We are now back in America! Have spent one night in Seattle so far and are already feeling very tired! Prior to this we spent a great week in Vancouver. This was our last destination in Canada after having almost 6 weeks exploring the beautiful country. Vancouver is the 3rd largest city in Canada (after Toronto and Montreal).

We did enjoy our time in Vancouver but it was slightly marred when we arrived by all the tramps! Had not expected to see so many in what is one of the best cities in the world to live. People were just sticking their heads into 'garbage' bins pulling out rubbish and no one batted an eyelid as this is common place, wierd! Our hostel was in a great location in central downtown, however when night came we could not sleep as it was surrounded by bars and clubs, so not the best when you need some shut eye!......if you can't beat them, join them......

We met up with Cris and Rob again (the couple we'd originally met in Winnipeg and are from Halifax!) and had a great night out. Yet again we went for a steak and some drinks before hitting the club right over the road from our hostel. Very unlike Phil to go to a club especially one with live music! But he loved it as we all did. Was the first very boozy, very late night out of our trip, bed at 3am. See the video on here of Phil very drunk that night!

The next day was spent with Cris and Rob again and we went cycling round Stanley Park, Vancouver's huge urban space - the 2nd largest in North America, Central Park is 3rd! So as it was quite big it was nice to have bikes! There are several Totem poles in the park, which are traditional to the North West coast Native people. The park also has a few beaches, although the sand is imported from Japan! Phil went for a paddle anyway.

Two of our days were spent on Vancouver Island - a 1hour 35min ferry ride from the mainland. This is not a small island, it is 285 miles long and 50 miles wide - that's bigger than Belgium! Hence we did not see a lot of it! We only went to Victoria, which is the Capital of British Columbia. (by the way BC is 4x larger than Great Britain and it is only a state!) Victoria is a very very pretty city with 'an English feel'. The harbour is very picturesque and there are many hanging baskets throughout the city, The City of Gardens as it is known. The main attraction for us here was to go whale watching and hopefully see Orcas. The trip was on a zodiac (inflatable speed boat) and the day was perfect as we went zipping out to sea. We saw 2 humpback whales (inc a tail!), a couple of porpoises, sealions and seals but unfortunately no Killer whales. We were disappointed as there are many in the area, but hey that's the difference between the wild and the zoo!

We had a good spontaneous night out here. We went to a brewpub and tried some local beers, then decided to eat there too. Four Brits from Liverpool came to sit on the table next to us, we all got chatting and it turns out they all live in Canada and have done for 40 years! They had not lost their accents one bit. Needless to say they were a bit older than us but they were great fun and bought us a few drinks. We ended up going to Chinatown with them (we did not eat again! But they hadn't eaten) and had a great laugh. A traveller's night out with a difference for us!

Had one more night back in Vancouver then it was time to leave Canada, the 2nd largest country in the world. As the crow flies Vancouver is 2091 miles away from Toronto and 2435 miles from New York. We worked out that we roughly travelled 3189 miles across Canada, all on the Greyhound bus, wow!

Arrived in Seattle last night and are staying in a lovely hostel in a great location downtown. Had the first day exploring today and the first thing we did was go on the cheesy Duck tour! There is one in London and many other cities worldwide too. If you don't know it's a WW2 amphibious vehicle converted into a tourist bus. It was great fun, our driver and tour guide was mad. It was a loud party bus quacking its way through the city, then in the harbour but also very imformative. Loads of films and TV series have been filmed here so there were a few locations pointed out to us. After that we had a walk along the harbour front and went to a seafood restaurant for lunch in the sun. Seafood is BIG business in Seattle, 50% of U.S seafood comes through this port. Spent a lazy afternoon walking round the Pike Place market which is very interesting and home to the very first Starbucks coffee house! The market is celebrating 100 years of trading this year and tomorrow there are many events taking place so we will have a wander through and soak up the atmosphere. Also planning to go up the Space Needle, which is Seattle's tower (pictured).

Of what we have seen so far we really like Seattle, before we came we knew nothing about it and had no idea what there was to do here. Just hope we can get some shut eye tonight!..........

Bye for now

love us 2 X

hope you liked all the facts in this blog! And spotted an easy film reference?!!