Roadtrips

Greetings from Canada!

I know it's been a while since I updated you with what I've been up to, and frankly that's because it went from being pretty depressing with no job and no money, to being really busy with a whole bunch of stuff happening. The job at the university is going well, as is pretty much everything else at the moment which is nice! I'll probably tell you more about all that another time and stick to what's been most important recently: Trips!

Seattle

My friend Melissa came over to Canada to visit. And I thought the best way to show her around was to take her straight out of Canada and over the border to Seattle for the weekend. We went on a Saturday and people had told me that getting across the American border would be a pain. They were right. We ended up sitting on the bus at the border corssing for 5 hours! One of the bus companies had a bus that left Vancouver every hour. At one point I counted 6 of them in the queue! Good old American hospitality! When we finally got to Seattle I was dying to see what the place is about. It's not the most famous of American cities and most of you have probably never been there. It's famous for being the setting for Grey's Anatomy, Frasier, and for sci-fi geeks Dark Angel. It's also the home of the famous Space Needle. Erm, it's also the home of Microsoft and Boeing! We were lucky to arrive just as they were having a massive parade, which Americans always do well, and it was predictably impressive. The city itself is a bit like a bigger, slightly dirtier Vancouver. It has a much bigger black population (something you notice almost immediately as Vancouver has almost none), but a lot less Chinese. It also has a pretty cool food market by the harbour which is quite well-known, and is also the site of the very first Starbucks, before they took over the world. Nice place, cool city, just not as nice as Vancouver.

Tofino

My next trip was a long weekend to a place called Tofino which is a small seaside town on the west coast of Vancouver Island. A whole bunch of us decided to go camping in the area and hired a couple of minivans to do the job. Me and Tommy had the pleasure of doing the long drive there and back. The first thing to say about this trip was the campsite. It was remote. In fact, it was down a 15 minute gravel track off a very quiet road. It claimed to be on a beach, but that was stretching it a bit as it was some kind of rocky, marshy bit of coastline. And then there was the bear. A black bear to be precise, although when you see one up close you don't really give a toss which colour it is! It first appeared after coming through the bushes from another part of the campsite. If you ever wanted to see 10 Brits terrified just shout out "Bear coming your way!" I mean, what were we supposed to do? Run? Fight? Play dead? We looked at each other hoping someone would know what to do, and then legged it in various directions. It pretty much terrorised us for a couple of days before getting into our food, devouring the whole lot (including cartons of orange juice and a 2 litre bottle of Sprite) and then we never saw it again! Fortunately we'd already tucked into the sausages and burgers so it didn't get much meat. Having said that we weren't that far from Vancouver, and the bears probably only eat tofu while doing yoga excercises and playing the bongos. Tofino itself is a pretty but touristy little town, but the main reason people come here is for the beaches, as this is the only coast that lies on the Pacific Ocean. It's a big place for surfing, but the weather was crap while we were there so we just made do with a bit of wave jumping and a game of rounders on the sand. It was a fun weekend, although after three days we could have all benefited from a shower. It was a long, smelly ride home!

Rocky Mountains

My big trip came when my mate Chris arrived in Canada. We'd booked a week-long tour on a backbacker bus called the Moose Network. It drove to a different place every day and we had a lot of fun. The Rockies, as well as being awesome looking mountains, are also home to lots of those amazing blue/green lakes that you see on posters. Yes they really do look like that in real life. We even got to swim in one called Emerald Lake which was a pretty special experience. The group we travelled with were really good, and when we arrived in Banff we had a couple of big nights out involving too much alcohol, and subsequently silliness and pole-dancing. The next day we all went horse-riding which was pretty cool, pretty much literally since it rained heavily for the two hours were were on the horses. We also spent some time in Jasper and Lake Louise. Other random things included:

Swimming in Shuswap Lake as a lightning storm started
Seeing a big old grizzly bear by the side of the road
Standing on a pretty unstable glacier
Wading through freezing-cold glacier water
Having to stop the bus as a herd of elk crossed the road in front of us
Staying in a wilderness lodge in the middle of nowhere with no running water
Seeing lots of waterfalls
Getting a hot tub in one of our overnight stops
Seeing a wedding at a winery during a tour

It was a really good trip. Thanks to everyone on the bus who made it a fantastic week!

Whistler

Last one I promise! After the craziness of the Moose Bus, and the fact that I hadn't seen Lucy for ages, we decided to spend the weekend in the mountain resort town of Whistler, a couple of hours north of Vancouver. In 2010 Vancouver and Whistler are jointly holding the Winter Olympics, and they're very excited about it. It actually looks like a posh Butlins or a small Disneyland as all the buildings are made in the same pretty style and everything is crowded around one long street. We were celebrating our 6 month anniverary (no I'm not sure how she managed to put up with me for that long either), so we treated ourselves and stayed in a nice hotel. We went up to the peak of Whistler Mountain on a very long cable car which was very scenic, ate a lot of nice food, and generally mooched about town. On the Sunday we went for a walk to a place called Lost Lake and did a circuit of the lake as it wasn't too big. About half-way round we spotted a cool jetty sticking into the lake with some people lying around on it. Lucy, being obsessed with being near/in any kind of water she sees immediately suggested we go and sit on the jetty. I have better eyesight than her and had some suspicions that were proved right when we got down to the jetty and saw that everyone was sunbathing. Naked. Having already walked down the steps to it and along the jetty, we felt obliged to sit there for a bit and pretend not to notice. I declined to get my kit off (hey it was a cold day!), and Lucy felt similarly inclined, so we sniggered a bit, checked out who was hot or not (mostly not), and made a discreet exit to the more family-friendly beach further down the road. Despite all the Aussies :-) Whistler is a really nice place, and if you can afford it one of the world's top ski resorts. Watch out for it in 2010!

You'll be glad to know that was the last of my trips so far! This is what happens when I have a backlog of stuff to tell you about! I hope everyone's had a great summer and been on their own cool trips. As always, I'd love to hear from you so let me know how you're doing and what you've been up to!

Take care,

Jamie