Tag: Couchsurfing

Cycling from New Brunswick to Nova Scotia in 56 photos

~ The PhotoDiarist ~ 1 Comment

With a bare minimum of words, here’s my one week journey in 56 photos. I landed in Fredericton, New Brunswick on June 30th, reassembled my bike in the airport parking lot, cycled into town and spent two nights there. Then on July 2nd I cycled 110km to St John. On July 3rd I took the ferry to Digby, Nova Scotia, and on July 4th I cycled 120km to Crescent Beach, just outside Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. On July 5th I cycled 95km from Mahone Bay to Halifax, and on July 6th I cycled 82km from Halifax to East Ship Harbour, where my grandmother lives. 4 full days of cycling + some cycling within cities = 440km total.

Leaving Toronto:

Fredericton, New Brunswick:

Late-night videogames at The 476, home of Emily and the rest of my hosts and hangout place for many randoms:

Canada Day fireworks:

En route to St John:

St John, New Brunswick:

Hayley, my host in St John, with her friend as we enjoyed an evening drink at a local pub:

The ferry trip from St John, New Brunswick to Digby, Nova Scotia:

Billy Baker, a friendly and entertaining off-duty Coast Guard worker with whom I spent the ferry trip laughing a lot:

Entering Digby as the fog began to lift:

Digby, Nova Scotia:

Dianne, the wife of my host in Digby, with the terrifically delicious meal she made for her husband and me:

Lawrence, my host in Digby, who showed me around town and with whom I had some great conversations:

Driving the first 43km out of Digby in a torrential downpour. Lawrence saved me from what would have been the worst three hours of cycling of my trip! I still did 120km on the bike after being dropped off.

Cycling across Nova Scotia toward Bridgewater:

An old Canadian Navy warship, docked in Bridgewater harbour for many years since being decommissioned, and removed only weeks after I saw it. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMCS_Fraser_%28DDH_233%29 for more info.

On the wall of a bakery between Bridgewater and Crescent Beach:

My host’s home in Crescent Beach:

With Simone, another CouchSurfer, from Germany:

The barn!

Simone, who was also staying at the same house as me on July 4th, had a goal to visit a particular nearby restaurant owned by her mom’s former classmate, so our host drove us there, which included a short ferry trip!

With the friendly ferry guy!

A few of Lunenburg:

Lunenburg Academy, a local (and very old) primary school. Imagine going to school in this place!

David, our host, playing a good game of ping pong in his barn. He was better than Simone, and better than me, but he let each of us get a few points to be nice. It was really fun playing late-night ping pong in his vintage barn.

Made famous in a popular postcard, the three churches of Mahone Bay:

A loon:

In the home of my fun hosts in Halifax:< br />

Cycling from Halifax to East Ship Harbour, Nova Scotia:

2008

~ The PhotoDiarist ~ 4 Comments

There hasn’t been too much to update about lately, and I haven’t taken many photos since Christmas. So, this will be a very short post with very few photos, sorry.

I left Uppsala on December 21st after finishing my International Law exam, headed by train to Göteborg (Gothenburg in English) on the west coast of Sweden, to visit the family of my friend Vania. I spent two days with her parents, Mohammad and Jinus, and her sister Sonia, and really enjoyed myself.

Then, on the 23rd, I took a train down to København (Köpenhamn in Swedish, Copenhagen in English) to spend Christmas there. My friend Nina lives there and left me the keys to her apartment to stay for free, and my friend Mike arrived in the evening from Paris to join me. We basically just lounged around for a few days, caught up on old times, explored the city in the rain and fog.

I saw Mike off at the airport on the 27th for his flight back to Vancouver after a year spent in Paris. The next day I got to hang out with Nina as she had returned from spending Christmas with family, and we got to catch up on everything that had happened since we last saw each other. I stayed in København until the morning of the 30th when I caught my train back to Uppsala.

On New Year’s Eve I had no plans, so I went online to CouchSurfing.com to see if anything open was planned for the evening, and found an open party invite. I convinced two friends to join me, and together we met up with the party-goers for a beach party indoors. The hosts had spent tonnes of time decorating a few rooms in the house to be tropical and cranked the heat way up, and we made a bunch of new friends and had a great time.

Our last class of the first semester began January 8th, Geopolitics and Conflict, with a very interesting and knowledgeable prof, Dr Kjell-Åke Nordquist. I would say it’s been my favourite class so far, and last week Kjell-Åke (almost everyone in Sweden goes on a first name basis, strangers or otherwise) agreed to be my thesis supervisor, which is great news for me.

I’m also moving out of my current apartment soon. I already have the keys to the new place, but going to coordinate my move next week with my friend Greg, who’s also moving into the same apartment.

And that’s about all I’ve been up to.