Christmassy Times in The Bay

So San Francisco turns out to be a really lovely city - quite different from the other North American cities we've visited so far. First of all it's very Spanish looking which is unsurprising as that's who first colonised area. There were many buidings which wouldn't be out of place in Havana or in Lima. Also, it's always really disconcerting and quite cool seeing the really famous landmarks right in front of you and here we have the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz (although prior to visiting all my knowledge on Alcatraz and San Francisco comes from Eddie Izzard). The other thing is, it's surprising how Californian all the people look and sound.They all have the "laid back man" accent, may of them have long hair (men and women) or mullets and they don't have any aversions to wearing shorts even when it's freezing cold and chucking it down rain. Despite our bleary-eyed-ness we were able to take in a lot of the sites, practically stumbling upon some pretty well known areas and street names (Haight-Asbury where the summer of love was centred being a good example). We found Fisherman's warf which was kinda touristy but also cool - especially when you get out and rough the corner where there's loads of nice shops.

The next day was earmarked for a touristy site - the sort of thing we usually avoid but this was a must: Alcatraz. Prior to taking the Ferry we made our way to "Boudin's", a bakery next to the wharf we'd passed the previous day. It turns out (unbeknownst to us) that San Francisco is the home of sourdough bread, something that has now taken off across the world. Here they use a load as a soup bowl, serving up delights like clam chowder and tomato soup in it. We both had the clam chowder which was fab, especially when you get to eat the bowl afterwards. We bought a couple of the loaves as well to have a go with ourselves that evening.

Alcatraz was a forbidding place, particularly in the grey, rainy weather we encountered it in. It started off life with just a lighthouse on it before becoming a military fort (being perfectly situated to guard the San Francisco Bay), a military prison and then the high-security penitentiary it's famous for. The prison held a number of famous criminals including Al Capone and George Stroud, the "Bird Man". It must have been a hellish place to be - there was little in the way of entertainment as this was a day that punishment rather than reform was the ideal. Particularly uncooperative inmates were sent to solitary confinement or "The Hole" where the cells had no bars to let light in - they were literally kept in the dark for days. In the tour commentary there was a story of one inmate in The Hole who passed time by tossing a button into the air, hunting for it in the dark until it was found before repeating the entertainment over again. These days it would be regarded as a form of torture and against international law unless you were clever enough to keep your prisoners in a corner of Cuba...

It was eventually closed in 1963 as it was no longer financially viable and also, attitudes towards prison were moving towards reform rather than punishment. It lay abandoned for years before in the late 60s it was occupied by a bunch of Native Americans who managed to hold out for over a year and a half in a statement of their rights to live as they wanted to (relocation and "Americanisation" policies being the order of the day at this point). It was a particularly powerful statement that the first land viewed as ships entered they bay belonged to the Native Americans. The occupation eventually ended but it's thought to have been the catalyst for the changing in laws and attitudes surrounding the Native Americans.

That evening we had our own sourdough experiment with the bread we'd bought in the bakery. I made a bolognese sauce which we served in the sourdough bowls with some carrots on the side. It was fab and we agreed that in future all soups should be served that way. I was a bit concerned about how to cut out the hole but a cut round with the knife and scoop out with the hands did the trick.

California in many people's minds is the home of wine and this is a trick we didn't want to miss out on. Like much of North America, transport to remoter areas is really tricky but thankfully, Casey was able to lend us his car while he was working at the gas station. It had clearly been through the wars (and rained on us inside on occasions) but drove like a dream and was a huge boon. There are two wine valleys: Sonoma and Napa and since Sonoma was the nearest, that's where we headed. First we took in Sonoma itself which is a lovely wee town with loads of wine shops and a really fab deli giving out free samples of cheese and fudge. We then headed up the valley to take our chances in the wineries. We wandered into a couple of the tasting rooms before settling on one (Blackstone) which only charged $5 to taste 4 wines. I was driving so Charlotte was doing the tasting. The guy there (like all the folk we've encountered in California) was exceptionally friendly and keen to chat about Scotland and his own visit there. C particularly like the Pinot Noir so we took note of that and moved on. The other winery we visited was the Robledo Family Winery. This one was particularly impressive as the owner, Reynaldo Robledo was originally a Mexican migrant vineyard worker (a grape picker essentially) who had managed to build up the expertise and cash to open his own place. He employs his whole family (and there's many of them) so it really is a family business in the true sense. The guys there were really lovely and enthusiastic about telling us the story. It was particularly nice to see the photo of Reynaldo with Obama and the Mexican president taken at a dinner he'd been at. Charlotte's favourite there was the 2006 "El Rey" ("The King") Cabernet Sauvignon. Unfortunately, the budget wouldn't allow us to buy a bottle but we did feel we'd really had a proper Californian wine experience.

