The flight that I had booked would take me from Calgary to Toronto, then to Montreal, then to St. John’s. I had used my flight points since it was so last minute, so the flight was completely through Air Canada.

Right as I was about to board, the line stopped moving, and after 10 minutes of standing there, I learned that there was a system error that prevented the plane from moving properly. We stood there for a half hour until boarding resumed, which made some of us nervous (me included) because we had layovers to catch. We eventually departed but left an hour later than we were supposed to. Thankfully, I had 2 empty seats next to me so I was able to lie myself down and get some good sleep.

As soon as we got to Toronto, I got myself off the plane as quickly as I could. I only had about 15 minutes to make it to the gate and was sweating when I got there. They called me by name when I arrived, and tuned out I was the third last person to board this flight. I apologized profusely to the flight attendants on arrival, who were pretty understanding since they could see my flight path. The gate closed shortly after I got there and I expected the plane to take off instantly.

An hour later, we were still at the gate, and it was because there was (another!) system error that needed fixing. They eventually reset the system, but as we were about to take off, the system failed (again) and we had to go back to the gate. In total, this led to about 2 and a half hours of waiting on the plane, which then got resolved by having us simply get on another aircraft. Because of all the delays, we were all given a $10 meal voucher, which I instantly spent on some fries. On the new aircraft, I had the whole row to myself, so I instantly laid down and got a very relaxing sleep.

In Montreal, I had about an hour layover until the flight to St. John’s. I did some work while waiting and got on the flight to St. John’s with no problem and the flight actually took off on time! It was pretty rainy and cloudy upon arrival, and I quickly got my luggage and headed towards the bus stop.

The bus stop was at the end of the airport, and I was waiting, alone, until this guy joined me. I decided to make small talk with him, and upon hearing him speak, I figured out that he was Quebecois. I seem to run into them a lot lol.

His name was Yannick and he had a backpacker’s look about him (with the poles, sleeping mat, shoes etc). Out of curiosity, I asked him what he was doing here and he told me that he was going to hike the entire Trans-Canada Trail starting in a couple of days and that it would take him around 2 years. I didn’t know what to say besides “sacrament” (which is the equivalent of me saying “holy shit” in English) and he laughed, evidently amused by my French. I told him that I was headed to Gros Morne and that I was going to car camp my way there, but that I was headed to a hostel downtown that night to freshen up and get some real sleep before I headed out. We both then realized that we were headed towards the same hostel, what a coincidence! Yannick also helped me carry my luggage, and from that point on, I knew that we were going to be friends.

One of the things that I really wanted to do in St. John’s was to get screeched in, which involves saying this Newfie tongue twister, eating a slice of Newfie steak (baloney), kissing a cod, and doing a shot of screech (Newfie rum) in order to become an honorary Newfoundlander. I had read online that George Street (the street with all the pubs in St. John’s) would have a place to do it, so after we both checked in and dropped off our stuff, we headed out to George Street.

The hostel was about a 15-minute walk to George Street. We were approached by a few bums begging for change on the way there, and out of all the bums I’ve met, the ones in St. John’s were by far the most polite. There were a few pubs that were recommended to us by the locals with good food (like Kelly’s, O’Reilly’s, Greensleeves, The Shamrock), and after going around checking the menus, we decided to go to O’Reilly’s. Yannick walked in, speaking English, and the host and our server immediately switched to French. I felt kinda bad for him, since he wanted to practice his English but kept running into Francophones.

There was no one in the pub when we arrived (probably because it was a Wednesday night) except for a guy on stage singing some old rock tunes and playing his guitar. We sat down at a booth, looked at the menu, and noticed that there was a whole section on moose. Apparently, a lot of people in Newfoundland ate moose because they’re so overpopulated here (like Australia and their kangaroos). We both ordered moose burgers, and they were really good and chewy.

I asked our server where we could get screeched in and she said that she could do it for us right here. I convinced Yannick to do it with me, and we were joined by a couple from Texas as well as a woman here on a business trip. The ceremony itself took less than 10 minutes, and I was so happy to have done it to have it checked off my bucket list. We hung around for a bit afterwards to talk to the others, then left to go back to the hostel as we were both getting tired.

We both talked about wanting to see the sunrise at Signal Hill, and since it wasn’t too far of a walk from the hostel, we both agreed to wake up early to do so the next morning. His room had 2 other people in it whereas I had the entire room to myself, so I told him to knock on my door at 5am (as to not disturb the others) so we could head out.

Read Yannick’s post about our day together here (only available in French)

Follow Yannick’s Facebook page for his hike across Canada!