When on the East Coast

For those of you that know me well you are about to be shocked, for those of you that don’t you might not really understand why the following is so significant. In the past two weeks I have eaten mussels, salmon, halibut, cod, seafood chowder, shrimp, fish cakes, crab cakes, lobster and scallops. The most shocking part of this endeavor is that I was not forced to eat any of these things and that I enjoyed them (for the most part). I could have done without the fish cakes and the scallops but they were definitely manageable. You know the expression “When in Rome”…well when on the East Coast you must eat seafood. Maybe that isn’t entirely true, but I found myself thinking I had to eat it when it was on a hotel buffet and even more I found myself ordering it when I went out to restaurants. Mind you, it is pretty easy to narrow down your choices when you take the seafood or fish off of the menu out East. I am still not crazy about fish; I think that is something that I will never really get over. But that being said, sorry to all of those West coasters but Atlantic salmon definitely beats Pacific salmon in my books. My time on the East coast has taught me that maybe I am a seafood eater and at the ripe age of twenty-three I have finally gotten over my fear. Then again, maybe it’s an East coast thing because I don’t see myself running out to the Red Lobster in Toronto anytime soon.

The NFLD Moose

This is a story from Sunday November 15th. Did I ever mention that I love Newfoundland. I truly believe that it is the world of happy, shiny people. Everyone is very nice and my goodness, do they love to chat. I met a lot of Newfoundlanders in my travels but there are three in particular that I want to tell you about. On Sunday my alarm woke me up at 3:35AM, I rolled out of bed and into the lobby to meet the crew. We then drove 5 and a half hours to Channel Port Aux Basques NFLD where we boarded a 6 hour ferry to Sydney NS- it was an awesome day, just awesome [I hope that you sense the sarcasm]. The ferry from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia had the potential to be a low light on this tour, but I soon learnt that I had it all wrong as I met 3 wonderful Newfoundland truck drivers on my ferry ride. The thing about people from Newfoundland is that they love to talk, at least that's what I found in my 4 day experience, and they love to talk about Newfoundland in particular. I soon discovered that I dare not tell a Newfoundlander that I am from Toronto. They get this blank look on their face that demonstrates to me that they are genuinely sad about the fact that I live in 'that place'. I now say I am from Southwestern Ontario, it seems safer and now they smile at me. Anyways I seem to have gotten distracted, back to my truckers...I met them in the terminal waiting for the ferry and I am pretty sure we chatted for 45 minutes. Did you know that there are no porcupines in Newfoundland? There are also no snakes. It makes sense once you think about it, how would they get there, Newfoundland is an island after all. I told the guys that I had seen 3 moose on the drive from the hotel to the ferry and they told me that there are 150 000 moose in Newfoundland. So I had to ask, if a porcupine can't get to Newfoundland how does a moose get there? Well let me tell you I sure am glad that I asked. In fact, the truth is that way back when someone brought 4 moose to Newfoundland and from there the population grew and grew. Oh and in case you were wondering Newfoundland does not have any crime, no not in the way that Toronto does, because as we all know 20 people are murdered every night in Toronto and I would be crazy to walk anywhere alone in Toronto, ever...oh my sheltered Newfoundland truckers you make me smile. Throughout our wonderful chit chat I learnt a lot of interesting things about Newfoundland and the rest of the world for that matter. I am not sure that I am going to take everything that they said completely to heart but it definitely added a little bit of entertainment to my day. As I was saying my goodbyes before boarding the ferry I asked the guys if I was going to see any whales or dolphins, they told me probably not and I went on my merry way. About two hours later while I was eating lunch one of the truck drivers came over to my table to inform me that there were dolphins racing the ferry. I ran outside and tried to take pictures [unfortunately it was too foggy] but I did get to see close to 40 dolphins frolicking in the Atlantic. I thought it was very sweet that one of my truckers took the time to search the ship and find me just to tell me there were dolphins. Another reason why I love Newfoundlanders.

family dinner

As I had suspected keeping updated blogs has been challenging due to a few factors; I am never sure when I will have reliable internet and sometimes I would rather go to sleep than blog..sorry! That being said, this is a story I wanted to share from November 14th in Grand Falls Windsor, Newfoundland.

RBC has an Olympian program which enables current, past or hopeful Canadian Olympic athletes to train and compete, but also RBC hires them on part-time so that they can gain work experience (and money). Throughout the relay we have different Olympic athletes 'popping-in' to sign autographs at our Celebration sites. On Friday, Richard Dalton, an Olympic Sprint Canoe competitor, joined the Torch Relay crew- he will be with us until our stop in Halifax on Wedneday. He actually lives in Halifax, NS but his parents moved to Grand Falls Windsor in Newfoundland which consequently was where our evening Celebration was on Saturday. Richard, or Rich since we decided we were on a nickname basis, had told us that he was heading to his parent's house after the Celebration for dinner...but on our way to the Celebration he extended the invitation to Kat and me. WE WERE SO EXCITED! I know it sounds a little strange to be that excited about dinner, but that meant we weren't eating hotel food that night and we could change out of our uniforms as soon as we got back to the hotel [we are required to wear our uniforms to every meal, as well as, all day].

