Happy New Year!
I returned last night from spending Christmas in
Newfoundland, which
is inhabited by quite likely the friendliest people you might ever
encounter. My extended family is spread out right across the
country and every year we decide who will `host' Christmas.
This year it was relatives in Newfoundland and my parents and
brothers quite wisely decided to fly down, whereas I decided to
drive, and to take my boyfriend with me. Canada as it turns out, is
quite big. Normally one would leave Toronto, drive out of Ontario,
across Quebec, down into New Brunswick and then over to Nova
Scotia, this takes about 23 Hours. Next you take a 6 hour ferry and
arrive in Port aux Basques, followed by a further 9 hours or so to
reach St. John's.
The problem of course is that I had assumed the weather would be
fine. I didn't check ahead of time and thought nothing of the heavy
rainfall we had in Toronto on the day we left. The rain never
stopped, and I hate driving in the rain, I always feel like I am
going to skid off the road and I have trouble seeing things with
the wipers on and the dots of water all over the place. By the time
we reached Montreal it was nightfall and the rain turned into
freezing rain. My car was covered with ice and after getting out of
Montreal, the traffic had slowed to a crawl, we spent the rest of
the night just getting across Quebec, there were cars in the ditch
every few kilometers and I was all stressed out and nervous.
Normally I would have just gotten a motel but I had all the
Christmas gifts in my car and didn't want to be late so we kept
going. It wasn't until the next evening the rain finally stopped
and the drive became a little easier. We did miss the ferry though
and had to take a much later one, which pretty much dashed any
chance of getting there on time, but at that point I was happy to
get 3 hours of sleep in the car while we waited. We finally arrived
in St John's at about 3:30AM Christmas morning, just in time to
tuck the gifts under the tree.
Was it worth it? Definitely, the rest of Christmas was perfect,
with lots of fun, great food and too many parties. The return trip
was much less eventful and with good weather it wasn't nearly as
tiring. I will however never do that drive again.