St. John's

Well, we've been here for 3 days now, and I finally have the time and energy to write a little bit.

We took a red-eye out of LAX on Thursday night, leaving at 10 p.m. We arrived at Pearson International in Toronto around 5 a.m. and left for St. John's at 11:25 a.m. Luckily, we spent the hours between flights in the Premier Lounge, where Tod was even able to have a shower.

We arrived in St. John's around 4 p.m., and after we checked into our B'n'B, showered, and had a little nap, we wandered down to Duckworth Street and had dinner at a fantastic little pasta place where they make their own pasta.

On Saturday we wandered down to Water Street, where there are some great little shops and boutiques. Then we headed to Bays Bull for a bird- and whale-watching expedition. We saw some humpbacks, some minkes, and lots of puffins, kittiwakes, gulls and terns.

Then we headed back to have a rest before our evening out. I've never experienced such bad jet-lag before, but then, we did cross 4 time zones! We've been the last guests down for breakfast every morning. Most of the music at the clubs downtown doesn't get started till around 10 p.m., so we had to prepare ourselves. (Tod's thinking is that if we could just keep our bodies on California time, we'd be fine.)

We've been quite impressed by the cuisine here. Saturday night, we ate at a place called the Peppermill, and then headed down to George Street, where we grabbed a table and settled in at O'Reilly's, to catch the Masterless Men. They didn't come on until 11:30, and we made it through one set before we had to call it a night.

Yesterday, Sunday, we took it easy. Drove up to Signal Hill and Cabot Tower, then to Quidi Vidi, an historic fishing village. We also hit the Provincial Museum, called The Rooms, then came back and napped until dinner, for which we walked less than 1/2 km to a trendy restaurant called Folly. Tod was most impressed by the gourmet pizzas, which were all named after characters from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We were still feeling jet-lagged, so we had an early night.

This morning, we went up to Cape Spear, the easternmost point of North America. Some beautiful views, which I'll end with.