The rain hammered on our roof all night. Incidently, I should mention that we were staying in a stand-alone apartment in the garden of Casey's folks house. Casey himself usually lives in it when he's here but he'd gone to stay in one of the guest bedrooms in the house so we could use it. What a man! Vicky and Dusty, his mum and brother are both artists and have just opened up a gallery down the road. It had been closed every time that we'd tried to go in but Casey was good enough to get hold of the key and give us a private visit. It's a great place - a wee gallery at the front and open-plan booths to act as studios at the back. They've already managed to get a photographer to take one of the booths and there's more artists on the way. The Divines' artowrok is stunning. Dusty's is based on fantasy (he also does illustration) and wouldn't be out place illustrating the likes of J. R. R. Tolkien or Neil Gaiman. He had some great female figues and some of the colours and textures were just amazing. Vicky's is mostly still life. She'd painted my favourite painting of the gallery which was their cat in a garden seen through a bevelled window. I loved the way she'd got the effect of the bevel of the windows. There was also a really cool one of a bowl of apples with a gun and an iguana (just to make you ask I guess).

Casey dropped us off at the Marin Civic Centre. It's a really odd building which has been used in a couple of movies. We were there for the Farmer's Market, reputedly one of the biggest in the state. The weather was very changeable and would be OK for a bit and then pour for a bit, much to the deficit of the stallholders who still seemed to maintain their Californian cheer. There were free samples abound including cheese, hot pepper sauces, yoghurt (cow and sheep milk!), tofu and a load of Afghan breads and sauces. The women with the Afghan stuff was like a machine slapping sauces on the bread and then handing it to anyone who stopped to breath. We bought tofu, Afghan sauces and bread, red and yellow beetroots, a brownie, a cinnamon bun and some apple cider and headed back to the Divine's place to shelter from the teaming rain. Thanks to my Moray House application I now have access to the University's proxy so we watched the Howard Goodall "Truth About Christmas Carols". It was great a and had much of it's background music taken from my favourite Christmas album, Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band's "A Tapestry of Carols". It also had a great and lengthy section on C.F. Alexander, the writer of "Once in Royal David's City" who is C's 6th great aunt. There was also a nice bit with Bella Hardy and Ian Stephenson. We were probably watching just as the St. James 9 Lessons and Carols was on (if it hadn't been called of for snow) so that was appropriate. We also followed one of my Christmas traditions by watching the 1984 BBC series of "The Box of Delights", something that you can also do by either buying the DVD or by watching it on YouTube.

On our last day in San Francisco we headed into the countryside. It was still raining but we had Casey's car, now with the leak fixed by that savour of all mankind - gaffer tape! There's lots of lovely woods and beach around Fairfax so we took a wee loop route that gave us a taste of both. Being the stalwart adventurers we are, we even braved the rain and resultant mud for a 5 mile walk. We rewarded ourselves back at the Divine's place with some Krispy Kreme doughnuts from Safeway the calories of which probably negated the walk. Never mind.

