July 6/12

After an uneventful flight we had dinner with an adventurous couple from Regina who arrived at our B & B (also hungry) at the same time as we did. They've already been to many of the places that we are planning to go to, as well as to other distant lands, so it was enjoyable listening to their adventures. I thought about the fact that if we'd been at home we never would have walked to a restaurant and dined with strangers!

Did a lot of walking today, which tired me out more than I care to admit. Michael had chosen a place to stay D/T because he knew that parking here is a nightmare. I won't bore you with everything we stopped to see, but we headed down to the harbour where we spent most of the day. The Immigration Museum at Pier 21 was especially moving for me, as my grandfather made the trip here from Germany in the early 1930's, and then my dad and his mom followed a year later. Upon checking the archives I saw all 3 of their names, but the years or places they had come from didn't match. It's possible that they could have sailed to Montreal instead of Halifax. Anyway, we could not have imagined what it must have been like for those people to have left their homes and families to come to an unknown land with an unknown future.

The most enjoyable part of the day was spent sitting by the water outside a pub listening to 2 fiddlers (from Regina) playing and step dancing. We knew most of the tunes, but heard some great new ones too.

We also did a brief tour of the Maritime Museum. I was amazed to learn that there's been over 10,000 shipwrecks off the coast of Nova Scotia. Some thing there could have been as many as 25,000! They had a Titanic exhibit which included some things recovered from the ship.One especially sad item that touched my heart was a pair of shoes that belonged to a 2-year-old unknown boy. Despite the "women and children first" policy, there were actually more men from first class that survived.