Day 0: Halifax

There's really not much to do in Canada. Other than that, I really like it here. The 15% sales tax is a bit of a downer but it's very pretty and comfortable in the "pre-Summer" days. Apparently this north there are only about 2 months of recognized Summer. It's interesting to see/hear everything in English and French. In general the people live up to their Canadian stereotypes and are pretty friendly.

I got in late last night after a long day of flying and met with friends Daniel and Lacey from Cal Lu who are also going on SAS. There were quite a few fellow SASers on my flight here from Detroit and in the airport. The hotel we're in was recommended so the place is pretty much swarming with SAS people by now. I got lucky with all my luggage coming in appropriately because I've heard of quite a few problems already.

Today was spent exploring Halifax. The most "famous" site here is the Citadel. Halifax was a heavily defended British fort in the late 1800s. We took a tour and it was pretty interesting to hear how the geography was integrated into the defenses of the city. From there we walked over to the Museum of Natural History but a few people leaving mentioned it wasn't worth the money so we decided to head over to the Public Gardens. They were nicely done and had an interesting Titanic memorial. For some reason there are quite a few cemeteries around. A walk down to the port offered a quick gander at the ship which pulled in this morning. Our Halifax adventure concluded with a quite delicious plate of Nova Scotia Haddock before the rain began. Hopefully it'll clear up for tomorrow's departure.

Tomorrow I'll board at 8:20am and have the rest of the day to check out the ship, meet my fellow travelers and try to think of what I might need to run and buy before the trek across the Atlantic. That's all for now, I need to review some embarkation info for tomorrow.