cornerofmadness

Here is was nothing but rain and me watching 1001 things I recorded but never got to like the new It. Unlike several friends, I had no really fond memories of Tim Curry in the role of Pennywise. I saw it, liked it but I was okay with it being redone. I really enjoyed the new one. I also finally saw the Scooby Doo/Supernatural mash up and it was brilliant. Might be my favorite episode.

But it's also time for the final day of my trip to Nova Scotia which I never finished telling you about. My computer died then I sort of forgot.

The last day in Halifax and all Olive did was tell us about the historic proprieties and walk us down to the Maritime museum. I really enjoyed the museum, it had a lot of cool things and while Maritime stuff isn't really my main interest, I still spent a few hours here. I'll say more when I put up the pictures that go with it.

From there I wanted to go to the old burying grounds and then up to the gardens and the citadel. So I went to Saint Mary's Basilica next to the burying grounds because I'm a sucker for church architecture. I only took a couple pics because there were people trying to pray. Went to the old burying grounds which stopped burying around 1840, and that's where I learned that I misread my camera battery. It wasn't 75% full, it was 75% expended that morning and it died. Took the rest of the burying grounds with my cell phone and it died too (I didn't transfer those pictures to the laptop yet).

SOoooo, camera-less, I said screw it. No way I was walking up a VERY steep hill to the gardens (not to mention it was the first hot day I had on the trip, actually had on my shorts). I could have gotten a taxi but it was already 2 pm and we were having a farewell dinner (and I was thinking about going to the ghost tour). So I headed home. I went to the Bluenoser for lunch (a Bluenose is a term for a Nova Scotian) and had scallops (yum)

I charged up the cameras and relaxed with a little tv before heading to The art gallery of Nova Scotia (i.e. museum) I wish I had gone the night before when it was free but honestly the cost wasn't much and it was great. Some of the art was absolutely fantastic. Sadly nothing still makes me like truly 'modern' art (i.e. splashes of color that sort of thing) and much of the art by Native Americans was that as was the Group of Seven's but I did like some of it. Loved the neon light art and the fashion art was fantastic. It reminded me of Erte. I was overwhelmed to get to see ALL of Hiroshige's The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō. I'll be honest, I had never heard of Maude Lewis (the movie Maudie is about her) but she's a huge local hero and I have to say I'm with them on that. She had a horrible form of juvenile arthritis that caused her to be very small and obviously crippled. She was a self taught artist in spite of her hands and she painted whatever you wanted (often reusing themes) in a rural Americana style for about 5 bucks. Her stuff now commands thousands.

The came the farewell dinner. Have to say it was disappointing (flavorless chicken) but the sticky pudding at the end was excellent. We had also gotten together to sing for Olive the tour guide. One of the people on the tour was a music teacher and she came up with a filk song to Home on the Range. (Home on the bus, we know you're not tired of us). It was really nice. No one shared any of the pictures of it like they said they would ah well.

It ran long and I didn't feel like hiking the huge ass hill to go on the ghost tour so I went back to the casino and lost all my money. I had wanted to go to an old bar but forgot it was Friday. The two bars I had in mind were so packed I said nope, got another Cow's ice cream and went to the casino.

It was all in all a very good trip.

Now on to the last of my pictures (and more about the trip)

The Historic Properties. The one at the end of the alley was nearly destroyed by people who wanted to rip these historic buildings down and build some modern apartments. The building laughed off the attack on it. It was designed to withstand cannons after all.

The Last Step is a memorial outside the maritime museum. You can't see it but on the wood decking they burned in boot prints. This is were the young men left Canada to go fight in WWI, most never returning.

Many of the stories in this museum were about ship wrecks. This one has a story attached. The saying in the picture is supposedly from a young woman's diary that washed up after the wreck. She knew the ship was going down and rescue wasn't coming so wrote this. (Online suggests it might just be a story but the museum puts it forward as fact)

I took a ton of figurehead pictures. You know, Hollywood has convinced me that they're always female but there were a ton of male ones.

a lens of a lighthouse. I thought it was cool

So a big story we were told the day before as we learned about Nova Scotia's role in recovering the people from the Titanic was about Nova Scotia's own maritime disaster. It's WWI and the Mont-Blanc a French munitions ship was leaving port to head to France, fully loaded. They managed to ram an immigration ship and catch fire. Rather than try to steer it out to sea, the French leapt overboard and the ship drifted back into port.

And exploded, the largest explosion outside of a nuclear bomb. It was basically a 3 kiloton bomb going off at 1500 meters per second. It vaporized a First Nations village. It destroyed most of the harbor area, blowing out windows up to ten miles away. Thousands died and then the next day there was a blizzard (Boston sent relief/rescuers).

Many stories in the area of this twisted piece of the ship were terrifying. Coal Bin Annie was one of the ones that grabbed me. The town was shuddering and burning so her mom threw her under the heavy coal bin (she was about 2). The house collapsed and burned. Her whole family died but the bin saved Annie. Others saved the clothing they wore that day (now in the museum) and many were still having glass working out of their skin and scalps decades later.

Naturally I had never head any of this.