Moncton/Halifax

We stayed the night in Moncton last night, having driven from Montreal to New Brunswick, expecting to stay in St. John, but it was actually on the wrong highway. I was happy to be in Moncton for a few reasons, though, one being that when I was just getting into indie rock when I was about 16 or so, many of the bands I was listening to came from the East Coast in Canada, a few specifically from Moncton (Eric's Trip, Elevator to Hell, Moonsocket). I'd always wanted to go there because of that, and this was my chance. The other reason that I wanted to stay there was that I remembered while we were driving something I'd heard about "Magnetic Hill", which is this hill somewhere in New Brunswick where you park at the bottom of a hill, put your vehicle in neutral and then roll back up the hill you just drove down. I wasn't sure where exactly it was located, but turns out our hotel in Moncton was only about five minutes away, so I got to experience the wonder of Magnetic Hill. It was actually pretty cool, and it totally seems like you're being pulled up, but apparently it's just an optical illusion (which Char was only too quick to point out to me, as supposedly there's one of those in Abbotsford, so she's been doing that since she was a kid). At any rate, it was pretty fun. No Rick White sightings, though.

Now we're sitting in Halifax at the venue, which is nice and dry and warm, as compared to the weather out there, which is decidedly wet and extremely windy. Oddly enough the air is warm, though.

Didn't get to see a whole lot of New Brunswick beyond what I just described and whatever the headlights would reveal last night, seeing as we crossed the border around 8 or so. The drive into Nova Scotia today was pretty nice, though, despite being pretty cloudy and windy, but that kind of added to the effect. Some of the hills we'd drive up made it look like we were going to shoot right into the clouds, because they seemed quite low.

This is a pretty big deal for me to be here, because like I mentioned before, I've wanted to come here ever since I was a teenager. I'm not entirely sure what my impressions of the Maritimes are yet, but maybe once I'm back in Van and have had time to reflect I'll have an opinion. The drive through Quebec was really nice, though, especially the area right out of Quebec City, which was a very scenic, pastoral kind of place, with the St. Lawrence on one side, with some "mountains" (hills, I'd say) behind it in the distance, and fields bracketed by woods on our the other. Really nice. As far as scenery goes, I'd say this was my favourite so far. Maybe I'll marry some hot French girl and move out to the countryside and learn French.

Anywho, that's about it. I'm pretty tired right now because we spent a bunch of time driving around downtown Halifax because we got in quite early, and driving aimlessly around cities I don't know stresses me out and makes me tired. It also makes me grumpy, which Char can attest to. Oh well, she's the one that wanted to drive around there. I really enjoy Highway driving, and yesterday's 10 hour drive was no problem, but city driving isn't really my bag. Too much going on for my liking. When you're on the highway you can just listen to music and cruise. I bought one of those FM Transmitters for my iPod, which makes it even better, cos now I have my entire music collection at my disposal. It's a good chance to listen to stuff that I've gotten recently and haven't had the chance to really listen to. Right now I'm really, really loving Josh Rouse's "Nashville". I bought a Johnny Cash compilation, too, which we listened to today and I quite enjoyed. It reminds me of my Grandpa.

Yup, so I think I'll end it there. I'm going to try to figure out if I can put the pictures Char has on her phone on my computer. She's been taking this series of photos of me eating French Toast in various cities and then texting them to my Dad for fun, but I'd like copies of them. I don't even know if my Dad is getting them. He's about as communicative as the rest of us boys in the family.