip #4) we passed by the nerdiest building ever: Bio Science Enterprises. Try to be nerdier than that. I dare you. So, Christian and I added to the nerdiness by throwing up the Vulcan horns and being as punk as possible. RAWK!
Then it was back on the road to glorious Cape Breton. We listened to less NOFX this time around, and Christian slept (as that’s punk) and yeah… it was a lot less interesting a drive actually. We got lost around Truro, but there’s no pics or much of a story attached to that, so we’ll just skip it.
A possible reason for the less-than-interesting drive back could be that it was STILL frigging raining! It rained the whole damn way home! Erin’s mom called us early in the drive and told us that it was sunny and great home, but we never got to see it. We got a bunch of rain and confusing radio shows (two-play Tuesday with weird breaks containing “bios” that were actually just unconnected words about the band being said…)
And so ends what is probably the punkest (or “most punk” if yer not overly punk) adventure ever undertaken by anyone, ever. And why was it so punk, you ask? Well, if you have to ask that, I suggest you scroll back up and get a second look at that French toast. Not a lot punker than that.