Casey's last act of heroism was to drive us into San Francisco to catch the train to San Jose where we were to stay with Fiona, Charlotte's dad's cousin. She's the USA sales and marketing manager for a company that makes seals that can withstand the crazy physical and chemical conditions that are necessary in processes such as silicon chip manufacture - a useful product here in silicon valley. In fact, they're used in all sorts of bits of kit so I'd bet my bottom dollar that the School of Chemistry back home has a few. Given that we were now in the lead up to Christmas our days in San Jose were pretty lazy with wanders round the area and (bravely for me since my cycling accident a few years back) a cycle into Los Gatos which has quite a few pretty Spanish-type buildings. Like us, Fiona is really into cooking and has a lovely kitchen so we took the opportunity to fling ourselves into a bit of Christmas cooking with mince pies and shortbread. We also made a meal for Fiona and her daughter Gemma of giant tomatoes baked with an egg and cream inside accompanied by my famous wedges with roasted garlic dip. Having a kitchen is a thing that we really miss about not having a home and Christmas is a time that we generally do a lot of cooking so it was great to be able to do that again.

On the 24th December I opened the last door on my self-made advent calendar. Each day we've taken a photos of me opening the doors so these are in our special Christmas video with some other highlights from December.

That night we went to bed listening for the sound of sleighbells...

Christmas day arrived and for the most part smelt of BBQing turkey. Fiona was the goddess of the Christmas meal and was preparing a full-on Christmas meal but the oven couldn't take all the things requiring baking so the only thing for it was to BBQ the turkey. How sad. She'd even made a proper Chriistmas pudding complete with a mascarpone brandy sauce. There was a card for Charlotte and me on the table when we came down which turned out to be an IOU for T-shirts from Gemma. She's recently started up a business selling bespoke T-shirts and even has her own printer. It's an amazing beast. We hummed and hawed for ages about what to have but eventually settled on "Will Play for Food" with a picture of a cat playing the fiddle. It was really cool to be able to watch your own T-shirts being printed. That afternoon Fiona's brother in-law and his wife came round for the Christmas meal. We greeted them with our mulled wine and chatted loads about our trip and what we do back in Edinburgh. Fiona's brother-in-law is also a musician so we had plenty in common there. The meal came and was fantastic - turkey, roast tatties, sweet potato dauphinois, sprouts, carrots, a classic Christmas meal and the BBQd turkey was a particular highlight. As we wolfed down the pud I felt glad to be in a place where Christmas is properly celebrated. It would have been dreadful to miss it! After dinner we chatted more a played some tunes before parting company and passing out. It was a fantastic Christmas day and certainly one to remember. We even got a present from Fiona's in-laws of a Starbucks voucher. A very useful thing when you're needing a pep-up.

We took the train the next day which was to be our last long-distance journey in North America. as our Greyhound passes had ran out there was no need to suffer the hound any longer so we took the slightly luxurious option. It was a double-decker train - something I'd never seen before and we were on the top deck which was pretty exciting. After 10 hours we arrived in LA, got a bus to the airport and got the courtesy shuttle to the hostel. When we arrived at reception it was totally insane. There was a woman having an argument with reception about her kids being accused of stealing someone else's laptop charger. We got the ditzy blond who seemed to take an age to check us in getting very confused about whether we'd booked or not and how many beds we'd booked. When we eventually got to our room and opened the door the smell of damp hit us in the face. The carpet was soaking wet - probably a result of the shower room having little in the way of ventilation and thus every showerer filled the room with steam. It was a bit like camping - you had to make sure you had everything within arms length before getting into bed and taking off your shoes. It was cheap though and we'd been travelling for ages so we put our heads down and crashed out.

We took the bus into Hollywood the next day. We only had a single day in LA so it seemed th obvious destination. When we got out onto Hollywood Boulevard it was a crazy place. There were tourists absolutely everywhere and loads of folk trying to sell us tours round the districts where the celebrities lives - seems a bit voyeuristic to me. It was cool to see all the stars on the pavement and also cool to see the "Hollywood" sign up on the hill. We also took in Sunset Boulevard and Melrose Avenue which had all the hip-and-groovy boutiques. I wouldn't say it was a favourite place of either of us but was certainly interesting to see. Back at the lodge we got back to find that Charlotte's wash bag had been stolen - we strongly suspected it was the room cleaner. Luckily, we'd had the foresight to take all the valuables with us as there were no lockers apparent. She was really and understandably annoyed as it had load of things that are really important to her. It was a difficult situation as we're as sure as we can be that it was the maid but can't prove it. Everything else was shut up in our bags and it didn't look like they had been tampered with thankfully.

