Newfoundland

St. John's is an amazing city. It's so gorgeous with all it's historic buildings and colorfully painted homes. We spent most of our days just walking down by the harbor.

Here are some photos* of our time spent there.



One of the reasons we decided to go out East was to celebrate the 20-year Anniversary of our friends Dennis and Lori.  We've kept in touch since college and over the past few years we've tried to meet up with them on different trips. They currently live in Paris, but they met and got married in St. John's.  It was great to visit while they were there and could share tips about what to see/do and show us a few things off the beaten track.

One of our favorite days involved hiking to Signal Hill from the Battery and then on to the little village of Quidi Vidi.  The hike involves a lot of hills and stairs (343 stairs to be exact), but the views are incredible and after eating our weight in fish and chips, the exercise was welcome.  Once we got to the top and explored Cabot Tower, we continued on (and downhill) to Quidi Vidi where we stopped at the brewery and explored a really cool art market.

The George Street Festival happened to be on while we there. What a party! They close off George Street, which is famous for its bars and pubs, and the whole party spills into the street. There was typically one major concert each night and once that was over, just about every single bar had a live band. It was a blast!

A few details:

• We stayed in this cozy Airbnb apartment. It was in one of the colorful row houses and in the most perfect location. We walked everywhere!

• Our most incredible meal was at The Reluctant Chef. They have no menu. When you show up you inform them of any food allergies/aversions and they bring you a 5 course meal of whatever is fresh that day. Every course was perfect. I don't want to make a sweeping generalization, but there is a lot of fried food in St. John's. It's all yummy and totally indulgent, but it was nice to have something other than fish cakes and chips.

• Not just in Newfoundland, but throughout our entire trip, the people were so incredibly friendly! We got a bit lost hiking to Quidi Vidi and a guy just came out of his house and showed us a secret path through his backyard (where his giant dog followed us. So cute!). Stuff like that happened throughout our entire trip. Really, really amazing people.

• We stuck mostly around St. John's because we didn't have a ton of time, but if you ever go to Newfoundland (and I strongly suggest that you do), I would definitely recommend exploring. Gross Morne National Park is incredible!

*Eric and I dubbed this trip the Great Selfie Adventure of 2014. Because it was just the two of us, most of our photos are taken with Eric's long arms. Just a heads up that you'll likely see the same pose in different locations throughout the next few posts of our trip :)