a good week later.....

....I arrived home. My hair in sea-knots from standing at the stern at two in the morning, with my glasses in my pocket so they wouldn't blow off my face, grinning into the grey gloom of the North Atlantic. Catriona at my side. My bones and muscles feeling grinchy (an adjective I made up, and it has nothing to do with the Dr. Seuss character) from lack of stretching and physio. My brain feeling great from the lack of computer-ing, phone-ing, plan-ing, and do-ing that occured over the week. And from the quantity of two-girls-on-a-big-island-fun that happened, coming in the form of (a) drunken revelry with Newfies, (b) hiking through parts of Gros Morne, (c) hitchhiking to new places, meeting new people in odd circumstances, and of course (d) lots of nothing.

Catriona, the poor dear, got sick, and spent too much of her time in her bed, or wrapped in a blanket, blowing her nose and drinking wayy too much NeoCitron. But she still managed to get very soused the first night we were there, telling everyone in the bar it was her 19th birthday (can you guess she was lying?) and getting us all* free drinks in the process.

*'Us all' at this point included Maggie, our co-habitant at the hostel.

So, not so bad in the end, that lie.

And these are the facts:
We stayed in: Juniper (pronounced JUN-iper, not JOON-iper, by locals) Hostel, in Rocky Harbour, NL.
Our host was: 'Crazy' John Butt, self-proclaimed sea salt, who held forth on a number of subjects, including marriage, mercy killings, Australians, and honesty. Told us we had beautiful personalities, and nice eyes, and if we were to come visit him next summer he'd probably be dead. Laughed a lot. Had lots of wrinkly-looking wrinkles.
People who picked us up hitchhiking were:Randy, a driver driving moose meat for an outfitter's lodge up North; Paul and Melvin of the Liberal party, giving out signs the day before the election, all the way to Trout River; Scott and _________, whose name I forgot, but who wore little gold earrings that said "Mom".
We got rained on: about 35% of the time.
We missed: all of you, of course, but we needed to get away.
We listened to: Flook! And only Flook, because that was the only CD we brought. But oh, it didn't get old. I still love them. And also the CBC, on the old clock radio with the clock part broken.
We saw: Mountains, the sea, mountains, the sea, mountains with snow on them, the sea with snow in it, the sky. Trout River, Woody Point, the Tablelands, Sally's Cove, Western Brook Pond, Gros Morne, and of course, Rocky Harbour.
We tried: Bakeapples! On cheesecake. Oh, my god.
We will be back: Whenever we need a break again from real life. And we're not saying when.