Monday, April 19, 2010

Sweet Home Halifax

As I start gearing up for this year's CALL (Canadian Association of Law Libraries) conference,* my thoughts turn fondly to last year's CALL conference. Or rather, more precisely, the location of last year's conference, which was in Halifax.

Halifax Clock Tower

As most of you know, while I wasn't born there, I grew up just outside Halifax, in a now-thriving suburb of Dartmouth (itself a suburb of Halifax, or rather, more accurately, now amalgamated into the Halifax-Dartmouth moniker) called Cole Harbour. Yes, that Cole Harbour.**

We moved there when I was about 2 1/2, and we left a few months before my 12th birthday, from 1979 to 1988. Consequently, I did all my grade school there. I have very fond memories of growing up at the edge of Cole Harbour (we were almost at the boundary line for Lawrencetown).

I returned to Halifax for my graduate studies, doing both my Law degree and my Master in Library and Information Studies*** at Dalhousie from 1999-2003. I was last in Halifax in May 2003 for my graduation ceremonies,**** so it was a real treat to be able to go back last spring, in May 2009.

I took lots of pictures, which you can view on my Flickr site here. You will also perhaps remember me blogging about the first half of the trip here, here, here, here and here. But if you were basing it on the photos alone, you would almost not know I was at a conference, since all the photos are very decidedly of the tourist variety. In a nutshell:

1) I wandered the waterfront and downtown.
Wharf

2) I went on the Harbour Hopper.
Harbour Hopper!

3) I meandered through the Public Gardens.
Bandstand, Halifax Public Gardens

4) I took the ferry to Dartmouth and visited ye ol' homestead in Cole Harbour.
Ferry in Halifax Harbour

5) I got chilled to the bone by wind and rain at Peggy's Cove.
Peggy's Cove

6) I was further drenched by wind and rain in Mahone Bay.
Mahone Bay

7) I refused to let the wind and rain dampen my spirits at the enchanting village of Blue Rocks.
Blue Rocks

8) I cheered the slight lifting of the fog***** at Lunenberg.
Lunenberg

What the photographic record fails to confirm, however, is that in addition to water and ships and fishing villages and quaint buildings, copious amounts of martinis were also consumed in the company of good friends. My bad - I will have to make sure that the next time I travel, I bring along my camera-which-photographs-friends.



* It's in just under 3 weeks. However, even more pressing, I am doing a short presentation at CALL this year, and my slides and presentation notes are due on Friday. This means I had better start them. Like, now. This year it is in Windsor, Ontario. I can't promise 150 photos, however.

** And no, I didn't know Crosby growing up. Not everyone out East knows everyone else out East. That, and he was a year old when we moved away from Cole Harbour. He wasn't playing hockey yet. A friend of mine whose ex-boyfriend used to coach peewee hockey out there did, however, see him play numerous times, and yes, the rumours are true - he really was as good back then as we all hear now.

*** None of this IM nonsense for me.

**** And my grandmother had just passed away the day before the ceremony, so I wasn't feeling entirely festive.

***** It's the freakin' Maritimes. We'll take whatever we can get to pass for "good" weather.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

The only picture I took 3 years ago today...

Ticket to Paradise

Three years ago today,* I was on a train with Randal, bound for Takayama, a town known as "Little Kyoto", which is located a couple of hours north of Gifu City. A famous festival happens there every year, and we were lucky enough to be able to stay with our friend Nancy who was living up there, and take it all in.


* Granted, things get a bit messed up when trying to determine exactly when 3 years ago today was, because of the whole international dateline problem. However, I am not getting into the semantics of that argument - 3 years ago today, April 13, 2010, was April 13, 2007, even though I was in Japan and so really 3 years ago "today" for the Japanese should actually be April 14.

Thursday, April 08, 2010

Ice, ice, baby

I was going to post this last week, in celebration of the decidedly balmy 27-degree weather we were going to have on Friday. But one thing led to another and I didn't get around to it. So now, in celebration of, uh, the cold and rainy weather we had today*, pixxiefish is now floating back in time to one day this January, when it was about minus-27, and Randal and I met after work to check out the ice sculptures at Winterlude / Bal de neige.

You can view the whole set, as usual, on Flickr. But here is a selection to whet your appetite.

Dragon Koi Japanese woman and crane Reindeer and Bigfoot


* I figure it's Mother Nature's way of poking fun at me for daring to remove, just this morning, my gloves and my armwarmers (thus far my crowning achievement in knitting; I should really take a picture of them and post it here) from my purse. Man, did I then ever go on to wish I was still lugging them around.

Sunday, April 04, 2010

Why I am too busy to blog (Part 2 of many)

We bought an ice cream maker this weekend, and used it today to make strawberry ice cream. And oh my, it was so good and fairly easy.*

ICE CREAM!!!

I also managed to obtain proof that occasionally, men DO read the manual.

Yes, men do occasionally read the manual...

If you're interested (or wish to whet your appetite further), you can view the blow-by-blow ice-cream-making photos on Flickr starting here.


* Says she who merely spectated in the making (though she then was, as you can imagine, an integral participant in the subsequent tasting).

Thursday, April 01, 2010