It rained all night and most of this day. We managed to move our luggage into the car relatively dry during a 15 minute lull. We left the motel relatively late at around 10:30am or so after having our breakfast in the motel (nothing remarkable, but they did have cream cheese). Given the rain, we weren't really sure how what we wanted to do in Halifax.
We did start the day with a visit in Lunenburg. We walked the harbor front there and had a good look at the Bluenose II. It is a beautiful ship, no doubt. While we walked it started to rain harder again. We completed our harbor front walk by returning to the parked car one street further towards land parallel to the harbor front. Lunenburg has a very nice old downtown core. Clearly it is visited by a lot of tourists. The rain dampened our visit there a bit and we returned earlier then originally intended to Halifax.
We had lunch at the Halifax Seaport Farmer's Market. It opens Saturday's and Sundays in a big hall in the Halifax harbor. There is parking and the whole affair is protected from the weather. It is a good market. Probably it is a bit more geared towards tourists (especially the cruise folks) and less towards produce buyers. A decent chunks of the vendors offered prepared foods and non-food items that make decent presents or trip mementos. I ended up buying 2 decent pretzels from a German speaking bakery lady. While still expensive (by German standards), the pretzels were considerably cheaper compared to the going rate in Ottawa and better. We bought our main lunch meals at a Korean stall and an Indian food stall.
Afterwards the question arose, what to do next. Margaret and I decided to get the check-in done for the Courtyard Marriott in Dartmouth. We had decided the night before that given the rain, camping was tonight not an option. Afterwards Margaret needed to be dropped somewhere to meet up with a friend from Ottawa who currently worked in Halifax. After dropping Margaret I met up with Gongyu and Daniella at the Halifax Maritime Museum. The two went in the meantime shopping a few presents for friends in a harbor front mall.
In the mean time it started to rain harder combined with a decent wind action: In short it was ugly to be outside. Gongyu, Daniella and I met up at the museum at around 3:30pm. It turned out that the museum entry was free from 4pm onwards. We decided to wait for the free entry (there were plenty of people doing the same thing). We entered the museum at 4pm. I found it interesting. A good chunk of the exhibition on the first floor is devoted to the explosion of gun powder that happened in the harbor sometime during WWI. It was interesting to read through the various descriptions and look at the pictures. The other thing I found interesting in the first floor were the various lighthouse lamps displayed. I did not make it to the 2nd floor.
After the museum's visited the question arose what to do next. We ended up in the MicMac shopping mall in Dartmouth. It is just a large Canadian shopping mall. We needed to stay dry (the rain outside was still ugly). and potentially have access to a food court. We killed a few hours there before I drove Gongyu and Daniella to the Halifax airport. Afterwards I returned to the Courtyard Hotel. I munched a half baguette and some cheese for dinner. Later Margaret also arrived there.
Gongyu and Daniella also arrived well in Toronto.
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