Clare's Last Stand

Well hi there everyone for the last time from foreign soil... thanks to the lovely free internet at the hostel in San Fran I thought I would drop you all a little blog post before I hit the hay.

Since I last wrote I had a pretty crazy day in Vancouver, clearing up lots of last minute jobs and saying some farewells.  My room-mate suprised me by taking me out for a slap-up meal on Sunday night which was really lovely and much needed after a day of maniacally running about and trying to fit the more recent shopping efforts in to my suitcase.

I got up at the lovely hour of 4am on Monday to catch my bus to Seattle where I met my train down to San Fran.  Thanks to yet another train derailment we ended up having an unexpected stop over in a little town in Oregon called Eugene (who calls a town Eugene by the way!?) for a couple of hours. It was really pretty, and a beautiful summer evening so noone was complaining too much about the hold up.  Sadly by the time 
we woke up this morning the three hour break in Eugene had turned in to an eight hour delay, which did have 
people a little more scratchy!  Funny how the difference between 22 hours on a train and 30 hours on a train can do that!

I had breakfast on the train this morning with a charming old dude discussing politics (he is a republican but is a little disappointed in Bush) and his military career before he declared that he thought it was a shame that I didn't have a young man to travel with me, and if he was younger he would be keen for the job himself.  Hmmm... I guess its always nice to have options but perhaps someone under 80 next time?!

We finally got in to San Fran about 3 this afternoon and after a quick shower I headed out and about.  San Fran is the only place I have been to on this trip that I have actualy visited before so it feels a little nostalgic in some ways... I am glad I have a little bit of time to wander around the city rather than heading straight home because I really like it and it is nice to not feel the pressure to do all the touristy stuff in limited time since I have done it before.  I also got to have dinner with my friend Matt who is another Ellesmere College survivor and who I haven't seen for a long time since he lives here now... one definite perk of this trip has been seeing friends all over the place for the first time in ages, as well as making new friends of course!

Well that's all from me folks - tomorrow I am going to visit the world's wonkiest street (I am unsure of its actual title) and do a little shopping - fingers crossed for some californian sunshine before I get on my plane back to NZ.

Hope you are all good!
Clare

The Mountie search comes to an end...

Well hi all for the last time from Canada. I leave in about 13 hours now so my chances of snapping up a mountie to bring home are looking a little slim at this point... still... you never know!

I have been absolutely flat out for the last couple of weeks getting ready to go but thought I couldn't leave without a final Canuck update for you all! Last Saturday I headed off to the Rockies on a hop-on, hop-off bus type thing for seven days. I saw waterfalls, lakes, mountains and more waterfalls, lakes and mountains and even someone who was as fortunate as I was to grow up in a pretty beautiful part of a pretty beautiful country was impressed.

Our first stop was Shuswap Lake, via a town called Hope (as in "I hope it stops raining sometime soon), where we came across a male strip show. This appeared to be the most exciting thing that has happened in Shuswap Lake for quite some time and the local ladies couldn't believe that we really did not want to be part of it! Day two saw us heading in to Rogers Pass and officially entering the Rockies. We saw mountain sheep and goats, as well as bear cubs and gophers all just on the side of the road which is really bizarre. We walked over the Crazy Creek suspension bridge and rolled in to Banff at 9pm for another short nights sleep before we hit the road again!

Day three was to Jasper via the Columbia Icefields (and the afore mentioned lakes, mountains and waterfalls). We stayed at a hostel with no running water etc that night and I surprised myself by actually having a good time, especially after we lit the fire and sat around talking rubbish for a few hours. The idea of a bear potentially lurking in the dark undergrowth goes a long way towards ensuring there are no middle of the night toilet visits though!! After Jasper we went back to Banff and while the rest of my bus went off to the hot springs I got on the phone and internet and finally got myself a job sorted for when I get back to New Zealand. I was lucky enough to get offered a couple of positions and I am not going to pretend it was easy to decide, but am now really pleased about returning to the wonderful world of policy development!

Day five was heading out of Banff and through the Yoho national park (hehe), where we checked out the Giant Cedar boardwalk, yet more waterfalls and lakes and mountains, and almost ran into (literally) the biggest black bear I have ever seen, who was sitting in a rest stop admiring all the crazy humans who were passing by. After we got to Revelstoke that afternoon, I went kayaking with a few of the people from my bus. As you probably all know by now I am pretty much scared of everything so water sports are not often my thing but am really glad I convinced myself to go as it was a lot of fun and I got to spend more time with Jasna, a girl on my bus, who is an even bigger scaredy cat than me - we almost had a problem when I promised that if she went skydiving I would go too, but fortunately cooler heads prevailed and we convinced ourselves that our respective parents would not be impressed if we told them we couldn't come home due to broken legs!

Day six we finally saw some sunshine and hot temperatures when we got to Kelowna. We visited some more lakes (are you getting the picture about this trip yet?) and even managed to squeeze in a trip to a winery which was very tasty. As that was our last night of the trip we all decided to go out for some drinks... our driver challenged us to buy someone else on the bus a $5 outfit to wear and this is how we came to go to the pub dressed as cleaning ladies, life guards, pirates, middle-aged american tourists and more... it was hilarious although the novelty of getting quicked out of bars wore off after the first couple of times!

Yesterday I got back to Vancouver and went for dinner with my room-mate and some of her friends which was a lot of fun. We continued the eating yesterday morning too when Marija whipped up some crepes for our "breakfast of champions". I met up with the rest of the gang after that and headed out for lunch and drinks as a bit of a farewell for me and somehow managed to stay out until 1am... not bad for an old duck!

Well I had better run as there is still some packing and palming off of junk to be done but I hope you are all well and look forward to the next post for NZ.

Have a good week,
Clare