How Ya Doin' Bye

How Ya Doin’ Bye

January 2, 2019/Allison Smith/

I have always loved Halifax. It is a beautiful city. The entire waterfront is a postcard waiting to be captured. That was my view as a tourist, and it was accurate.

Now as a resident, I can’t help but compare my new home with the old. So let’s start with the home itself. I am in love with it, even though the first time I saw it was on arrival Christmas Eve, after it was already bought and moved into. See, our house outside Edmonton didn’t sell, so my husband and oldest daughter arrived on their own in August. Once our house sold in October this was one of three I found online, that they then went to look at, and ultimately chose. And they hit a home run. It checks off everything I was looking for.

Our house is in HRM (Halifax Regional Municipality). About half hour from the harbour, outside of Dartmouth. Learning our way around has been a wonderful adventure. Every time we go around a bend, or over a hill, I am awed that suddenly, there it is, THE OCEAN! Well, at least the harbour from the ocean. I have traded in the High Level Bridge (2549ft) for the MacDonald Bridge (4265 ft). And believe me, there is always a bend or a hill. Driving the prairies in flat, with 90 degree turns.

So let’s discuss the proverbial BUT!

My first morning in my new home was Christmas Eve. My husband had even set up a Christmas tree to welcome us home. The weather was great. No snow!

Over the next few weeks we start to settle in. Unpack, get through the holidays, register for school, find our way around, and then BAM. One morning we woke up with no heat, no hot water. It turns out the oil tank in the basement does not last all year! Who knew. I sure didn’t. So I call for a refill and BAM. That one refill cost more than a year of natural gas in Alberta, and it didn’t even last 2 months. I wanted to cry. I had just left Oil Country, but now …BAM. And don’t even ask how much of that was HST. When your sales tax triples, it is not an easy adjustment. Then we realize, minimum wage is truly minimum. I can’t help but wonder how we will survive out here. How anyone does. But I guess that’s the “east coast lifestyle”, and like every new place, there is an adjustment period.

So I am embracing this new adventure. I always believe the glass is half full.
It’s -40 back home and here I haven’t even taken out my winter coat.
I took a ferry across the Harbour on New Years Eve (above).
I can go to Peggy’s Cove whenever I want.
We went to Cape Breton for a weekend, cuz we could.
Half Full, Bye!

This post was originally written as the final story for my previous business, Allison Smith Photography, based out of Fort Saskatchewan, AB

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