Trip to Los Angeles

February 15, 2023 / Maria / Leave a comment

I didn’t get up to very much hiking during the Fall last year, but I was still busy having other kinds of adventures! I’ve never been to Los Angeles and this is probably one of the most spontaneous trips I’ve gone on since I lived in Europe a decade ago. It seemed like everyone on social media was seeing Harry Styles in concert and less than a month before the trip, I impulsively decided that I wanted to go see Harry in concert too. A quick google search revealed he would be in Los Angeles, which is near enough to Vancouver without being too far away for a weekend.

I sent Carolyn a quick text message and we had the following exchange:

Mar: I’m thinking of going to LA to see Harry Styles in November, you interested?

Car: Oooo, I’ve never been there and that sounds fun, but I need to sleep on it.

(9 minutes later)

Car: Forget it, I’m in!

She came to my house a few days later and we booked the flights and concert tickets.

We both used points for the flight, so it was pretty reasonable and we flew direct both ways. The concert was a good deal more expensive than the flights, so we decided to re-visit our younger years and stay in a hostel to save money. I’m definitely past my hostel days and prefer a quiet room to myself, but the accommodations in LA are outrageously expensive and Carolyn got it in her head that we should stay in Santa Monica (pretty much the most expensive). So we scrimped on the hostel so that we could stay in Santa Monica and spend the money on ubers instead. It was mild torture being hungover in a communal space on Sunday morning, but I didn’t regret it too much. YOLO.

Similar to when I went to Vegas, I didn’t expect to like the city, but ended up actually having a really good time! LA is a big city known for its urban sprawl and lack of transit, but it was so much friendlier than I was expecting. It felt a lot less grimy than when I recently re-visited Portland and I actually felt pretty safe as the people were quite nice. California and the PNW in general are known for being a bit more liberal and I definitely found this to be the case in LA. Plus the weather rocks!

It was around 20 degrees celsius when we visited, which appeared cold to a lot of the locals judging by their choice of dress (puffy jackets!), but it was nice and balmy to us and we wore shorts all weekend. We were treated to sun throughout the entire trip and it was lovely to take a break from Vancouver’s monotonous rain and clouds in the middle of Fall.

We left after work on Friday evening and got to LA late on Friday night. Neither of us had a working American cell phone (or even a roaming data plan), but we managed to find enough wifi throughout the trip to call ourselves ubers whenever we needed them. After a confusing departure from the airport, we arrived to the hostel in Santa Monica in time to go to bed. Sadly our companions were up at the crack of dawn, so being early risers ourselves, we made a reasonably early start on the day. We saved even more money at the hostel’s breakfast bar before flushing it all down the drain trying to purchase bus tickets. In our defense, the machine overcharged us and we ended up with a handful of extra passes.

We took the bus into West Hollywood, which ended up being our only bus ride of the trip. You can take two hikers out of the woods, but you can’t make them stop walking. We ended up logging more than 10km walking around the city on Saturday. Carolyn humoured me with a visit to two bookstores right at the start and they were both amazing! The first was Book Soup, which is an independent bookstore with a fantastic collection and actual ladders on the walls. Then we hopped around the corner to Mystery Pier Books, which is a specialty store that just sells first editions of books! It was pretty incredible; it had all these old editions of books, but I’m not sure how much they actually sell because they’re all so special. I thought they should charge $5 to get in the store because you get a lot of busy bodies like us (okay me) who are enthralled with the concept, but unsurprisingly purchase nothing.

So after that obvious highlight of the trip, we spent the rest of the day walking around Hollywood. We started on Sunset Blvd, where we had lunch, before eventually transitioning up to Hollywood Blvd to do the Walk of Fame. I visited 3 Targets trying to find Taylor Swift’s special Midnights album for Emily to no avail. Once we had our fill of cupcakes on the Walk of Fame, we walked around some more looking for wifi to call an uber to the Royal Observatory in Griffiths Park. This involved running back and forth across the street a few times to get the best network, but we made it work!

It was so worth it! It was crazy busy at Griffith Park, but I loved everything about the observatory. From the cool architecture, to the science museum, to the view of the Hollywood Sign. It’s a desert right in the middle of the city. We debated calling an uber back when we were done, but ended up deciding to hike down through the park instead. It got us away from the crowded road, but we didn’t really have enough time to wait for the bus, so we still ended up having to call an uber to take us the lengthy distance back to Santa Monica.

Once back at the hostel, we quickly got ready for Harry Styles while picking a restaurant to eat before the show. We were literally getting ready to leave when I got a text from Emily telling me that Harry had cancelled the show! We knew it was a possibility because he had cancelled the previous night’s show, but he had given more than just an hour’s notice when he cancelled the previous show, so we’d been optimistic our concert would happen. But alas, it was not meant to be. It was pretty disappointing because neither of us was interested in coming back for a concert that would be re-scheduled mid-week in January, so we decided to make the best of it and went out in our concert apparel instead! We were able to get our money back for the show, so our logic was that we now had a pretty hefty entertainment budget for the evening.

