Saturday, April 26, 2014

It's official!


The last few days have been rather nerve racking! We must be crazy, or truly the best dog owners on the planet! Mango is one lucky dog… no pun intended! The protocol that one must follow to take your dog abroad is strict, and one false move could have you turning around at the airport and going home, or worst case scenario, flying all the way to your destination and being turned around and put right back on the plane. Yikes! Ok, let's not go there… We still haven't made it to Portugal! Thursday we took Mango to a local animal hospital where she was poked and prodded and thankfully deemed healthy enough to fly! The hard part was having the vet fill out the Canadian Food Inspection Agency 5 page bilingual animal health certificate. Don't get me wrong, she was a wonderful vet, but she had no experience with filling out these forms. Let's just say we were in there for over 2 hours, and came out with the completed papers in hand, and not feeling very confident. Went home, felt ill, barely ate, and went to bed where I tossed and turned all night worried that the papers would not be accepted and we would be sent back to the vet…. Which would not have been good. The entire Vet population of Halifax would be at a conference the next day… Go figure. Friday morning we began our drive to find out Mango's fate. Of course we had one hiccup in the commute, our trusty GPS "Jim" had us drive past the office where we found ourselves on a busy highway with no turn around in sight. Excellent. Damn it Jim! Anyways, we did make it to the office with minutes to spare. Fortunately the CFIA agent was not as scary as we (me) had imagined. There were some moments of silence when he would look to long at one page, and flip it over a few times as if something was missing or incorrect, but eventually he smiled at us and told us we were good to go! Bringing out the coveted stamp you see above. Woo hoo! Portugal here we come!


Here I am in amongst the rubble. Note the suitcase in the right hand corner and the one behind me. We never started out on this road trip with luggage, just the pink and black boxes you see around me. So we searched everywhere for cheap luggage. We now know that does not exist. We could have opted for a Walmart special, but we had little faith that it would make it through the flight. So we decided to give "Kijiji" a try, and found a lovely set of 2 suitcases and a small carry on bag. Good ole' "Ricardo of Beverly Hills"! It's not flash but when you have perfectly good luggage in your storage locker back home, it will do just fine! Also, note the dog kennel behind me. No we have not been travelling around the country with that in the back our car. This was just another expense we had to swallow for the love of Mango. Just so you know this is our 3rd kennel. First one we gave to a family member and you guessed it, the 2nd one is home safe and sound in the storage locker. Unfortunately we couldn't find one of those second hand! So here we are, pretty much ready to go. Today I took some time to give the inside of the T@b a good clean and organize it for our return in a few months. We actually miss the little trailer. It's been our home for the last 6 months, and a small part of us is excited at thought of the Canadian adventure that awaits us. Don't worry little T@b we will be back!

Monday, April 21, 2014

The Dingle Memorial Tower

The Dingle Tower. A slightly strange name right? On many a dog walk we have viewed this tower across the Northwest Arm of Halifax, and wondered to ourselves what this tower is all about. So the 3 of us jumped in the car the other day and set off to investigate. Turns out there is quite the history behind this structure…. No surprise there! Do we all know who Sir Sandford Fleming is? Scottish born Canadian engineer and inventor…Specifically? Well, most notably, he proposed Standard Time. How does someone come up with that? Well, if you miss a train because the schedule listed pm instead of am, you might come up with a 24 hour worldwide clock to avoid this problem in the future! What a show off! Anyhoo, getting off topic, and seriously I have no idea how he came up with that…. So the Dingle Tower came to be when Sir Fleming donated 95 acres of land to the people of Halifax. The tower was built between 1908 and 1912 to commemorate Nova Scotia establishing itself as it's own province in 1758. The tower is 10 stories high and built of ironstone, granite, iron and copper. The inside is just as impressive as the outside. The tower was constructed with donations from the British Empire and beautiful old plaques representing the donors are featured throughout the tower. It is said to have cost approximately $50,000, what a bargain! In 1913 the Royal Colonial Institute of London donated the majestic bronze lion sculptures that stand guard at the tower's base. These lion's were influenced by the lion's at London's Trafalgar Square. Cool right? I love history! I wish school would have been a travelling classroom! I may have paid more attention! So back to the name Dingle! Dingle: A deep wooded valley or dell. There was a slightly more entertaining version that had to do with an animal and what might get stuck and dangle off the hair of it's butt. Nuff said.








