There isn’t a Drink Toque the size of a bottle of vodka for a reason

by Stephanie Bennett, The Drink Toque's East Coast Correspondent, Oct.7, 2009

What do people need when they move to a new city?

By order of importance:

1. A place to live, preferably a home. Got that. I’m living downtown, in an apartment on the third floor of a (heritage?) house. I’m assuming it’s a heritage house, but I’ve just wasted half an hour looking up the definition of a heritage house and all I’ve found are pro-life, abstinence and GOP themed pregnancy tests, who knew? (http://www.hh76.com/pro_life_products.asp?group_id=54). Hilarity and hypocrisy aside, I live in an old house.

2. Things to put in said home, preferably furniture. Working on it. I’m sleeping on a futon for the first time ever, something I hoped I was past when I turned 25. It works for now: I lie on it, I fall asleep, and in the morning I wake up. I also have a large pull-out couch apt for friends visiting from Vancouver to sleep on (come sleep on my couch). This monstrosity took 2 hours and 3 people to move into my place. Steve and I moved it from his parent’s house to about a third of the way up the tiny fire escape stairs until a lovely young man passing by asked if we needed help, whereupon I instantly dropped my end and batted my eyelashes. Feminism aside, at least the room below my glass ceiling will be comfortably furnished.

3. People to hang out with, preferably friends. Work in progress. I’ve been hanging out with Monica, Steve and Emma a lot. Emma and I like to talk about her poops, why the dog barks so much, Cheerios and the like. Monica introduced me to a friend from work, who in turn introduced me to some of his friends and somehow I ended up horribly underdressed in the only “dance club” in St. John’s. This is where the vodka times happened. After having a mellow month of drinking casual beers, the hard liquor decided to take things in another direction. A direction towards public urination and walking into things. Does a first impression not count if you can’t remember it? If I fall in the street, and no one is around to see it - does it not count?

4. A job, preferably one where I can eat all the popcorn I want, drink around 6 cups of tea a day and hang out with my baby friend. Done!

5. A direction in life. Blurg. If I want to start my Master’s degree here in September, I have to get my act together by February. This leaves me 5 months to decide what I want to do and how I’m going to do it. I’m told my choices are either law or medicine. Uh...

Making friends ...

Let it be known, Drink Toques are way more fun than Futons!

Introducing Stephanie Bennett, The Drink Toque's East Coast Correspondent.

About a year ago I decided to move to the farthest place I could go while still remaining in Canada: Vancouver, BC to St. John's, NL. My next decision was to drive there. Alone. As inconvenient and ridiculous as that sounds, I was confident and immediately settled into a lengthy period of denial where life continued as usual, no big deal. But apparently it was a big deal because I cried like a big baby from Vancouver to Merritt.

Lesson one from moving across the country: denial is a bad coping mechanism.

I packed light: brought my body and most of my essential personal belongings and left the family, friends, a man friend, homes, cats, jobs, bad cell phones, the Olympics, traffic tickets, etc. All I really wanted to take were the people and cats, but had to settle for myself and all my junk. I also took some Drink Toques along.

The Drink Toques had a pretty easy ride while I slowly went crazy. I drove and kept them busy through the prairies and most of Ontario with a steady diet of energy drinks, coffee, and soft drinks.



Being alone inside your own head while jacked up on energy drinks is a strange experience. A weird, unnatural meditative state. They got restless around Toronto so we took a break, had a beer and got some rest. This was a perfect few days of shenanigans, nostalgia and self-indulgence. It is also the place where I learnt you can order a Swiss Chalet chicken from the comfort of your own online Swiss Chalet account. Yeah, that happened. Montreal was the next stop, where (in my opinion) we transformed the entire park drinking scene into a hugely fashionable, less gauche activity! (Please refer to Chris’s “Before and After” post) This was a huge success and I’m looking forward to where it goes from here. Endless possibilities.

Lesson two, three and four from moving across the country: too much caffeine while bored is a bad idea, Swiss Chalet is more accessible than you think and the parks in Montreal are ripe for the drinking.

Refreshed from the break, we headed straight into Hurricane Bill, who ended up being second-rate and only delayed us 10 hours. The ferry company was also second-rate. Everything was late, the staff were mean, it smelt like heavy machinery and I was scandalized by having to eat a hotdog wrapped in a piece of bread because they were out of buns. There may have been a slight breakdown on my part.




Lesson five from moving across the country: if you come to Newfoundland, make sure you do so on a plane.

So now I’m here: Newfoundland, land of...finding new land? I keep being told this place takes ahold of you and sucks you in. I believe it. I’ve been here three weeks and I can already feel it. Things are just different here. It’s hard to explain, but I’m going to do my best as the Drink Toque’s new East Coast Correspondent to bring the rest of y’all up to speed on the essence of fun times in Newfoundland. I will be doing this while probably make a fool out of myself. Who’s in?!

Lesson six from moving across the country: St. John’s is different than Vancouver.




Stephanie Bennett
The Drink Toque's East Coast Correspondent.