Heaven on Earth or better known as Sydney, Nova Scotia

(We will attempt to place pictures on our blog tomorrow if we can find an internet)

We arrived in this beautiful city of Sydney, pop. 25,000, around 8:00 AM. We had no tours planned for today but had wanted to visit the Cabot Trail and Cape Breton (1000 Places to See Before You Die). Connected to the rest of Nova Scotia by a narrow causeway, Cape Breton Island is as Scottish as it gets on this side of the Atlantic. There was no way we could do the entire Cabot Trail of 184 miles but we wanted to see both Cape Breton Island and some of the Trail. The ship’s excursion was for 8 hours and that is too much time on a bus for us.

We headed off the ship around 9:00 AM and the Sydney Cruise Terminal is welcoming and cozy. We stopped and inquired about private tours and another couple from the ship overheard us talking and together we negotiated a cab to take us around on a mini-Cabot trail and Cape Breton tour. The price for each couple was $100.00 but on the ship it would have been about double that. The only drawback was it really wasn’t a comfortable 5 passenger car but for 4 hours we could make do.

Blaze, our cabbie, showed us all around and would stop whenever we wanted to take pictures; he took us to the Gaelic College ( an accredited university where the Gaelic traditions are kept alive) where a lovely lad of 14 was playing the bagpipes.

When he returned us to the cruise terminal I inquired if he knew of any shop nearby where I might find a “Sydney Crosby” t-shirt for my niece (who thinks he is great). He said, “Too bad ye didn’t tell me sooner. I would have taken ye to a sport shop back in the city”. Dejected we said our goodbyes to our new friends, to the cabbie and went into the very nice cruise terminal.

Jim was trying to set up the free wireless internet and I found a very nice man with an official coat on. He was from the local Kiwanis and was stationed at the terminal to greet, meet and direct us to wherever we wanted to go. I asked him the same question about a sports store within walking distance and he motioned for me to sit and wait a bit; he would be right back.

Little did I know he went and found the phone book, called the local store and gave me the phone so I could inquire about anything with Sydney Crosby on it. They said they had some stuff so I thanked them, returned his phone and then asked if he could tell me how far it would be to walk and could he point on a map the direction I needed to take.

“Oh no, I will take you there. I leave here at 3:00, it will take 10 minutes to get there and then I will bring you back here by 3:30. Your ship leaves at 4:30 doesn’t it?” Of course I protested and he looked hurt and said “You would trust me wouldn’t you?” Well of course I would. How could you not trust a man with a Kiwanis coat on?

By then Jim had come over, he invited Jim to drive with us and promptly at 3:00 off we went in his car to the local sports store. We all went in (a very small strip mall kind of store) and I asked the young man at the counter if he could direct me to the Sydney Crosby stuff. He remembered who I was from our phone conversation, we walked over, I selected my item and we got a picture of all of us in this quaint store.

Of course I was elated that I found something that I knew my niece wanted but more than that I could not believe the kindness of all these people, especially Ray, our Kiwanis friend. Everywhere we went today we were treated with warmth, and kindness that went beyond the normal. I asked Ray if everyone was this nice and he said, “Oh yes, those of us in the Atlantic Canadian Provinces love people”. He loved the place and people so much that he said they couldn’t blast him from there.

Our departure from Sydney had a great little local band that performed for us while we boarded the ship. The people were friendly and warm and it was quite the contrast from how we were greeted yesterday in St. Pierre, France. Print this post