We started at Onyx Rooftop Bar in Santa Monica where we ordered fancy cocktails to enjoy outside on the roof. It sounded like a swanky idea, except for the little issue where we were the only people who actually found it warm enough to be on the roof. But instead of crying over our $35 drinks, we befriended the only other people on the roof and got some club recommendations for later.

We left the rooftop in search of cheaper drinks and decided on a Mexican restaurant, only to accidentally go into the wrong building and end up eating at a much less exciting grill. Unsurprisingly, neither of us noticed until we were halfway through our entrees and started commenting on the lack of tacos on the menu. It was too late to remedy the situation, so we decided to go next door to the Cantina for a drink afterwards instead. Our Harry Styles shirts were a big hit among the street crowds and our bartender took pity on us a treated us to a round. After that, it was time to finally find some dancing.

If you ever travel with me, the first thing you’ll learn is that while I extensively research all the natural attractions I want to visit, I don’t care a toss about restaurants and clubs. I like to eat good food and have fun, but I’m just as happy to wonder into some hole in the wall restaurant as a fancy one. Our young and hip friends from the Onyx had advised us about a hot club called The Bungalow, but we opted for a Google find first called Harvelle’s. It was only $10 (and no line) to get in and we ended up loving it! It’s a small little jazz bar with live music. It doesn’t attract the young and hip crowd, but we had a great time dancing to the live music and having enough space to actually walk around.

That was a real contrast to The Bungalow. We had to wait in line to get in and once we did, it was wall-to-wall people. It was definitely a party with a massive dance floor and DJ, but it was very chaotic and we ended up chatting up some new friends rather than get trampled on the dance floor. If you’re 23 and in LA for the first time, it’s definitely the place to be, but we’re 30 now (lol), so we’d give the edge to the jazz bar!

We slept in as much as possible the next day, but eventually packed up to explore Santa Monica. We’d only brought a small carry-on backpack with us, so we carried our stuff around with us on Sunday. We got coffee and pastries from a cute coffee shop nearby and started the day with a visit to the pier. It’s pretty cool, but neither of us was in the mood for rides, so we ended up walking the beach instead. We walked more than 7km on Sunday and stopped about halfway between Santa Monica and Venice (Oceanview Park) to search out a restaurant for lunch.

We stumbled upon a farmers market and Carolyn humoured me with visiting a few more bookstores. Venice Beach had a different vibe than Santa Monica for sure, but it was still a pretty neat place. We checked out the canals and then spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on the beach eating fruit before heading back to the airport for our return flight. So overall it was a very whirlwind trip – less than 48 hours in total – but I still feel like we got to see a bunch of things. We stuck to the most basic of attractions, but still caught a little bit of the flavour of the place. We made lots of friends while out partying, which really cemented LA as a much friendlier city than anticipated. I would visit again, but I’m not really in a rush. Maybe the next time Harry Styles plays the Kia Forum we’ll make a second attempt with better results. Fortunately neither of us are superfans, so the trip was far from ruined!

Chance Cove Coastal Trail

June 29, 2022June 23, 2022 / Maria / Leave a comment

I recently made my annual summer trip home to Newfoundland for 10 days in early June and had the best time exploring some new trails! I wasn’t thrilled about going home in June because it’s not the nicest weather in Newfoundland at that time, but I ended up having to eat my words because I had really good luck while I was home! I got such fine weather I ended up doing 55km worth of hikes in just 7 days – the first of which was Chance Cove Coastal Trail.

Chance Cove is located about an hour and half outside of St. John’s on the far end of the Avalon peninsula on the isthmus. Chance Cove has definitely been trending on Newfoundland social media throughout the pandemic and I was starting to feel like everyone I knew on the island had been there over the past year. It looks incredibly scenic in photos, so I admit to being drawn to this hike by Instagram and I was determined to check it out for myself.

We got nice weather on our first weekend home and I convinced both mine and Seth’s families to do the hike with us. It’s only ~4km round trip and is fairly easy terrain, but it’s so scenic it ended up taking us 2.5 hours to do the whole thing!

What makes this hike especially nice is that it’s a double loop hike (kind of like a figure 8), so you get different topography along the entire hike. We started by climbing up into the woods until we reached Chance Cove Beach, which extends across the cove to the main road, then we switched back to the coastal route up towards Green Head. It was overcast and extremely windy when we started, with Green Head being the most blustery part of the trail. We hiked up to the head, but didn’t stay long because it was so cold, though it was cool to watch the wind swirl erratic patterns through the water.