The next morning, Charlotte had a chat with the maid who let her have a look in her storage cupboard and what do you know? Ther was her shower bag hanging up. It was tantamount to admitting that one of them had stolen it - I was flabbergasted she got it back! The courtesy shuttle took us to the airport where after check-in we encountered the longest queue for security I've ever seen. It moved pretty quickly and we made it to the gate just as the flight was boarding. The plane took off and we headed west....

The rain it raineth every day

Paul neglected to mention that in all the tension created by the transfer back to US Greyhound, he left his beloved Advent calendar at the station. It's an endless stream of losing important things, really!

In Portland, Oregon, we were visiting some more Inca Trail compatriots, Barb (and John), Dick (and Tsuru). We were greeted by torrential rain that barely stopped pouring the whole week we were there. Great. The rain didn't stop Barb and John from showing us the Oregon sights, however. The whole area around Portland is tree-ful and beautiful (we could tell through the rain) - filled with conifers, gorges, waterfalls, rivers and the like. On the first day they took us to a science museum where Paul re-discovered his inner 10-year-old (a regular thing these days) and I had an encounter with an axolotl. I never realised what an intensely sinister-looking creature it is. My only other experience with them is through a painting of me which hangs in a gallery of the same name!

That evening we met a friend of B+J's who'd once studied in Edinburgh, and the next day we went out for breakfast - which is something Paul's been looking forward to for ages. Those American portion sizes we hear so much about are no exaggeration. I could barely make it through my 'small breakfast'. Bloated, we went for a drive to have a look at a mist-shrouded gorge, and several waterfalls including Multnomah Falls, which was swollen to a massive size. In the evening we were re-united with Dick and Tsuru, and reminisced about the Inca Trail, Freddie, and 'coca leaps'.

I have to make a comment about B+J's house. It has a library! I've always wanted one - and they've got one, with rows of shelves and everything! So exciting. Anyway, Saturday was so washed out that we cowered in the house whilst Barb bravely went out to help her daughter-out-law (called this because she's not actually married to B+J's son, so not 'in-law') set up her stall for the Saturday market (she's an artist). We waited cosily inside, before heading out to see the new Narnia film (incidentally, for those who've seen it - what's with the cheesy theme song, eh? Also, what's with the plot? The one strong(ish) point seemed to be Eustace, and he was CGI for most of it.)

Sundays B+J's family go out for breakfast together (Paul is very excited about all this breakfasting) - so we met their son David, daughter-out-law Sarah, and Barb's mum. Sunday afternoon was something which is becoming one if their winter traditions - we went to the house of their friends Max and Leslie to make tamales. Max is from New Mexico and gets his beans straight from there, I'll have you know. The men sat around watching the football (Paul participated in order to try and understand its appeal - it still looks like wussy rugby to me) whilst the ladies made the tamales. It involved rolling some shredded pork and some corn stuff in corn husks to be steamed. We're not sure how many we made, but it was enough to last 3 households the winter! Tsuru's were the prettiest. We finished up with Paul and I doing a bit of music - we must sing for our supper after all!

Monday Barb was busy learning about taxes (zzzzzzzz), so it was Dick and Tsuru's turn to babysit us. We took a drive out to the coast - it was like being back in Scotland, what with all the rain and the bleak looking waves. Still more gorgeous scenery though. Then we visited Astoria, renowned for its bridge, but more exciting to Paul for its movie locations. We trespassed at the houses that were used in Short Circuit and The Goonies. That evening Tsuru made Japanese things for us, and we drank their wine (they have a vineyard). Tsuru also spent time helping us work out the Japanese leg of our trip, which was no end of help and for which we shall be eternally grateful. It's no longer such a scary and expensive place. It's just an expensive place now.

