August 26 - St. John’s Newfoundland

It’s a blustery, rainy day here in St.John’s.  As I’ve already mentioned I had no tour booked.  A crew drill woke me up when they made the announcement at 9:30 or else I might have slept the day away; it was so gray outside. I did eventually go ashore for a little while and I’ll write more about that in a moment.

Last night I dined with the astrophysicist as I’d previously written but it turned out "she" was a "he."  We have a married couple on board as speakers, both originally from Latvia, and I was at Alexander’s table. He was a very jovial character, not at all what I thought a physics professor would be like.  We had an interesting conversation and I need to write about something he told us.  Mark your calendars for April 13, 2029. (A Friday the 13th by the way!) On that day the asteroid Apophis will skim by Earth at a distance of only 20,000 miles, closer than many satellites orbiting Earth.  Alexander was quite excited about this because in astrophysical terms that's like being right next door to you here on Earth. It was first discovered in 2004 and is named for the Egyptian god of chaos and destruction.  It measures about 1100 feet in diameter. The early calculations suggested a small but very alarming possibility of impact, but after years of observation scientists have ruled out that possibility for at least the next century.  (Hopefully they aren’t hiding something.  When he started talking about it I had visions of Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck taking off to save the planet with Aerosmith playing in the background.)  Anyway, the scientific community now believes it will be a NEO, near earth object, that on that day will be visible with the naked eye as it streaks across the sky.  I’ve decided that I won’t worry about it because there isn’t a darn thing I can do anyway.

Thank goodness the host was enjoyable at the table because for the second time one of my dinner companions was a “PhD Clinical Neuropsychologist” who has celebrity patients in SoCal, as she proudly reminds you every time you meet.  She’s difficult to sit with because I can’t help but feel she's constantly analyzing me and several times has been very patronizing to her fellow diners.

Now back to St. John’s.  I did go ashore when it looked like the rain had stopped around 11:30.  I talked to a very nice Newfoundlander (do they call them that?) at the exit to the port area and he pointed the way to the main street.  I walked up a little hill to the place he’d said was where shops and restaurants were and it promptly began to rain again.  In addition the wind was blowing making it pretty unpleasant.  I took refuge in a shop for a few minutes and when it eased up I continued my walk.  As it turned out much of St. John’s is closed on Tuesday. I think that’s strange, but there it is.  The eating places were mainly closed and the shops sold tourist trinkets or clothing appropriate for Newfoundland but not so much for Virginia.  Not long after I began walking again the rain began coming down with a vengeance and the wind picked up and gave no sign of letting up.  I packed very stupidly for this cruise and have absolutely no rain gear with me so I decided the smart thing to do would be to dash back to the ship.  I was wet, but not drenched through and through.  And that was my experience with St. John’s.  It looks like a nice place and I wouldn’t hesitate to come back again, hopefully with less inclement weather.

Here are a couple of photos of downtown St. John's.  You can see there's not much going on this rainy Tuesday.  There were some pretty neat murals like this one of Neptune.

Tomorrow we’ll be in France.  That’s right; we’re stopping at a territory of France.  I shall have to brush up on my French.  À demain!