Change Of Tact...

Well after almost a month (can you beleive it!) at home i've decided the blog needs a change if its going to continue. I feel, and im guessing by the lack of activity everyone else feels, like they just dont have the time or the energy to update the blog with the rail trip! (Paul being the obvious exception, and we love him for it).

So im just going to conclude that we all had an incredible time, learned that sitting on your arse (on a train) can actually cause pain if you do it for long enough, and that if you cross the notorious gang of 7, you and your whole crew are dead.

Very soon you'll start seeing some regular updates again on life in England. Expect the words, football, pub, no-job-yet, and bored to crop up regularly

Simon

San Francisco!

Well, after a week at home i've finally found the time (and being able to face the fact that im not travelling anymore) to begin writing up the trip. My journey started on september 4th as I had a free flight to use up and wanted to spend more time in San Francisco. Lindsay saw me off at the airport and it was a strange feeling being on my own for a couple of days before the rest of the gang made the trip down from Seattle.

On arrival it really hit me how hilly this place is! They really dont exaggurate in the films! Downtown looked nice, that was until of couse I arrived at the hostel which just so happened to be in the "tenderloin" district, the roughest area of San Francisco. OK i admit, that should have been researched a little better but that was probably the only slip up on an otherwise flawlessly planned month. Already getting late in the day I decided to walk around a little, bought myself a Nintendo DS, an excellent investment to kill some hours on the train (well it is run beating paul and ian at mario kart) and went back to the hostel.

In my room I find a guy who lives about 2 blocks from my house and a guy from Newcastle about 15mins from my house in Durham, crazy! Go out for a game of pool and get back before midnight. On the way home about 20 "crazies" come up to us offering us a wide variety of drugs, sex, and generally begging for money, great fun.

Onto day 2 and my first day of doing stuff! I decided to get up nice and early and head for the uber-touristy Pier 39.

Part of the fun of getting here was riding the F-Line trolley, a very popular method of transport in the 1940-60's that is still going in San Francisco. From here I rented a bike with the intention of going across the bridge and coming back.

There it is, I worked this bike pretty hard that day (harder than I intended)

Now, people had told me about the fog over the Golden Gate Bridge but I didn't ever think it would be this severe.

This is the view of downtown.

And this is bridge (both pictures were taken at the same time)

Me at the bridge (later in the week!)

Still feeling pretty fresh and with hours left on the bike rental I decided to head into Sausilito a fishing village on the other side of the bridge, the scenery was spectacular and I decided to push on another 5 miles to Tiburon. This is where it went wrong and a 2 hour detour up a 25% incline meant that I missed the ferry and had to wait around for 3 hours, still i needed a rest by this point.

The ferry back to San Francisco

That night I stayed in due to fear mainly as I could see 2 rival gangs of about 20 people right outside the hostel. In the morning the gang arrived! Fresh from a 23 hour train journey (which we now class as easy) we all headed out to the "lovely" golden gate national park. Problem was, it too was more than a little rough, and after convincing tens of people that we did infact not have any change we found the good bit of the park.

Not looking very impressed at Shakespheres garden

The first of the "hilarious" jumping pictures, and a particularly good one of Andy

All the men, hang on where's Paul? Not like him to miss a picture

My attempt at an arty picture

On the night we went out for a posh (well posh for us) Italian at North Beach. We even made sure we got a certain bus that stops near the hostel to avoid the army of wierdos.

Day 4 meant it was back to Pier 41 and a ferry ride to Alcatraz. We went on a fun audio tour

We felt very welcome, even though we werent Indian
Actually very similar to my room at first year of Uni
Paying our respects to this national landmark
The second "hilarious" jumping picture. Slightly miss timed
Geeks

After a quick "in and out burger" (magic) we headed for a pub, just a pub, any pub will do! Came to the conclusion that there arent any pubs in San Francisco

We started our last day hiking up to the Coit Tower for a view of the city.
As you can see, much of San Francisco is low rise
Lombard street with its twisty turns, it was quite a hike too

The night was spent seeing Crank, an absolutely terrible film, but produced brilliance such as "You, and your whole crew are dead!"

Hope you enjoyed the first instalment of BUNACTOUR06. You can expect instalments to become smaller as I run out of pictures and my motivation decreases :)

Simon

Safely home

Well after the most exhausting but most rewarding month ever, im back home!
So how am I?
Well im not jet lagged or even tired which is very surprising! Its nice seeing everbody again and having internet and the car (and a snazzy new phone!). Its nice to watch the football again too.
So how am I?
Well the truth is not brilliant. I really miss vancouver, miss having my own place, and miss Lindsay. Still im sure i'll get used to England again in time. Ive spent 3 days getting all the little things sorted so Monday means its time to get a job! I guess how good that job is determins what (and where) i'll be doing in a years time.

And to anyone whos thinking, where are all these USA tour pictures eh? Don't worry, i'll update all that stuff next week! So for now, thanks to my Canadian (and English of course) friends for a fantastic year, to Jess for making me very feel welcome around the house! And to Lindsay for too many things to bore everyone else with a list right now :)

Greetings from San Francisco!

