life with more cowbell

The morning after Les and Derek’s wedding in Ottawa, I was busy checking my flight status (I checked twice: once when I went down for breakfast and again just before I checked out of the Lord Elgin) to see if Porter was still a go for the afternoon flight St. John’s. Nothing amiss for them online, so I headed to the airport.

The flight was good, with some minor turbulence around Halifax, where we landed for our scheduled half-hour stop to drop off/pick up passengers and do plane maintenance stuff. By the time we arrived in St. John’s, we were just under an hour late and the weather there was fine. I got a cab right away and, in about 20 minutes or so, arrived at The Bluestone Inn, where I met owner/operator Gerri and got settled in to my room.

It had been a long afternoon and I was starved, so I wandered down to Duckworth Street (zigzagging down, as Gerri suggested – such a good idea in that hilly city) and hung a left. A few interesting restaurants, but nothing grabbed me, so I started walking in the opposite direction. Then it dawned on me, The Duke of Duckworth was nearby. If you watch Republic of Doyle, you’ll know this as the pub featured on the show; also, the architecture is gorgeous.

The pub is located off McMurdo’s Lane, one of the several lanes (set of stairs) that links Duckworth and Water Streets. So down I went and, thankfully, managed to get there shortly before the kitchen closed at 8 p.m. As it turns out, my eyes were bigger than my stomach and, while I was able to consume the chicken wings, I couldn’t finish the fries. But I did have room for a second pint. Of course. It was a Sunday night, so not crowded, and I eventually struck up a conversation with the two guys at the table across from me: Marty and Anthony, both from Quebec (though Anthony has been, and lived, all over Canada). The guys invited me to their table as we continued to chat – about where we were from, what we did for a living, politics, St. John’s… and even invited me for another pint – but, by then, I was pooped and needed to walk back up the hill to the B&B.

And this was just the first of several chance meetings with some really cool, interesting folks – St. John’s natives and folks from “away” – during the course of my week there.

After surviving the zigzag back up to the B&B (and Cathedral Street was a killer), I wandered a couple of blocks from the B&B searching for a convenience store, and came upon Moo Moos – a combo ice cream parlour/convenience store – and got some water and gingerale to take back to the bar fridge in my room. I made a mental note to go back there for ice cream.

More on my St. John’s adventures soon…