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Talking about bombs, it appears there was a bombscare around town too: Truro police officers responded to an erratic driving incident and ended up calling assistance from the Halifax RCMP bomb squad.

I wonder why someone would drive around with a bomb around town.

Hey, I never said Lunenburg sucked. While expensive, it’s actually better than I expected. It’s literally a tourist attraction too: you never know who you run into. For example, while enjoying food in a restaurant at the Lunenburg waterfront, I was pretty sure I recognized a face in the crowd. After a minute, it appeared to me that I remember seeing the person’s face on a photo I took earlier (a week and a half ago) of a smiling dad the moment he arrived in Halifax. Nova Scotia is that small. Hey, I know you because you are in a picture I made!.

After doing a quick pit stop in New Germany (the second day), to visit the mother-in-law’s grave, we ended up in Grand Pre to enjoy our stay at the Evangeline Motel & Inn. If you happen to be around that area you can’t miss and you shouldn’t: accomodations are cheap for what you get: A/C [if it’s hot, you appreciate luxuries like that], a big bathroom and lots of room for only 80 dollars a night. I noticed ethernet plugs in the walls, so I assume the owners are thinking of offering high-speed in the near future.

In Grand Pre there’s only one restaurant (‘Le Caveau’), so we decided to look for something in Wolfville instead, which we found in ‘Joe’s Food Emporium’. Despite the (not so classy) name, the food was more than perfect: the steak was of such a good quality that I think they should change their name into something else, just to get rid of the ‘first impression’. For cheese cake lovers, they literally give collosal slices of cheese cakes for a regular price. Another thing that surprised me about New Minas/Wolfville was the fact that they have bicycle lanes in both towns. Yes-sir. Bicycle lanes. You heard it here first.

Heading back home via Windsor, we got lost and stuck a couple of times: there’s some major road reconstruction happening in and around this area. Some primary roads like the 1 and the 14 can only be reached via the ‘Highway from Hell’, the 101. If you need to reach the 215 (or 235 for that matter) via Brooklyn (yes, there’s a Brooklyn in Nova Scotia) you end up using the 101 (there’s a Tourist Bureau just outside of Windsor and they’ll tell you the same (and give you a free map too: don’t forget to sign their guestbook)).

The 215 (from Walton to Maitland) is a pothole mess: so much for making it part of the ‘Glooscap trail’ (heh, the irony). We had luck too: Around Walton, I noticed that the tide was coming in. By the time we hit the Maitland bridge, we decided to hang around a bit at the Shubenacedie river to see the tide come in. Prospective tourists: don’t bother hanging around towns that promise you spectacular views of the tidal bore. It’s just a short drive to the Maitland bridge: Alongside this bridge there is a special (free) observation deck where you can enjoy the same tidal bore in a prettier environment.

We just returned from a ‘half-round’ Nova Scotia roundtrip: Lunenburg-Middleton-Grand Pre-Brooklyn-Walton-Maitland, a trip we decided to do over 3 days just so we could stay overnight in a couple of hotels. More about them later.

On our way back to home we noticed that the tide was coming in fast (see picture) so we decided to stop over at the (brand new?) observation deck at the old Maitland bridge. Note I say ‘brand new’ because I’ve never seen it there before. It was also pretty busy there: on both the deck and in the river. People seem to like rafting when the tide comes in. If you like muddy waters, it might be something for you.

With the release of the new Harry Potter book, I’ve been looking around, curious for the major clue in that book: JK Rowling killed off a main character of the series. I haven’t read any of the books. I have seen half of the 3 movies (time wise!): that was either because I got bored with the commercials in between or because I fell asleep (I hear Alfons has a somewhat related problem). Don’t get me wrong: these books are probably brilliantly written by an equally brilliant author, but for some kind of reason they just don’t move me. Good for the kids who read them. I lose, I gather. (Oh: I had this one in my bookmarks for the longest time: a long CBC article about Umberto Eco and his latest book ‘The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana’).

So: plenty of kudos to the ones who’ve read the book and (morally?) refuse to give up the clue. I feel like a sore loser, so maybe it’s time to get some money together and actually buy the books. Or DVDs.

Which reminds me of a dream where mr. Rove revealed the clue of ‘The Half-Blood Prince’ (does he read anyways?), before it was released. I dare not tell what happened, nor do I dare to explain why I would dream such weird dreams.

update: Boring (via Metafilter).

update 2: More spoilers at Kuro5hin (you do not want to click this link!)

update 3: Google ‘knows’ it too…

As you can probably guess from the picture beneath this one, we were around Halifax today. It was an overly hot day too: I’ve been wondering if I should buy a kilt myself sooner or later. That is if the sunny weather holds on, naturally: my crystal ball tells me that it’s going to be nice tomorrow, Tuesday and Wednesday. Yay for science!

Anyways: on the road, I decided to snap pictures randomly. First of all, I was wondering about the legendary claim I once made on that aircraft-on-a-stick around the Aero Business Park. Truth is, it has no stick. Does this still count, Alan? If not, maybe we should plug for a genuine stick? (Hey, I know you really have to look for the plane!)

Secondly, I decided I liked shooting pictures from cars in the mirror. That’s because it’s always challenging to get it right. It worked out pretty OK (as you can tell from above). I wonder if you might be able to deduct the speed of the car from that photo.

Earlier today, I received an e-mail from an old friend (Hey Niels! Hey Jacob!) who was actually looking for my brother. I don’t normally check my e-mail address on this domain. Not even frequently. Note that I haven’t published my e-mail address anywhere and I’d like to keep it that way. That said: It doesn’t take a lot of time to figure out the correct e-mail address either, but plenty to ward off spammers.

Hey! Alfons is back. I managed to import my older MT items in here too: note that the categories have been tagged with an MT prefix. Later this week I should reorganize the categories and merge them with the right WordPress ones. Additionally, I should see if I can grab the pictures from Alfons’ server for future reference too: most notably the ones from the hurricane and the Hortons I should find and add them to the imported posts here.

I decided to download VLC, so I could watch a movie I got from Alfons: a documentary about ordinary people from Barcelona talking about the football legend Johan Cruyff (‘En un Momento Dado’).

It was actually a fun movie to watch: while Cruyff was shown (and interviewed) in the documentary, it was the fans that were given the last word about specific Cruyff moments when playing for Barcelona. And cute interview with a (female) fan who has not let go about her dream man Johan Cruyff.