(Message sent Fri, 04 Jul 2008 18:31:07 -0700)
Hello everyone. I'm back in Halifax on the last day of my trip.
Last night I went to see the Royal Nova Scotia Tattoo. It was a huge affair - there must have been 500 people on the parade ground for the finale - and a big barrel of fun.
It had the usual acts you'd expect to see at a tattoo: massed bagpipers and highland dancers, and marching bands from all over the world. But it also had quite a few acts you might not expect to see, such as soldiers running obstacle courses, and gymnastics teams leaping about the place.
One troupe of rope jumpers did a trick where one of their number was skipping a rope being turned by two others, while all three were skipping a second, longer rope being turned by two further members, while all five were skipping a third yet longer rope. Another troupe specialized in choreographed mistakes, such as accidentally-on-purpose catching a toe on the parallel bars during the dismount and crashing to the pads in a manner that looked painful but was actually controlled.
There were some quite odd acts too. Like a platoon of Coast Guard marines doing a weird dance/fight thing to simulate boarding a suspect vessel on the high seas. Things were looking dicey for Alpha Team until Bravo Team abseiled from the rafters to save the day.
And what tattoo would be complete without tap-dancing nuns?
I've had a quiet day today, just hanging about in the Botanic Gardens (which sport a large model of the stricken Titanic in the middle of its pond), and taking cruises out on the harbour.
My last touristy act (before hitting the fleshpots of Halifax I mean) was to go on an early evening Ghost Walk, led by a local actor. He took the group around various interesting sites in town, telling stories about them. The ghosty stuff was pretty lame to be honest; he had to work hard to find anything interesting to say. Lots of, "It is said that..." and stories of people feeling cold or of places having "unsettled energy" and all the usual tosh. Imagine my surprise when one of the stops turned out to be the very hotel I am staying in! The guide claimed that no lesser personage than Oscar Wilde haunts one of the rooms. I am not making this up.
However he padded out the weak ghost stories with lots of historical tid-bits, which I found much more interesting. Like for example one building has "Wright's Building" engraved on it, Wright being a Halifax property magnate who died on the Titanic. He was a heavy sleeper, and no-one reports seeing him on deck after the collision, and it is considered likely that he slept through the whole thing and went to his death unawares.
The guide told one story I did like. The 1917 explosion blew out all the windows in St Paul's church. In one frame fragments left behind looked like a face in profile, in the negative (i.e. the face is in the missing glass). Someone decided that this was the image of the first warden of the church, and so they glassed it in and it has remained that way ever since. It's just pareidolia of course, but a particularly fine example I feel.
Canada is a great place, and I've loved every minute of my time here. I'm not sure when I'll be able to afford it, but I've resolved to come back some time during Winter. I'd love to see Niagara Falls frozen, and to ice-skate on Winnipeg's wide rivers.
Tomorrow I start my horror return trip. Thirty-four hours from the time the first flight leaves to the time the last one touches down, 24 of them in the air, ten of them in airport terminals. It's a good thing that economy air travel is so comfortable eh?
It's been a blast, thanks for coming along for the ride.
Love Joff.
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