Paths to Explore: The day begins.... at Starbucks?

I am what my DH calls a coffee snob. I must confess he is right! I can be heard complaining about a particular brew or flavour of the bean. Starbucks has never been my favourite place but desperate times call for desperate measures. Instant coffee, which seems super popular here, will never do so I find myself at the Starbucks on Campus sipping a good strong coffee. After the instant (shudder, shudder) I suspect I will be reminded when I complain the next time.

So what shall we do today now that the coffee is kicking in and my brain is a little less fuzzy. Decision made. DH goes to the university and I go explore the city. The locals tell us that they get about six sunny days a year, we’ve had two in a row now so I figured I had better visit Aberdeen beach while the sun was cooperating. So now more than twenty thousand steps later I am sitting in another Starbucks doing some writing. The first bit of writing was the post cards to a few young people in Canada and now it is on to the blog.

Walking along Aberdeen beach is very reminiscent of the shores of Newfoundland, crashing waves, cool ocean breezes, ships in the harbour and a beautiful but rugged coastline. At the end of the beach is a quaint little fishing community, Foodee. As I walked through the village I marveled at how short the houses seemed, yes at one point I was able to touch the roof of shale rock...if I was a bit more mischievous!!!! Ships were coming into the harbour, in fact they were lined up waiting their turn and there were lots of them. Once I finished exploring Foodee I headed back toward the city, saw a hill that promised beautiful views and decided I should not pass up the opportunity. Another good idea....must have been that coffee!

The view at the top was spectacular and surely showed the mistake my DH and I made yesterday evening when it seemed we might have gotten slightly lost. We were right where we needed to be, but it was dark and there were no street lights and we weren’t exactly sure what was ahead but we knew what we had come from. This view highlighted our uncertainty in the glaring light of day. I laughed and laughed, we were so near and yet so far in the dark.

So here are a few pictures of today’s meandering along the beach, up hills and about the city. And I’ve ended where I began the day sitting in Starbucks but this time enjoying a hot mint tea and resting my weary legs before heading back to the rental and planning tomorrow’s events.