Maritimes: Flights and Day in Halifax

 We had a nice trip to the Maritime Provinces over fall break. It has a bit of an exciting start with Me receiving an email less than 9 hours before the first flight saying that the first flight was delayed. It wouldn't be arriving until after the second flight left. Did we want to do anything about it? Of course we did. The automatic rerouting did not work (not enough seats) but they eventually booked us on Air Canada flying to Montreal and then Halifax. We left later and got in about the same time. Thankful for the extra bit of sleep especially since it was a late night with a football game and flight rearrangements the night before.

U, Me and Matthew at the airport in Phoenix.

The flight we did not take.

On the first plane.

Montreal airport. We saw the Olympic stadium on our flight into the airport. We ended up being in the airport about 5 hours as we arrived early. We tried to switch to an earlier flight but they did not let us since we did not book with Air Canada. Good news is that Me understood the French!

Air Canada is very confused about where the Taj Mahal is located....

Me on the second plane. We had nice big windows!

We arrived late into Halifax, got our rental car and headed to the hotel. As we were driving, Megan commented that it was not very colorful. (Note: it was after 11 pm and completely dark.) We set an alarm for 9 am to make sure we could eat the hotel breakfast. Good thing we did! After a yummy breakfast, we headed to the Halifax Citadel. We enjoyed exploring the fort and learning about the 4 Citadels and the people who lived there. The magazine house could store 220,000 lbs of gun powder!

We took a guided tour. Megan commented that it looked like our guide was wearing a Scottish dress (aka kilt). We said that he was and that there is a lot of Scottish influence here (Nova Scotia=New Scotland).

Barracks where the enlisted men slept.

Our guide showing us different types of cannons.

Getting ready to fire the noon cannon. It is how they used to keep time as ships would use it to set their clocks, etc.

Megan and U with the noon cannon and soldiers. 

That's a big cannon!

View into the center of the fort from the walls.

U dressing up like a soldier.

It's a bit big on Me!

Megan tried on the hat.

Me, U and Megan with some of the guards.

Megan with a rifle.

Matthew ready for duty!

Lego version of the Citadel. This was of great interest to some members of the family.

Army bugle

Me, Matthew and Megan walking in the walls of the fort.

Hi Matthew!

We visited the schoolroom where these interesting math problems were written. Apparently, the soldiers did not really like school but the kids did.

Megan really liked using the "magic lantern." Lots of cool pictures.

Changing of the guard.

View of Halifax Harbor from the wall.

Old Town Clock

We ate dinner at Tim Hortons and walked along the harbor a bit while eating some COWS ice cream. Halifax Harbor is the second largest natural harbor in the world (largest is Sydney, Australia).

U, Matthew, Me and Megan

Me and Megan.  Matthew is in the D.

We drove by the Halifax temple.

Megan enjoying the grass.

Megan, Matthew and Me with the temple.

Angel Moroni

U and Me with temple.

Megan, Me and Matthew

U and Megan

We then drove a few hours to Moncton, New Brunswick. Exit numbers in Nova Scotia made no sense in our opinion. For example, it was 33 km between exit 7 and exit 11. And we passed the same exit number multiple times while on the same highway. New Brunswick made much more sense with exit numbers corresponding to kilometer markers.

The kids slept most of the way. Megan was funny about it: She told us that she was closing her eyes because the sun was in one eye so it closed and then the other eye followed suit. She could not help it and it was not her fault. But she would not sleep, she claimed. Famous last words...

Entering into New Brunswick. It's officially bilingual so signs are in both English and French.