Hello, and welcome from the home of the golden gate bridge. Well, dont expect this to be a regular occurance but as the gang havent arrived yet and im on my own i have time for a quick post. The flight over was very easy and i found the hostel easily (it is a grid just like vancouver after all). I even got upgraded free to "economy plus" whatever that is! But it meant free leg room and more drinks! I have to admit i did feel slightly lost arriving here on my own, but i decided to walk around the city for a good 4 hours to get my bearings and i have a reasonable idea where I am now! That cheered me up and tomrrow if the weathers nice im going to rent a bike and cycle over the bridge, that should be fun! A guy in my room just happens to be from Newcastle! (what are the chances!!) So we're heading off tonight for a couple beers and a game of pool, smashing

Simon

Kayaking!

Ok, i know what your thinking. This doesnt look like kayaking at all! And youd be right. Its not. But we decided that camera + water + kayaking novices = disaster and left the camera at home. This is a photo from the fireworks festival that lit up english bay/kits beach for four nights recently. I had lots of fun spending the majority of the fireworks nights with Lindsay, her "mom" (as they say over here), and the worlds smallest chair.
Deep cove was the destination after an earlier attempt to kayak at ladner marsh revealed that people who run kayaking in ladner marsh are clearly idiots. After the initial scare of learning that everyone else on the trip had done it before and was into running and eating salads we relaxed and found we weren't too bad at it, we didnt fall in at least! It was definantly worth the going all the way to deep cove as the sceney was spectacular, driving (ok you probably dont call it driving) a kayak proved to be different to what i expected but myself and Lindsay seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly and it was great fun! I'll definantly do it again. After the best doughnut ive ever had we looked in the window of a classy restaurant before going over to the cafe across the street to actually eat. Its really easy to just live somewhere and not go looking for things to do but im really glad i did this. I might even give it a try when I get home

Reflections

Well, as everyone else on the blog seems to be reflecting on the year (already!) i might as well join you. Personally speaking I came here with few preconceptions. I hadn't done thorough research on Canada, I knew little of the people, what i'd be doing or even why. I wasn't even sure i'd "stick it" the full year but very early on I knew I would.

The most important thing about any place you visit for an extended period of time is the people. In meeting a gang of British at the airport I think we all gave ourself a safety net that made the first month or two far easier and more enjoyable. The fact that we're still just as good friends 10 months on (except for a few notable exceptions, who we didn't really like anyway) means that im sure we'll all keep in touch. (Dublin 2007 anyone?) I didn't come here to make a bunch of British friends but I don't think that friendship wise the year could have worked out any better.

Thats not to say we haven't all met some canadian friends too. Ive made friends with a lot of people from work (at least the ones who understand my accent) and im sure i'll keep in contact with 4 or 5 people when I go home. Maybe I can even convince them to put me up for a week when i come back for a holiday (or possibly a more permanant stay!). When they asked me to organise some social events at work to improve staff morale I dont think they meant start dating another barista but that seems to have worked out pretty well too.

Last night we went for a walk to granville island along the sea front, I know we take Vancouver for granted sometimes but im sure we'll look back on little things like that and miss this place. There really is no comparison back home. Im not one of these people who hates home, im really looking forward to seeing the place and my family and friends back there. But there just isnt the scope to do things like there is in Vancouver (you Canucks don't know how lucky you are sometimes). Despite a run of broken toes (don't laugh) im in better shape than ive been in years and im having fun in the process. Doing stuff is fun.

We talked about snowmobiling last night too, that was excellent. And tofino, seattle, galiano island, grouse mountain, steveston, North Vancouver thrift store, Squamish Taco Bell, theres been so many trips, all excellent in there own way. Im glad ive managed to do so many things this year, the rail trip is still to come too, going to New York for 5 days itself is a holiday!

I guess this counts as a 10 month review, theres still 2 months left, one sixth of our time here and im sure we'll get up a a bunch of stuff before we're sedated and dragged onto the plane by the RCMP. I still don't know why I came here but its been one of the best choices I ever made. I think i've learned a lot about myself and about life in general, im no expert yet though.

Simon

Grouse Mountain (again!)

For the fourth time Chris has came up big and this time sorted out some Grouse tickets for me and Lindsay. This time however, we actually did the activities that people pay all that money for to get up, and it was well worth it!One of the many hilarious pictures I took inside the car that were all appreciated

After weeks of consistant sunshine we got to the top of Grouse which resembled cloud city, although it was so cloudy we couldn't find Lando Calrissian anywhere.

The "world famous" lunberjack show. Anyone heard of it outside Canada? I certainly hadn't, it was really good tho, but by this point it was freezing!! Everyone seemed equipped tho except for me just wearing a t-shirt (thought about wearing shorts)

By the end of the show it was starting to clear up, wouldnt have fancied falling in that water tho, brrrr

The wood carving were supprisingly cosy insideWe went on the ski lift ride which luckily gave us a nice view of Vancouver after the fog had passedWasn't perhaps the busyist day on the top of Grouse

Don't worry, Lindsay isn't really trapped in a cage on top of a mountain with invisible walls...or is she, has anyone seen her lately?