Kat and I headed to Rich's house with big smiles on our faces and were greeted with three more smiles as Rich opened the door. There house smelled like a home, which was refreshing and wonderful. We had a home cooked meal that wasn't questionable and of course it was delicious. It was great to sit around a table and to not talk about the relay. There was one point during dinner where I was talking to Rich's mom, and Kat to his dad- Rich was just sitting there all alone. I had to laugh at this because Kat and I are so starved for 'normal' chat that we hogged his parents and wouldn't let them go. We chatted through dinner, dessert and tea. It was pretty clear that Rich was falling asleep mid conversation but Kat and I weren't ready to give him his family back just yet. I went out to the car and grabbed a torch- we had family picture time with the torch and the Dalton's were pretty excited. It was a really great night and it was wonderful to spend some time in a home for a change...I would love to tell you more but I have to get going. Have a great day and miss you all!

snow

Hello from St.John's where it is snowing! After a very early wake-up call and a long flight I am finally here on the East Coast- my first time ever! We arrived at about 1:00PM and were told that we didnt have to meet until 6:00PM which in my mind meant that I could go explore the sights of St.John's NFLD but no dice. Today is Remembrance Day and although most businesses still operate in Toronto on this day, most do not on the East Coast. With that I will say that St.John's will still be here tomorrow so I sure hope that I can squeeze an adventure or two in. Lest we forget.

4 down, 102 to go

Hello friends, greetings from seat 17F aboard a plane that is taking me home to Toronto for a few days before I head over to St.John’s NFLD. The flame is in Whitehorse tonight with a much smaller crew and although I was disappointed at first that I wasn’t going to be able to experience the Territories I am very thankful for the fact that I just woke-up from a nap and that I have a few days to work hours that are a little bit more normal, comfortably from my desk at the GMR Office. I have also come to the conclusion that keeping my blog up-to-date and with as much detail as I would like is going to be quite the challenge but luckily I am a fan of challenges…so here we go again for my second official blog ‘from the road’ or I guess from the air.
As I wrote a couple days ago I spent day 1 of the relay as a promo rep. It turns out that since I did such a wonderful job smiling, waving and cheering and since we were still short staffed I became an honourary promo rep for the duration of Vancouver Island. It is now safe to say that I can’t wait to have my real job back when we hit-up Newfoundland. Don’t get me wrong I actually had a good time with this job and I am so grateful that I was able to experience what it is like to be a part of the convoy, but the promo reps have a tough job and they have to be happy and ‘on’ for hours and hours every day. My start time was usually 4:45AM and I didn’t end my day until 8PM- that is a long time to be happy and smiley no matter how optimistic you are. Because the convoy is on such a tight schedule that has been planned well in advance we were lucky if we had time for lunch, let alone a pee break. Let me tell you, I will now bow down to the promo reps when I see them because my gosh that is a tough job and I am pretty confident that I couldn’t do it for 106 days straight. That being said, since I am not a promo rep and actually have my own job to do, my day didn’t usually end until about 10 or 11 so let me tell you I look absolutely beautiful right now [oh sense the sarcasm]. In fact our whole team looks pretty hot; we are quite the sight travelling together since we all look like we’ve been partying Vegas style for 4 days straight.
Something that was beautiful however, were all of the communities I travelled through during my time on Vancouver Island. Some of these places were so small that the whole entire town must have come out to see the flame and to be part of history. People lined the streets no matter what time of day it was and whether it was rainy (and it often was) and cold or sunny and warm. Proud Canadians were everywhere to be seen and I promise you the majority were very proud. The only thing that got me through the endless hours of having to cheer were the smiles that greeted me as the convoy passed through town after town. We went through Mennonite communities, Native communities, small villages and large cities, but no matter where we were I saw endless people, smiles, cheers and even tears. My favourite part of being in the convoy was that I got to see each torchbearer before they ran. Some of the torchbearers were so nervous that they could hardly speak and others were so excited that they could hardly stand still. It was really inspirational to see these people waiting to carry the Olympic flame for Canada and to see such a large amount of people coming to watch them do so. This job has thrown some tough days and some long hours my way, but I am really happy that I get to be a part of this because it truly is a memorable event. Actually with that being said, I wanted to give a shout out to all the people that I saw wearing Calgary Torchbearer uniforms. How cool is it that people who ran with the Olympic flame in 1988 came out to watch their fellow Canadians run with the torch for the 2010 games. If you ask me I think it’s pretty friggin’ cool. I wonder when Canada will get another Olympic Games and if I will be fortunate enough to watch the flame run across the country once again. Maybe I will even wear my torchbearer uniform too.
If you have managed to keep reading through my novel of a blog entry I commend you and I will give you a reward of not having to read anymore because I have a nap that I need to get back to. Thanks again for reading and I will be ‘talking’ to you soon. Goodnight :)