I want a Hippopotabus for Christmas...

We started out walking this morning and didn’t stop until we went to bed.  Going upstairs to get to bed was a struggle I must admit.  I let the others wend their way around the town to see the historically significant sights – me I was all about rushing to the Quilt store and what a lovely little shop it was!  I bought a few items (not a surprise for anyone I’m sure).   There was a really neat little set of patterns that makes a truly Atlantic Canada wall hanging.  I loved it, but I am one panel short.  I will have to mail order it at a later time.

Then I hurried down to do the Hippopotabus – a duck tour (land and water).  I met up with Shannon and Eileen and we did it together.  It was fun to go around the streets learning a bit about the town and seeing the beautiful streets that are Charlottetown.  Factoid: Did you know that PEI has almost 30 golf courses on the island which is 139 miles long and between 4 and 40 miles wide? That's a lot... and now you know!

and then OMG – we went down this path to the water.  Steep, extremely bumpy and I WAS NOT LIKING THIS ONE BIT – and then just suddenly we were floating but rocking side to side (please Paxil – I need you to work RIGHT NOW!)  I had no idea that they went way into the harbour .. ok calming down some…saw lots of jellyfish in close to the shore and they were not the beautiful ones in the Victoria Harbour, but rather some nasty purple blobs that can have a nasty sting if you are unfortunate enough to get that close.  Now I was calm enough to ungrip my sleeping white fingers from the rail and enjoy the rest of the trip.  Next time I will read the brochure.

History Lesson: So after we disembarked, we made our way up to Province House lawn to watch the re-enactment of Sir John A MacDonald’s magnificent scheme to unite the British Colonies in North America.  This was acted out by the Confederation Players in period costume and was a great 20 minute production.  It portrayed PEI’s reluctance to join confederation as they couldn’t see the benefits and felt that they would be under represented in a federal parliament situation.  So as part of their conditions to join Canada, they would have and keep 4 seats in parliament – which is greater than their population would allow them to have.  The population on the island even now is only 145,000.  I didn’t know that!  - but now we all know!

So on we walked Tom and Shannon making their way to have a lobster roll at Dave’s Lobster and Eileen and I to poke around in the shops and finally went our way around to a place called Brakish and lo an d behold on the menu was Clam Chowder – not fish chowder – hurray – I was hoping to find some and I did.  It was delicious.  Then we walked back to the quilt shop to pick up my purchases (as I didn’t want to walk around with them all day) and then finally home.  We had 1.5 hours until it would be time to make our way on foot again into the town for dinner.

We had a reservation for Buono Mangia for dinner and it was delicious!  Pasta is homemade, bread is homemade, sauces are amazing and we were in 7^th heaven for such a delicious Italian meal.  It came highly recommended by Reg of the Inn and certainly did not disappoint.  So then it was back to the Colonial Charm and then to early bed.