St Johns, Newfoundland 2006
St Johns, Newfoundland
March 2006
Hello from St. Johns, Newfoundland!
Is it just me, or does St. Johns sound more like a name for a hospital or a church than a town? Newfoundland was discovered by the Vikings several hundred years before the John Cabot, an Italian masquerading as an Englishmen (seriously!) landed. The name was originally assigned by the Vikings, but when the English translated it, the translation was slightly off. I have researched the original Viking name, Vintervasteland, and found that the translation falls between the literal text "Never Ending Snow" and the technical text "Snow Piled Up To Your Buttress."
It is cold here. The high after two weeks finally reached 3 degrees Celsius. The low had been between 0 and minus 5 degrees. I know I have explained the Celsius vs Fahrenheit degree difference before, but here it is again. To convert minus-five Celsius to Fahrenheit, you take five, multiply by nine, divide by the hippopotamus of a triangle, add 32 liters and you should see that minus five Celsius in Fahrenheit is......really, really cold. One day in addition to the cold, it was sleeting and the wind was gusting between 30 and 60 mph. Sleet hitting you in a 60 mph gust feels a lot like hunting with Dick Cheney. I was walking the mountain trails in the national park next to town one day and fell twice on the black ice the second day. I jolted all the fillings out my teeth on the second landing, but managed to get up and limp back. Later after a hot shower when I was drying off, I noticed blood on the towel and realized I had gauged a cut on my derrière from the fall. It took me three more walks to realize that I had ripped a similar hole in my sweat pants during the fall. So, while I was seeing the sights of St. Johns during my walks, St. Johns was seeing the sites of me. And then it snowed.
We are a week into spring and we are in the worst blizzard I have ever seen. I don't know how much snow we have gotten, but the forecast is for 35 centimeters. (To convert, remember there are 3.8 liters in a gallon and 4 grahams in a cracker). I think we have received more like 35 feet so far. Let me explain how the snow works here. First it snows. Then everyone shovels their driveway so they can go to work. Then the truck from the city comes by and throws the snow from the street back into the driveways and everyone re-shovels their driveway. Then, a warm front comes through and it rockets up zero or one degree Celsius. Everyone then goes out and shovels the snow stacked up next to the driveway back into the street so the sun will melt it faster. Otherwise, the city would have to wait 1-2 centuries for the glaciers in all front yards to creep toward the Atlantic and birth an iceberg. And then it would snow.
The snow is piled up 4-10 feet along the roads here and some road signs are completely covered. Fire hydrants have a huge sign next to them so city workers can dig them out after the snow plows go by. Not only is it icy here, but everything, and I mean "everything", is up or down. All roads have a serious slant. My hands, and eyes for that matter, are so whiteknuckled to the steering wheel trying to keep the Chevy I'm driving to actually face into the correct direction. I'm up here with three coworkers and I have to admit it all the screaming gets really annoying when the ice takes on a life of it's own and skids me through an intersection, toward a guard rail or veering into oncoming traffic. My passengers claim they can take my "bad driving," if I'd just stop the screaming.
They have king crab and lobsters as a primary export here, but probably the most common food consumed by locals is poutine. Poutine is French fries, covered in grated Mozerella cheese, with brown gravy poured over everything. You can get poutine anywhere, but we have only found three restaurants out of 30-40 with crab or lobster on the menu. I saw one "Poutine Shack" on a corner that was a tiny building with only a drive-by window. Even the local KFC has a Poutine Combo Meal with only a big bowl of poutine and a drink. That is the entire meal. No chicken. I ordered a hot dog at a lunch counter last week and tried to get cheese on my dog. They put cheese on my fries and added gravy without me asking. I said, "No, I want cheese on the hot dog!" The lady who just put cheese and gravy on my French fries looked at me bewildered and said, "Why would you want that!?" On a completely unrelated note, the average life span of a Newfoundlander is 30 years. They also offer salt and vinegar with everything. I have ordered a KFC three-piece meal, a McDonald chicken nugget meal, and an A&W burger combo and was offered salt and vinegar with each. And before you criticize my diet at KFC, McD's and A&W, I have made it past 30. OK, barely. The Canadian dollar coin has a loon (the bird) on it, so whenever someone charges you a dollar, they ask for a looney. I think it is very appropriate that you pay for poutine with looneys.
We went skiing in Clareville on one of our days off. The driving to the ski area was hazardous. The posted speed limit was 100 kph, but I was driving an unfamiliar rental car, it was very foggy, both freezing drizzle and snow were falling, ice patches dotted on the highway and I was going through a remote area known for having moose wander onto the road. I carefully factored in all these elements into my driving so fortunately, I was only doing 128 kph when I blew by a trooper. To complicate things, he spoke no English whatsoever, just Newfoundlandese. When he gave me my ticket, he said, (this the exact quote) "You kin chall'ng if ye come to court on de turd uphill." My face must have shown my utter confusion because he pointed to the ticket and repeated louder this time, "...DE TURD UPHILL." It took a couple of seconds to put the "de turd uphill" together with the court date he was pointing to: the third of April.
The office is very safety conscious here. The coffee maker has a very nice label on the top that says "Always unplug coffee maker when adding water!" Then, on the wall next to the plug is another label from the same printer that says "Never unplug coffee maker!" After looking at this for a while, I decided to have some cheese and gravy instead. With salt and vinegar. And then it snowed.
With Warmest Regards from a Blizzard somewhere in St. Johns, the
Newfoundland city and not the hospital,
-K-K-K-Keith
And then it snowed. And snowed. And snowed.