Fish & Chips, Screech, and George St

What were my resolutions for this week? Hmmm…. to not eat fried food and to not get sucked into drinking too much. Well, that all went out the window on Monday night when we went on a pub crawl which commenced with a dinner of fish & chips (good fish, but a little too heavy on the ‘fried’ side of things – felt pretty pukey afterwards). I kinda knew I’d eat fish and chips this week once anyway, so I can check that off of the “List of things to do while in Newfoundland”… but the drink tickets at the 4 bars we went to didn’t help the ‘don’t drink too much’ aspect of my promise to myself. This doesn’t matter though – as Nic and I agreed: it was probably the most fun we’ve had at a meeting in our 4.5 yrs with the company thus far. There were bands, or at least a guy with a guitar, at most of the bars and at one of them we sang some Newfie songs which was really fun! They got people up on the stage at every bar to participate too. No – not me. At another bar there were professional Irish dancers who taught us how to dance a jig. At yet another we learned how to make noise with spoons (most people were too in the bag by then to keep the beat). The last bar had a really good band and everyone was on the dance floor. I didn’t actually stay very late, but had a ton of fun. And if you made a bet on whether or not I was up for that workout – well, surprise of all surprises: I was! However, when I washed my face before heading down to the gym I had a look in the mirror and thought, ‘Whoa… now those are bags I’ve never seen under my eyes before!’ 6 AM here translates to 4:30 AM at home, so you can imagine what I must have been feeling doing that on the first morning after touching down in this time zone.

Today was a long, long day of meetings and in the afternoon a very, very boring speaker. The content was solid, but the doctor was so monotone in his delivery… the funniest part is that apparently the videographer taping the session was snoring!!! In the evening I went out for a 3 hour dinner with my Ottawa and Kingston colleagues and we had a blast! After another totally amazing meal we went on to Trapper John’s on George St and we all got Screeched In… had to do it while we were with Darrell (our Ottawa team’s very own Newfoundlander). I’ve got a bunch of photos to post from that and a certificate stating that I am now officially an honorary Newfie. We didn’t get to kiss a cod though – we had to kiss a puffin’s ass, which apparently is also customary. However, I would like to have a photo of me kissing a cod from this trip, so we’ll see what we can do about that this weekend. Aristea is also staying on for the weekend and said she’s in for finding a cod to kiss – probably Friday night, I’ve been informed, since that’s apparently going to be quite the partying night here in St. John’s. After the screeching in we went on to a bar called O’Reilley’s where they had open mic night and one of our southern Ontario colleagues, Jamie, took the stage for a few songs. There were also 3 guys from New Zealand who got up – with their own instruments!!! A base, a guitar, and a stand-up drum! Aparently this was a "stop" to see a friend on the way to New York and then Tahiti - sure, I get that...??? They were really good – however, much older than my friends and I (maybe even a bit older than my parents!), and 2 of the songs they played were actually before my time so didn’t know what they were. Once they played a Beatles song it was all good.