PS10j - Halifax, Citadel

While I was away at Frosh Leader Camp, we had a Servas guest named Novie (once from Indonesia, now living in Toronto, the black hole that ensnares all newcomers to this country... j/k) stay over. I took her to the Citadel and the bus station that Sunday morning. Before we left, we got pictures of her with the cat, then with the horse. Boy, doesn't Mistoffelees look happy?

In addition to a cat and a horse, we also have squirrels to contend with. They're not officially our pets, but they are so brazen that they might as well be. One time we found a squirrel inside the house.

They're not really afraid of us, and this squirrel has been moving sunflower seeds from the bird feeder (seen here), into the window sill.

Well, I'd love to say that I took this photo myself. The Citadel is the star-shaped fortress at the centre of the image. You can click the picture to visit the official website.

Islands, from left to right: St. George's Island, McNabs Island.

The Halifax Metro Centre. We've hosted the Back Street Boys (when they were popular), Alanis Morissette (in the Jagged Little Pill era), "Weird Al" Yankovic, The Tragically Hip, some NHL games, WWF RAW... you name it.

The Angus L. MacDonald Bridge, seen from the Citadel.

Dartmouth can be seen in the background, the Naval Dockyards in the foreground.

Novie and I examining the barracks. In the early days of the fortress, the soldier's wives and family (if any, since they had to apply to get married) would stay in here too. And of course the doors and windows were all covered and locked at night both to keep out the night air (once thought to cause disease) and to cut down on desertion. And there are no toilets in here, either.

Our guide explaining the aspects of a soldier's uniform. I wonder how many times she has incidentally had her picture taken.

Presentation and preparation to fire the Noon Gun, which has been fired every day at 1200 since time forgot, except for Christmas Days. Sadly, the cannon is only loaded with gun powder - theoretically, someone could sneak in here at night, load the cannons with powder and cannonballs, and if they knew what they were doing, they could start blowing out windows and knocking off sailboats. That would be so unbelievably cool, but not likely to happen.

Digression: In some sense it's kind of a shame that Halifax was never attacked. Before the era of aircraft warfare, any (and I do mean ANY) attackers would have had their asses whooped. The Citadel is only one part of Halifax's historic defense network; our harbor is lined with batteries that probably would have downed nearly every single ship in an armada before they could come ashore anyplace meaningful. But let's say they do manage to make landfall. They'll want to take the star-shaped fortress at the top of the hill (I mean, how could you conduct business in a city you've conquered if the guys in the fort keep shooting at you?) as soon as they can. There's a problem, though - this star shaped fortress has no blind spots - you can be fired at anywhere on the hill. So you have to dig, and you'd eventually find yourself inside the 30-foot deep fortress trench. There, you can be shot at from two sides at once! Theoretically, it would have been possible to take Halifax, but only arithmetically - you'd have to either hold a siege for a ridiculously long time (more than three weeks, ample time for reinforcements to arrive) or just send in so many ships and men that it would be nearly impossible to shoot them all.

British Infantrymen on guard to make sure nobody gets in without a National Historic Site Day Pass.

Spring Garden Road, Halifax. Our answer to Toronto's Younge Street.

Digression: Up the street apiece on the right is a Harvey's restauraunt. For the second year in a row, I happened to go in and eat at exactly the same time the Dalhousie Frosh Leaders were having their Frosh in to eat. This year they were a lot friendlier, though, and nobody gave me any strange looks. (Remember, I'm wearing my Saint Mary's Frosh Leader t-shirt.) I explained to the counter girls that I wasn't a troublemaker =) and I quietly had my dinner. A Dalhousie Frosh Leader started talking to me, thinking I was a Frosh, but I showed him my card and explained that I was actually a Frosh Leader. "Oh! Cool, do you mind if I send a few people over to razz you a bit?" "No problem, just don't let them throw food at me." Sadly, though, I didn't hear anything more memorable than a friendly, "You're in the wrong place, man." "I know, I know."

From left to right: A bus stop, the side entrance to The Lord Nelson Hotel, a twenty-four hour Subway that is always open except for a few hours on Christmas morning.

Digression: This Subway is something else. First, you have the people working in there. They are independent thinkers (read, "unemployable to every other business"), as you would have to be to be working at 3:30 in the morning. I've had friendly conversations and exchanged philosophies with a lot of them over the years. Secondly, you have the washrooms. Go to the twenty-four hour McDonald's and use theirs. But before the McDonald's was built, there wasn't really any choice. I remember one day I went into the washroom and there was this deep melted plastic funk. When I asked what the smell was, they told me someone lit the garbage can on fire.

Another day I asked why the lights had a blue tint to them. "It's so needle-users have to go someplace else to shoot up - with the blue light they can't pick out a vein." "What's the problem with just letting them do that?" "Well, we tried that, but they weren't taking their needles back out with them, so for safety reasons we had to shut it down."

All in all, it's amusing to consider the differences between McDonald's and Subway. Subway has great sandwiches that are more filling and more tasty than a typical hamburger. However, the restauraunt is operated in a laid-back sort of way. The McDonald's on Spring Garden Road, on the other hand, is always clean and professional. Of course I like both, and it's really nice to have both restauraunts so close to each other.

A fountain in the square between South Park Street and the north portion of Tower Road.

I took these two photos from the balcony of an apartment in Farnham Gate, in the west end of Halifax proper.

The rail line linking our two container ports, south end Halifax.

Several neighbourhoods on the North West Arm are linked to the rest of peninsular Halifax through bridges over the rail line.

Provincial Arterial Highway 102 (here known as Bicentennial Drive), which is elevated above the ground for about a kilometre before touching down on Bayers Road. It's like a miniature version of the old Interstate (Massachusetts) 93 over Boston.

These last two images are from the Commons in Halifax, in front of the Citadel.

That's a Holiday Inn Select on the left. The trees enclose Robie Street.

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