Quick! Off to New Brunswick!

As I've mentioned before, J's family (my now in-laws) are from New Brunswick (NB). They are Acadian. The original French Canadians! The food is a bit different, the way of life out there is a bit more relaxed....basically, it's a very nice place to be. When we have a bit longer to spend out East, we will drive. The roads are long and straight. In fact, they are so long and straight that the speed limit is 110 km/hr! Lately though, we've been flying with Air Canada or Porter air, as they have direct flights to Moncton and an hour and 15 minute flight is a bit shorter than a 12 hour drive, n'est-ce pas?

I love, love, love New Brunswick and look forward to going there so much that I'm so sad when we have to leave. But as I've also already mentioned, I'm married to the province now, so we'll always go back! I love seeing the ocean and thinking about how Europe is basically the next piece of land you'll hit (other than Prince Edward Island (PEI)).

Unfortunately, I'm allergic to shell-fish, so I can't really enjoy one of the main food-sources out East other than a fish n' chip meal. Luckily, I can still appreciate the fact that sea-food is so "New Brunswick-ish", that I've learned to love it anyways.....just the look of it, not the taste of it! On our first trip to NB in 2006, we stopped in Shediac. There is this huge lobster statue....finally, a lobster I'm not allergic to!
As this is a post combining quite a few trips to NB, I will name a few of the places that we've gone. In 2006, we decided to take a mini trip to PEI and camp for one night in Stanhope Provincial Park. You can book a campsite on the Parks Canada website, and the park is right near the beach. The sunsets were beautiful!

In 2007, we took a side trip to Nova Scotia to see Halifax and Peggy's Cove. In Halifax, we took a self-guided tour of the Citadel and at Peggy's Cove we saw the Swissair Flight 111 Memorial. The Citadel is an old fortress upon a hill in Halifax. It over looks the ocean, has loads of canons, and stood as a principle naval station for Canada.

The Flight 111 Memorial is just down the road from Peggy's Cove with it's trademark white and red lighthouse.

The Memorial is basically two rocks, facing the ocean, with the names of all those perished on the flight back in September 1998. It's a very simple memorial, but worth seeing as it's almost as if the rocks are facing the ocean, looking at the very spot where the tragedy happened and thinking about the lives that were lost.

As much as these side trips were enlightening, the part of our trips to NB I love the most is just being in Cap-Pele with my inlaws. The small village is so inviting and quiet, and you can see PEI from their backdoor! The rock formations are amazing, having been eroded to these reddish, lumpy towers. Really, my description doesn't do them justice!

One thing J and I always do when we arrive in Cap-Pele is to go for a walk near the wharf. It's right behind a fish-plant and this time around, as we were there the August long weekend, there were tons of fishing boats floating around. The next two pictures are from back in May 2009, just before fishing season starts.

New Brunswick, and the rest of the Maritimes, is such a peaceful place for me. It reminds me a bit of the Czech Republic and of my family over there that also lives in a small village. Everyone seems to know each other, and it's almost as if you can take a deep breath and finally relax from being in the rat-race. I realize that whenever we are there we are on vacation, but it just seems like life is at a slower pace out there. This time, we were only out there for a long weekend, but it relaxed me enough that I didn't dread heading off the work on Monday (or at least, I didn't dread it as much as usual). I would recommend to anyone looking to find a peaceful place to go, to relax and unwind, that they go out East. You may even find your own Rachel Lynde (reference to Anne of Green Gables)!