My Nephew, Charles
My brother’s son, Charles, had moved to Halifax 20 years ago. After many years of struggle, he finally broke through the Waspy (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) barrier to get himself a good job at the Dalhousie University as liaison between the university and the rich Middle-Eastern foreign students. His job is to coerce the Middle-Easterners to come study at the Dalhousie, which specializes in Engineering and Medicine. Halifax is a university city. It has ten universities that compete against each other to admit foreign students–where they’re able to really rake in the money. Charles told me that these kids are so rich that they’d just leave their Benz and BMWs at the airport parking lot, with the keys in them, when they graduate and leave the country. The tow companies take them away and sell them.
Apart from his work at the Dalhousie University, Charles volunteers to work as a radio broadcaster playing Jazz music. He is involved in every Jazz festival that Halifax hosts. It so happened that we had come in during the Jazz Festival. We had come rather late from our campground in the afternoon, so didn’t want to spend time in just one place. We wanted to make sure that Kip also enjoyed the trip.
Charles lives in a notorious apartment building. Halifax, being a seaport, used to bring in sailors from all over the world. In fact, at one of the docks, an artist designed a bunch of leaning and fallen lampposts in dedication to them. The location of the building that Charles lives in used to house a brothel. It used to have red glass balconies that were lit up at night to attract the sailors. In memory of the old whore house, the new building, which was constructed just 8 years ago, put in the red-glass balconies. Charles lives with a roommate on the eighth floor, just two below the penthouse. His apartment is at one corner of the building, so doesn’t not look into the ocean frontally, but partially. He has the view of both the downtown core and the ocean.
Click the image below to see Charles and his apartment view.
Shubie Campgrounds
Our campsite, Shubie, was just 20 minutes bus ride to the bus terminal, where we were able to connect to another bus to take us to the ferry to go to Halifax’s Downtown. Click the image below to see the campsite.
Beach Time
Before going Downtown to meet Charles, Albert and Kip went to the Shubie Park Beach to swim. Click the image below to see them in action.
Lake Charles
The beach is on Lake Charles. It is large, surrounded by trees, houses, and the highway. Click the image below to see it.
Halifax Downtown
The two of them were having so much fun, that I couldn’t get them out early enough to go downtown to listen to some Jazz. Anyway, we got to stroll around and get a feel of the Downtown core. Charles was a great guide and host. He showed us where Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts had bought their condos facing the ocean. He showed a the boat that the owner of Tim Horton’s owned. He was obviously a big fan of Brigitte Bardot, which his boat was named after, which also had a painting of her on it. Click the image below to see Halifax Downtown. He also took us to Halifax’s Discovery Centre and the main library which was five stories high, where Kip had a lot of fun. He treated us to an Indian restaurant owned by Chinese from India. The food was great! The taste was familiar to what we used to eat in Calcutta. Oh, Charles also writes reviews on restaurants. Kip and Albert had a thrill trying to run up a concrete moll hill. Finally made it up after many attempts. Glad that Albert came along. He has more energy that I do entertaining Kip.
Click the image below to view Downtown Halifax.
Click the image below to see us having Fun in Halifax.
On the morning of Thursday, July 11, Albert had to catch a flight to Toronto to do his interview with the Chinese Visa Centre on the 12th. Kip and I checked out of Shubie Camp to visit Lunenburg, that Charles said was picturesque. I was rather disappointed with the scenery on the way to Nova Scotia. I was expecting ocean view all the way but only saw spruce trees on the sides of straight highways. So, I felt I needed to go somewhere where I can see what I had imagined of Nova Scotia.
In the last couple of days, we’ve been in campgrounds where the internet was super slow. They were definitely the old telephone line type! So, I wasn’t able to write or upload any pictures or videos. I’m now sitting at McDonald in the US doing this. Hopefully, my next campsite will have better internet to send you the latest updates.
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