The new digs

I'm sure the honeymoon ends when I have to endure my first winter storm, but at the moment this city has me entranced. When you can pretty much step out your front door and see the scene to the left here, that's kind of cool. What you're looking at is the mouth of Qidi Vidi Harbour -- photo taken from one of the many walking paths that wind through St. John's. Mere minutes walking from downtown, I might add.

Speaking of my front door, I believe I promised some pics of my new apartment, so here we go. First up is my building from the outside. What I love about it is that it used to be a high school -- a high school gone condo! I used to have dreams about that happening to St. Robert's back in the day ... wait, those might merely have been dreams of the school being demolished to make way for a new highway. Either or.

And here are the rest of my apartment shots for good measure. As you can see, the office is pretty much tricked out but the rest is still a bit spartan. I see shopping at poster stores in the future ... I thinking a couple of big JW Turner prints will work for some of the blank spaces on the walls.

Not much else to mention, aside from the fact that a very late lunch precluded the attempt at chowder, so more on that tomorrow. We did grab lunch at the infamous Ches's Fish & Chips (everyone I know who's from Newfoundland has informed me that it's a moral duty to eat at Ches's at least once while here; and having tasted it, I must concur).


ODD LOCAL QUIRK DU JOUR: This might seem like a weird thing to point out, but none of the parking lots in big retail districts connect here. We were up at Staples today getting some stuff for my office -- right in the middle of a serious collection of big box stores, everything from Future Shop to Wal-Mart to Costco -- and none of the parking lots connect, even when they're adjacent. For those from London, imagine going up to Chapters at Masonville, and having to pull back out on Fanshawe Park in order to get to Pier One, and then again to go to Loblaws. That's essentially what we were doing this afternoon.