Sir Fleming had this stone sent over from France. It is said to be a stone from the gateway to explorer Samuel de Champlain's home of his birth in Brouage France, dating back to 1567.

Judging from Mango's hairy eyeball, she isn't to happy about being 10 stories up!

A view of Dalhousie University in the background, founded in 1818.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

A slight change of plans!

Drum roll!!! Ok, I think we have left you in suspense long enough! That said, I found it hard to keep my mouth shut and not tell anyone who would listen! So! Regarding our original plan to travel around the United States and across Canada…. We are taking a small detour! Ok, maybe a big one! We are very excited to say that we will be hopping a jet plane on April 29th and heading across the Atlantic ocean to Portugal!! You may ask yourself, what, why and how?? Well, since April 2013 we have had a membership on "Mind My House", http://www.mindmyhouse.com/homepage, a fantastic website that allows you to post a profile and apply to house sitting opportunities around the world! What a fantastic idea, right!!? BUT however hopeful we were to find something, we always figured it would never work out with our 3rd musketeer, Mango. Most house sitting assignments are usually pet sitting, and most pet sitting include CATS, ok, and sometimes donkeys! LOL! We could try to convince a house owner that Mango would just want to snuggle until we are blue in the face, but most people would just prefer to find another travelling duo. Fortunately for us we had a lovely family from Zurich contact us last November with an offer we couldn't refuse! They recently purchased a second home near the historic hilltop village of Marvao Portugal. Long story short we will be minding their home for the next 2 and 1/2 months! This may explain our hurry to head north to Halifax where we have been fortunate enough to hunker down, save, and plan the next leg of this incredible journey! On April 30th we will be landing in Portugal, a new territory for both of us. We look forward to exploring this beautiful country with you all!!

Monday, April 14, 2014

Day tripping!

We spent Saturday afternoon following the Nova Scotia coastline! It started out foggy and cold, but the sun eventually came out! Now let me just say, Graham and I are West Coasters. We love BC and our home town of Vancouver. Nothing better! But I will say, Nova Scotia is growing on us. There is just so much more history here! It doesn't take a scientist to figure out why. Halifax was established in 1749 and Vancouver in 1886. Vancouver is still a baby, but we love you Vangcouver! First stop on Saturday was the small town of Mahone Bay, about 87 km southwest of Halifax, also founded in 1749, and known for it's history of wooden boat building. The town was quite picturesque while the fog was still hovered the shore line. We found ourselves a bakery and sipped cappuccinos and munched on butter tarts, before exploring some of the little shops. Next stop was Lunenburg, another 11 km south of Mahone Bay. A slightly larger town, founded in 1753, and designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995! The town is known for being an important seaport and a ship building centre. Fast forward to present day and it is mostly known for it's tourism. Another interesting tidbit is that Lunenburg and the surrounding area has it's own dialect, known as Lunenburg English. A mix of New England English and German! We spent most of our day popping in and out of the shops that our housed in the colourful old buildings. We also enjoyed a delicious seafood meal at a sea side restaurant! After dinner the waiter mentioned that the Bluenose II was docked not far from town. For those of you that may not know what the Bluenose is. She was a famous fishing and racing schooner! No vessel could out run her! The Bluenose has been on the Canadian dime since 1937. Unfortunately the ship hit a reef off the coast of Haiti in 1946 and sank. In 1963 the Bluenose II was launched!

Mahone Bay
Lina enjoying her cappuccino!

The scenic route to Lundenburg

Glenn window shopping!





The local Distillery
Brewing up a batch of rum!


Cocktail time!


The Bluenose II




Thursday, April 10, 2014

The colours of Halifax

While staying in Halifax we have been constantly drawn to the brightly coloured homes! I have scanned the Internet to find out the reasoning behind it all. Unfortunately there is no real answer, but many theories. Here are a few. #1, so fishermen could find their way home in the fog. #2 People living in maritime towns would paint their homes with left over boat paint, and #3, it was a way for people to brighten up the neighbourhoods and towns during the long, grey winters. That I can believe! Needless to say, these homes are really quite beautiful on a grey day…. or any day. Here are few that had us doing a double take!




For some homes it's all about the door packing the punch!





Not necessarily a cheery colour, but I found it did suit the home very well. You might expect Herman and Lily Munster to greet you at the door!