so strange it works

Last Thursday I went to the Annual Regatta day in St. John’s, which happens the first Wednesday of August. Yes. I went to Wednesday’s event on Thursday.

When I first heard about Regatta it was over lunch at the Sprout with Jena from work. While waiting an obscene amount of time (an hour or so actually) for our food, she informed me that next Wednesday was a holiday unless, and this is the kicker, it’s going to rain. And then the whole event is postponed until the next sunny day. So, every year, St. John’s wakes up and listens to the radio. If they hear the Regatta theme, they have the day off and they go to the celebrations. If not, then they trudge off to work and complain about the rain all day. Complaining is key, I assure you.

At first, this seemed like complete lunacy to me. A civic holiday being dependent on the weather, and everyone getting up just to see if they have the day off or not? Lunacy I tell you! Until I thought about it, and actually lived through it. And now I think it’s great. Day’s off should be on nice sunny days.

Sadly, it still wasn’t all that sunny. Oh well, they tried.

So, on Thursday, I wandered off and tried to find the Regatta celebrations at Quidi Vidi Lake. Which does not appear on Google Maps. So clearly it doesn’t exist, has never existed and we have always been at war with Eurasia.

And then I got a little worried when I came across this. So I, of course, stopped and took a picture. Not check a map, ask for directions or anything sensible. Just take a picture and keep on walking. Dave would be proud (but not of the picture quality).

I did find it eventually, and this is what the Regatta is all about, rowing and crazy kid-catching contraptions. The festivities surrounded the better half of the lake with the rowing starting and finishing to the left of this picture. I really feel bad for the rowers who have to, in the middle of a race, turn those boats around and race back the way they came to reach the finish.

Now, I did find out just recently that, and this is so absurd, after every holiday, they change the pick-up schedule for garbage. Which is why, for three weeks, I had no idea when they were going to pick up my garbage. It’s now on Fridays until, you know, the next full moon and they’ll change it again. That must count as a holiday.

Today I received an assortment of packages. But you’ll have to wait to hear about those, for those of you not on Facebook.

-d