Not long after visiting the Adirondacks in 2010 (as seen in last week's Lost & Found post), I went to Newfoundland for a few days, just to see what it was like.

[Actually, I wanted to go to Iceland that year, but something something volcano something something, so Newfoundland and Nova Scotia were the backup plan.]

I'd never been to the east coast of Canada, so it was interesting to see the differences between those areas and the rest of the country - in some ways, it reminded me of New Zealand a lot, though the houses were insulated of course.

My only previous impression of Newfoundland had come via The Shipping News - so this lone house on a fairly bare hill in the town of Trinity did somewhat remind me of that, although I'm not sure it was actually strapped down with cables like the one in the film...

It's a beautiful, amazing part of the country, in any case - and well worth a visit if you have the chance. I was somewhat amazed that people settled there, given the eighty-foot rock cliffs that seem to make up most of the coastline I saw. Gorgeous, no doubt, but somewhat forbidding. Nova Scotia on the other hand seemed to taper gently off into the sea, mostly.

Plus: PUFFINS!! Which are ridiculous creatures who look like penguins with badly unbalanced beaks, and act like they don't actually think they can fly themselves, and are constantly amazed that they're succeeding - so they flap like hell to stay up there. Hilarious, and adorable.