By Amal Sadka

In April 2018, when my son got a job in St. John's and told me he had to move to NL from Montreal, I was very upset. I felt that was such a far trip to a desolate place.

So my husband and I flew in with him to help set him up. I was surprised that it only took two and a half hours to get to St. John's by air.

We booked a room in the Sandman, a newly opened hotel. Outside, it did not look very pretty. Cement, grey buildings and gravel everywhere.

We needed to set up our son. We went down to reception to ask where is a good area for our son to rent an apartment. The young man at the front desk took a map and proceeded to "x" most of the streets on the map.
I was horrified, but searching the internet, we finally settled for a place on Hamilton Avenue. We have seen enough in five days and could not wait to fly back to our cosmopolitan Montreal.

We came back to visit our son in his new place and were introduced to the folks coming out of the West End club next door. We kept the door to the apartment locked at all times.

We walked with our son to the tourist information office on Water Street to get the information guide to the city of St. John's. Reading the guide, our son informed us that we had to go to a home hardware store to get a fishing net.

I said why? We are absolutely not going fishing. No Mom, "It is for the garbage."

I thought "Mmm, a bin with holes," and then I started seeing these nets everywhere. How odd!

We started to venture out more and since our son was working most of the day, we needed to entertain ourselves and discover the city and surrounding area.

We went back to the tourist information office and met Kathy who was welcoming, friendly and very informative.

She spent hours compiling lists of places for us to visit and scenic drives to take. After each visit to St. John's, we became closer and closer to Kathy until she became a very close friend.

At that same time, we started walking the downtown area of St John's. Every store was different and we noticed that there were no chain stores like our downtown Montreal.

We also noticed that there were no skyscrapers. We decided to check out the bright yellow-painted store called Downhome. As we were browsing the book section, a voice spoke to us from behind the till.

In an English that we couldn't mostly understand, Crystal told us the news of NL and the places we must visit. After each visit, we would rush to Downhome to see Crystal and get the scoop.

On one of those visits, we were asking Crystal for a place to have cheesecake. Her colleague piped in and enthusiastically informed us where to go for the best cheesecake. That is how we first met Jackie.
Again, Jackie and Crystal became close friends and that is how it went everywhere we went in NL. People kept on talking to us in English that we eventually learned to understand. Except in Bauline where we met a fisherman trying to explain to us directions. We smiled and nodded our heads, but in truth we didn't understand much and we never got to our destination.

In the grocery store and on the streets people would call us "me love and me ducky," and they would hold our undivided attention with their stories and their wit. With each visit we would fall more and more in love with Newfoundland and Newfoundlanders.

Our son was transferred to Montreal during COVID, but we never stopped coming to Newfoundland. This autumn was our 10th time to visit.

When I am back home in Montreal, I dream about the ocean, the ruggedness of the place and the friends in NL and can't wait for my next visit.

I order mummers, books, rocks, and berries and get so very excited for a package to arrive at my house from NL. Even the postman knows how I looked forward to receiving my package from NL. He would ring my doorbell to deliver the packages personally.

Newfoundland not only has the most stunning colourful views, the ocean, and the wind. but it has the people. For me, it is home.