From Green Head, you continue along the headland past Chance Cove Island to Island Cove Beach, where fortunately, the headland shelters you from the worst of the wind. There’s a newly constructed set of stairs going down to Island Cove Beach, so we took a long break on the beach to eat our snacks and enjoy the warmer (less windy) weather. As we continued on, the clouds started breaking up and pretty soon the sun was shining down on us!

The next attraction is Patrick’s Cove (also known as Big Cove), but first you can hike up to a series of viewpoints between the two coves. With the sun shining, it completely transforms the landscape and the water turned the most vibrant shade of blue! You could almost be tricked into thinking you were somewhere tropical, if not for the wind.

You can also hike down to Big Cove, which has a huge sea stack that is centered in most of the photos I’ve seen on social media. Unfortunately, there are no stairs going to Big Cove, just a large rope guiding you down the bank. I really wanted to see it, so I climbed down, but it’s still really steep and not for the faint of heart. The rope is positioned pretty awkwardly and some of my family members had some trouble, so I wouldn’t go down there if you’re not confident in your abilities. Definitely use caution.

If you do decide to climb down to beach, it is very lovely and would make a great place for a swim. Me and Emily toyed briefly with the idea of going for a dip, but we didn’t have swimsuits and it was a bit too breezy to air dry. We opted instead to wade out up to our knees. It wasn’t quite as cold as I was expecting at first, but it quickly starts to numb your feet and I had to stumble back to the beach to defrost!

From there we hiked back up the bank to get what I’d call the “money shot” of the hike. A view from above of the curved beach and sea stack. It was no longer sunny when we got there, but no less scenic! After that it’s a pretty easy walk back to the parking lot. There’s a small climb and then you head back down towards Chance Cove. You can cross the beach if you prefer, but given the wind, we decided to just hike back along the water instead.

We concluded our day with a visit to Baccalieu Trail Brewing Co. in Bay Roberts to sample some of their beer and “legendary” cod chowder. The sun returned while we sipped our beers on the patio and we congratulated ourselves on a very successful day. Chance Cove Coastal Trail definitely lives up to the hype and I would recommend it to pretty much anyone. Use caution if climbing down to the beach, but otherwise it’s a fairly easy hike that’s great for beginners! We had a great time.

Sightseeing in Twillingate

September 15, 2021August 27, 2021 / Maria / Leave a comment

I decided to write specifically about Twillingate because it’s such a beautiful part of Newfoundland. It has special meaning to me as the place where my Nan lives and my mom grew up, but it’s also become a pretty popular tourist attraction in recent years. Twillingate is an island located on the northern central part of Newfoundland. The entire region is a series of coastal islands and its neighbouring Island, Fogo, has become especially popular in recent years since a high-end hotel was constructed that frequents visits from bonafide celebrities. I’m not sure if Twillingate became popular as Fogo’s less-expensive and easier-to-access cousin, but either way, it is worthy of the attention its received in the past few years.

Unlike Fogo, which requires taking a ferry, Twillingate is connected to the rest of Newfoundland by a causeway. It’s a 5-6 hour drive from St. John’s, so it is a bit of a trek to get out there. My Nan regularly comes in to St. John’s to stay with us, so I haven’t been back to Twillingate since 2015 when we had a family reunion. My Nan is going to be moving out of her house later this year, so I was really keen to go out and stay with her while I was home. It was the August long weekend, so the rest of my family decided to join me. We were hoping to get out cod fishing, which unfortunately was not to be, but we still had a great time.

My Nan has the most beautiful property located right near the water in Bayview, a very small community on the island. Her house is at the end of the road, known as Greenham’s Point after my family (the Greenhams), and has the most gorgeous ocean views. As children we’d always brag to our friends about how we could whale watch right out of the window in my Nan’s kitchen. Because the house is located right at the end of the road, there are several beaches behind the house that, while not actually on my Nan’s property, feel almost like they belong to us.

The house itself is located on the cliffside, but the back of the house looks out to Back Cove, where you can access the water. At the end of Back Cove, the rocky coastline juts out into what we call High Point. According to my Mom, it was my Pop’s favourite place to be and her favourite place too – such is her attachment that she’s asked us to eventually scatter her ashes there – so definitely a special place. From there you can climb down to Middle Cove and then eventually over one last rock overhang to Swimming Cove. I’m not sure if my family named the beaches or whether the names were passed down, but either way, all pretty self-explanatory.

We arrived late at night, but we got up the next morning to do our standard walk of all the coves. I admit they seemed a lot bigger to me as a kid and the topography of the beaches has definitely changed over the years, but they still hold a lot of memories to everyone in our family.

