Amelia Robinson
When I first moved to Newfoundland on May the 4th (be with you) 2010, I was relatively unfamiliar with the place, besides having heard, as a “mainlander” the odd “Newfie Joke” (Newfoundlanders have long been subjected to ridicule and, though this is changing, change comes slowly to a place that is small and to which people’s main exposure may be via these very types of stereotypes and jokes – PSA: the term “Newfie” is not acceptable and not just a short form of Newfoundlander. Please do not use it unless you are from Newfoundland and decide to). Upon arrival a stereotype commonly associated with Newfoundland was borne out robustly; I was welcomed into many homes for meals, offered a wide number of forms of hospitality and quickly integrated into a tight knit community,
One summer day I was invited, via e-mail, to meet friends at a party outside of town near a lake. An e-mail with driving directions was forwarded to me. As a proud Montrealer and devout cyclist I stubbornly typed the approximate highway exit into my phone and decided to bike there. I got off the highway hours later, exhausted, as it was starting to really rain (in Newfoundland it is nearly always raining, but sometimes it is Really Raining). I had crossed the highway back and forth in either direction on this smaller road several times and tried reaching friends by phone but was having no luck.
Continue reading “Rocking but not rolling”