Quick Trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia

This post is about a trip to Halifax and about spending the 2007 Canada Day there. Updated comments are in (brackets) as this is a recycled story from a past blog I created.

Business took me up to Halifax on the Friday before Canada Day and I decided to stay till the Monday and celebrate Canada Day in Halifax along with some friends from Genie Knows.

I came into Halifax (really my first trip to Halifax as the last trip was not so pleasant and ended with me leaving just as quick as I arrived) to talk some business with Genie Knows (who later would hire me to handle their SEO and UI for several projects) as well as celebrate the launch their vertical search engine for the gaming industry (which is no longer online). The business talks went great and the evening of celebrations even better (this was my first time actually getting to play a lot of xbox 360 and my first ever time playing with a wii).

Spending a couple days walking around and doing touristy things in Halifax (the city is very small, probably one of the smallest cities in Canada) was enough to get a good sense of the city. Taking time of a tour of Alexander Keith’s originally brewery was interesting and worth a few hours of time if you make it to Halifax. Overall there is a lot of history and a lot of culture in the city, but is small. Being small for me was nice but some people won’t like that there is not much to do other then bars after 10pm (lucky when I moved to Halifax they started a basketball league, which took up a lot of my evenings).

On Canada Day I went to the home of the founders of Genie Knows and spent it with their family, it was a really amazing time (the founders have a big family with lots of kids, so its really nice feeling to see such a lot of family bonding). They are such nice people that you feel like your part of the family and for me it was the best Canada Day I can remember for a long time, well it also was my first Canada Day in 7 years (the only other Canada Day I can remember is when I was 15 or so in Vancouver and watching the fireworks from the airport).

I did enjoy Halifax, recommend staying at the Westin (which is in an old historical building), great location and rates, but you need to get a harbor view room (later when I moved to Halifax I got a corner apartment right on the edge of the ocean, was really amazing watching all the big ships come and go). The Marriott was also nice, closer to things and the casino but the rates jumped and they actually didn’t have room for me and my colleagues. Although I did enjoy Halifax I took an earlier flight back to Toronto/Guelph as after you’ve walked the downtown/harbor area for 3 days straight there isn’t much new to see (it is not a city you book a week of tours in).

So I am back in Guelph, just getting ready for another blitz of a week, just looking forward to the middle of the month as will be going camping with some colleagues from work and for me camping is always an amazing time.

UPDATE ON POST:

One thing I failed to mention is that Halifax also houses an amazing museum Pier 21 about all the people who immigrated to Canada from Europe in the early 90’s. If you had grandparents or parents that came from Europe they more then likely came into Halifax and you can often find their original signatures in the log books and if you are really lucky you can find them in the many photographs around the museum. I couldn’t spell the last name of my grandparents so I wasn’t able to look them up, but one of my coworkers did find information about his.