I think we last left you languishing in Sheffield, where I was busy eating evan's parents out of house and home, seeing as I didn't have to fit into a bridesmaids dress anymore! We continued to have a lovely time in Sheffield, my parents came over from Wales and took us for lunch, and we had a lovely picnic round at Tom, Judy and Emma's house where we played with Neil and Beth's baby Jackson and ate a lot of food. This was followed by much frivolity in Sheffield city centre, my memory goes hazy at this point but am sure Evan will fill in the blanks.

We went into town with lots of friends around and had drinks at the washington and then what used to be Halcyon but is now called something old something i think, anyway, the emphasis for jennifer was on vodka and as midnight passed and jennifers slurring became almost too advanced to translate we made a move, however we couldn't go directly home as Will had left his jumper in the pub so we had to call in as another bar to see if he was there even though we knew he wouldn't be. JEnnifer passed the jumper on to rebecca whilst i won a pound on a quiz machine, clever me, and then we were in a cab to best kebabs for there very best kebabs and roast potato's. dragging jennifer away from estate agent windows we finally got to sleep.

After Tim and Mandy kindly dropped us back into London on Sunday, and Ella and Matt kindly put us up for the night, we boarded our flight to Toronto. It was fairly uneventful and actually arrived early, so we picked up our hire car at Toronto airport 7 hours later. I had requested the smallest car, but this being Canada, we got a tank and Evan quickly got to grips with right hand drive and automatic! Our first impressions of Canada were that everyone was very friendly, and everything is very big, cars, roads, bottles of coke. We spent the first night in Niagara Falls, where we staggered round finding somewhere to eat to suit our budget, and being asked for directions by lots of tourists. Why us you ask? Because we look like locals? No, becuase this being north america, we were the only pedestrians to be seen for miles.

The reason for our visit to Toronto was to catch up with my aunt and uncle, iris and John who live in Hamilton. We spent a lovely day with them on Tuesday, being given a guided tour around Hamilton, where we enjoyed lovely views of lake Ontario and some of the largest Colonial wooden houses you've ever seen! We also enjoyed a visit to Wal Mart - a cultural experience if ever there was one, and a chicken dinner at Swiss Cottage - very nice indeed. On Wednesday Iris and John drove to Niagara and took us right up the river to see the rapids which were amazing, and some even bigger houses if that's possible. We took them for dinner to Betty's, which, as I'm beginning to understand of all north american eateries, offered a bewildering array of choices, what kind of potato do I want ?what kind of dressing? what on the side ?oh god it's all too confusing. But the food was nice. We also visited the hydro electic dam - the falls generate a lot of the region's power - I can't imagine what it would look like if they didn't syphon some of the water off. We also asked a few numpties to take our photo, so now we have some dodgy images of the falls but not us, and us but no falls, on our camera.

It was lovely to see Iris and John, but we had to say goodbye, and then took a greyhound bus across the border to Buffalo, very smooth crossing the border, and then onto Syracuse - our first taste of the states! We were staying with Hanh and Thomas, our friends from Paris, who have relocated here with Thomas's work. Syracuse is a stereotypical middle America middle class town it seems. They actually live in Baldwinsville, which is exactly like the set of desperate housewives, no pavements, lots of perfectly manicured grass and everyone washes their car(s) on Sunday and if you dont then you don't fit in! Hanh and Thomas' place is a mansion by UK standards with room for a pool table - imagine our joy! On our first evening together we visited one of the many chain dinners in the area - Texas Roadhouse. Placing our order went something like this:

Evan: I'll have the ribs, with mashed potato and beans

Becky ( our friendly waitress): do you want the potatoes loaded?

Evan: (surprised face) with what?

B: soured cream, cheese and bacon

E: errr, no, do you do gravy?

B: sure.... by the way ..cute accent!

Jen: I'd like the BBQ chicken please, and what does the sweet potato come like?

B: well you can have it with marshmallows melted, and brown sugar, or caramel

Jen: (look of horror) eeerrrr .. uummmmm( starts to panic) can I just have mash and gravy like what he's having.... and a house salad.

B: what dressing would you like?

J: what do you have?

B: italian, french, ranch, blue cheese, thousand island, caesar

J: (grasping at straws) errr thousand island... please.

everyone collapses in exhaustion to wait for the food.... which was very nice indeed, but really... marshmallows with a sweet potato? as a side to chicken!?!??

The next day Thomas had kindly taken the day off work, so we headed to a national park around 2 hours away from Syracuse, the Finger Lake region. As we drove enjoying the blissful sunny day, we looked at all the massive colonial houses, which look like someone just dropped a load of dolls houses onto a perfectly manicured lawn. They really go for Halloween decorations here, in the Uk we might grudginginly put out a pumpkin, here... not so... full on tableaux involving, witches, ghouls, spiders webs and a cast of 30 supporting pumpkins adorning the front lawn ( did I say lawn, I mean football pitch)

We had a lovely picnic which we'd picked up at Wegmans, the local supermaket which is foodie heaven. So many amazing food, lots of natural and gluten free stuff, plus deli counters, bakeries, fish mongers to die for. Evan enjoyed a large Sub ( baguette) filled with so much cold meat it would have fed a family of 4 plus salad ( tossed in a dressing of course!) mayo, mustard and the kitchen sink. Non of your wilted bit of iceberg with a spot of salad cream a la UK. I have a feeling we'll be getting fat on this leg of our trip.

We enjoyed the sunny weather by having walks round two gorges, the Watkins Glen gorge with lots of waterfalls to walk behind, and the Robert Helm Gorge. Both have amazing rock formations and rock pools carved out by glaciers so it's really interesting. As we drew up to the Watkins Glen car park the lady in the booth warned us that there was no shuttle bus back from the end of the 2 mile walk that day so WE WERE ON OUR OWN. Naturally we were very scared at this prospect, as the gorge was all of 2 miles long and now we're in America, not sure we would be able to shift our sorry asses back again... we considered calling Evan's Mum as she would surely know what to do. However, we found that guess what? we can do a 4 mile round walk without the need of a shuttle bus ( only in America!) and enjoyed a lovely walk.

We chatted to Thomas about his impressions of the cultural differences between Europe and America, and the main difference he noted in the workplace is that here your work colleagues are exceptionally friendly and nice, but that doesn't mean they will become friends you see outside work. So social lives are more segregated, whereas we in the UK often base our social lives around our work friends. Also here politics and current affairs are off the agenda completely. Very interesting as when we arrived in Boston, obviously a big historical university city crammed with academics, I don't think this still applies.

Hanh cooked us an amazing meal of Vietnamese meal pork, we enjoyed some french champagne, and followed it all up with rice dream ice cream ( yes, a frozen dessert with no dairy or sugar, and totally delicious YUM) and then on Saturday we had to say goodbye to Hanh and Thomas and board a bus to Boston. Not before they had plied us with lots of picnic food, an ipod lead, maps and everything else! I'm suprised Evan didn't come away with the pool table in his backpack.

Now we're in Boston staying with Henry and Kate in Cambridge which is right next to Harvard. But we'll tell you all about that next time.