Were all going on our Summer Holidays.

We went to St Pierre for our summer holidays this year. St Pierre is a little Island which is part of France in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Newfoundland's Burin Peninsula. We drove down to Fortune and took the Ferry across to St Pierre. We went on a Catamaran
with a twin engine. It was really fast and sprayed up the water. You barely noticed the waves when we were traveling in it and it was very comfortable. When we came home we came back on an older boat that was a bit more choppy and turbulent. We got to sit outside on the top deck and see a lot of the coast which we missed on the way over because we were indoors.
I was surprised when we arrived how European the place is. I was expecting it to be a little like N. America because it is so close but it is really French. I knew people would speak French, but I guess I didn't know what to expect. The Roads and Houses are really very different. They have roundabouts and no traffic lights (which is a great thing). The houses are quite different. Some of them are really colourful and stand out. Some are like N. American wooden boxes with vinyl siding. Others are poured concrete houses. Some are so close together that you would not be able to get between them. As you can see in this picture this house is very colourful and close to the house next to it. Have a look at this house. I found them very different. This is a poured concrete house and you can also see how close together this house is to it's neighbour and still considered detached. Here is a very Eclectic house. It has "fish" drying on the window sill and plastic peppers hanging from the drapery. The whole of the pavement and side of the road is painted to "coordinate" with this house. It is very unique.
St Pierre is a reasonably small town and you can walk all around it in a day. We were unable to take our car so we were back packing. We spent most of the days out and about exploring the culture. Our B&B room was quite small and better only to sleep in. The shops are an interesting combination of N. American shops and French. For example we shopped in the Boulangerie for bread and went to the Magazin for stationary. All of the shops are specific for a certain item. You buy bread and cakes in the bakery and pens and stationary in the newsagent. The off license sells liquor. There is a general grocery store selling groceries. It is not like here in Canada where you can buy everything in one shop from groceries to paint to stationary/greeting cards to tools and household items. It felt out of place when we discovered Canadian shops such as Canadian Tire outlets, Home-hardware & Rona in France.
Tom's Blog has lots of scenery pictures of St Pierre, Miquelon and Langlade. We did manage to get some climbing in. There were some cliffs we noticed on the boat ride in. We took a day and went climbing. The walk there was tiring as it is across town, over a pool of water and up the side of a cliff. Tom and I put into practice our new knowledge of knots and anchors. We climbed all day and had a brew up. Tom got a lot of new gear from MEC on his last trip to Montreal and we christened all of the new gear. The Nuts and Cams are no longer shiny, they are a little scratched up.
Lewie has a great love of cars and really enjoys reading about cars and watching Top Gear. He was really excited by the French Cars here. They have some American cars but mostly Citroen, Peugeot and lots of mopeds.
Our French held up well. We were able to order food in the restaurants and cafe and get ice-cream and bread. The people were really friendly and if we attempted French they were very willing to speak in English to us. All in all we had a great holiday, we only went for a few days but it was great. We changed some money to Euros as their currency is Euros and we needed our passports to go there. We went through customs on arriving their and now we have a new stamp in our passports.