Fishing has always been a way of life in Newfoundland and more so on my mom’s side of the family for me than my dad’s. My Pop Greenham was a fisherman and since the moratorium ended my family has always loved to fish. My parents had already been out earlier in the season, but we were hoping to get out while we were there. There are strict regulations on the recreational fishery and you can only go from Sat-Mon during the summer, and fish a maximum of 5 fish per day per a person, with a total of no more than 15 fish per boat trip (regardless of the number of people in the boat). I’ve been fishing with all my uncles at some point throughout the years, but the weather was not ideal for it on this trip.

It wasn’t overly rainy (though the rain did pass through for short periods of time throughout the weekend), but it was pretty windy in Bayview and as a result it was never really calm enough for us to take the boat out. Disappointing, but that’s life. My parents did give me the fish they’d already caught to take home though, so I didn’t leave empty handed!

Instead we embraced the tourism. I did a bit of googling to see what was new “down arm”, the name locals use for the main part of Twillingate because it’s located on the arm of the North Island (as if things aren’t confusing enough with so many islands, Twillingate is actually comprised of 2 islands). I saw a pop-up for “Cozy Tea Room” and I was intrigued to check it out since I love tea. Mom had never heard of it and assumed it was new.

So we went to visit one afternoon and Mom was dismayed to learned that it is not new at all, but has actually been there for a whopping 19 years! And not only that, it was owned by my Mom’s former teacher, so we had a great chat with the owners and Mom vowed to return on future trips. Unfortunately I was disappointed to learn that “tea room” is a bit of a misnomer. I was expecting a full tea list, but despite having a full menu, they really only served Tetley orange pekoe. We all got a big kick out of this though because it’s just so classic Newfoundland. Everyone in Newfoundland just drinks orange pekoe, mostly Tetley, although some people love Red Rose. It’s a classic part of Newfoundland, drink it with evaporated milk if you really want to fit in!

After tea we did a little bit of shopping and then I wanted to stop into Split Rock. Craft breweries have been popping up all over Newfoundland (similar to everywhere else), with the latest addition being in Twillingate. We asked the waitress if there’s an actual “Split Rock” that the brewery is named after, turns out there is, so she told us where to find it and we logged it away for later. We didn’t visit on this trip, but if you like wine, Twillingate also has a fruit winery called Auk Island, which you can do a tour of or make a booking in the restaurant. Newfoundland boasts so many different types of berries and many of them are featured in the wines. (Disclaimer – in case you know my parents, neither of whom drink, these are mine and Emily’s beers).

I was also keen to do a bit of hiking while we were there (of course). One of the Island’s more popular hikes is known as the Top of Twillingate and is conveniently located 10 minute walk from Nan’s. It’s Mom’s favourite walk and goes up to the highest point on the island. It’s not a particularly long walk and only took us about an hour there and back, but you can see Nan’s house from the top, which is always fun.

In the past I’ve also gone hiking out around French Beach and Spillers Cove, which is a great hike, but I wanted to try something different, so me and Mom opted to go out to the lighthouse at Long Point and do a loop hike around the community of Crow Head. Long Point is a popular attraction itself, we did a bit of a longer loop that didn’t seem to be super well frequented based on the condition of the trail, but lots of people hike down to Nanny’s Hole when they visit the lighthouse. It’s worth going into the lighthouse as well if you’re visiting, you can go right up to the top and there’s a nice museum as well. The last time I visited was during our family reunion and we actually found a replica of my Great-great-grandfather’s boat (I’m not actually sure how many “great’s” he is but you get the idea.). Also if you’re thinking the water in these photos looks great for fishing, you’re correct, it’s generally calmer in this area, but sadly where we store the boat in Bayview it was still blowing a gale on and off.

I really enjoyed the hike around Crow Head. It’s a nice mix of hiking through the woods and over the headlands. We found the not-so-infamous Split Rock and enjoyed lovely views down arm and out to Crow Head. There’s one sketchy bit on the trail as you head into Crow Head with a steep rope section, but otherwise pretty easy hiking. We almost lost the trail once, but found it again pretty easy. We got rained on briefly near the end and finished with a trip to the lighthouse gift shop. This is definitely another thing not to miss! The lighthouse sells THE BEST fudge. Mom is a bit obsessed and bought over a pound of about a dozen different flavours to sample, while I enjoyed a very generous scoop of ice cream.

Otherwise the rest of the trip was spent visiting with family, playing cards, and enjoying the view from Nan’s back deck. Some of our relatives arrived from Ontario just before we left and it was great to get to spend an evening with them. The food was excellent – we had my Aunt’s moose stew, my Uncle’s cooked dinner with turr (known by the rest of the world as “murr”, it’s a gamey seabird), and a delicious pea soup from the Crow’s Nest. I wish I could have stayed longer to go fishing, but mostly I’m just thrilled to have gotten to visit with my Nan.