Tuesday night was another dinner with more people to meet - this time Sarah's parents. Her dad is a banjo player in a bluegrass band, so we got some good tunes with him. He's also a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. I just love the term 'creative anachronism'!

Weds it was time to take our leave, and as an up-yours to us, the rain stopped and the sun came out a teeny bit. Our bus wasn't until the evening, so we took a walk around Portland - which we discovered is a really nice city! All the shops were in full Christmas bloom (which made Paul happy - I forgot to mention that he'd managed to print out a new Advent calendar so all was right with the world again). My favourite part of the day was discovering a gorgeous shop full of beautiful things (www.mystiqueartisangallery.com) - I was so sad it wasn't in Edinburgh. Lots of lovely artwork (a lot not mentioned on the website for some reason, my favourite stuff was by this artist: www.daviddelamare.com) and carnival masks. But not falling into the cliche that those kinds of shops are prone to do. Just really interesting artwork.

Sadly we had to say goodbye to Barb and John, but it was fantastic to see them again and to get to know them better. It's been so nice to have been able to meet up with so many of the Peru people. This was also to be our last Greyhound journey, and not one we'd forget in a hurry! For a start, Paul nearly got himself arrested in the station for trying to take a photo of the jaunty Christmas hat the staff had put on an effigy of the Hound. Bad Paul. Obviously that sort of subversive act is illegal. Then, a few hours into the journey (an overnight, I might add), our bus broke down. Luckily it was only about a mile from a station, and we were able to half crawl, half coast in. But then subdued chaos arose.

We all got off and mooched around in a sort of concerned indignation. There was a bus behind ours which we'd be getting on, but it was clear that there was no way we'd all fit. The sharper of us made sure we were at the front of whatever queues there were. I left Paul with the bags and got onto the new bus just as a lady was moving out of a double seat carrying a 2-year-old and joined her 5-year-old opposite. She let me claim her original seat, before the driver told us all to get off to let the original passengers find their places again. I knew that double seat was now free, so I sneakily left my stuff on it and got off the bus with everyone else. Quick thinking, eh? The whole time I was terrified I was going to be discovered and the driver was going to shout at me. It's a lucky thing I did do that though, as there weren't enough seats and there was no way Paul and I would have been sitting together otherwise.

More and more people got on, and then there were the new passengers to account for. They had to stand in the aisles, and that mum ended up with both kids on her lap as she gave up her last seat. I am very grateful to her - that was a long night, worse for the people in the aisles. What a way to end our Greyhound odyssey!

The bus took us to Sacramento, California, where it finally wasn't raining and where Casey (another uni folksoc friend) was waiting for us in his car. Casey currently lives a ridiculous lifestyle which meant he hadn't been to bed the night before as he'd been up finishing prototypes for a Useful Thing he is about to make millions on. He does 12 hour shifts at a petrol station multitasking by developing his company there, and the rest of the hours he can force himself to stay awake for honing the product. Suffice it to say, we were quite privileged that he had time to pick us up!

California is becoming one of my new favourite places, and I especially love Casey's family home in Fairfax near San Francisco. It was gloriously sunny and we drove up a super-steep driveway through woods to the house (pausing to nudge the deer out of our path). The house is something that is continuously growing (Casey's dad is an architect) and is full of graceful mess both inside and out (and a swimming pool!). Anyway, it's beautiful - I wish I lived there. Paul was particularly pleased about the Christmas tree in the living room.

Casey had things to do (are we surprised?) so he dropped us at the bus station and Paul and I ventured into San Francisco (barely awake, but sensible enough to make the most of the sunshine... in our heart of hearts we knew it wouldn't last). We discovered that rightly is San Francisco reputed for being a Really Cool city, and spent the day wandering around and enjoying the sunshine. Casey took us out for Mexican in the evening (apparently, outside of Mexico, California is the place to have it) - but even then the rain was setting in. The sunshine was misleading. It was downpour from then on.

Chillin' in Van

We crossed the Rockies on the way to Vancouver which made the journey one of the most spectacular that we've done in North America. In addition, the snow increased as we travelled higher, at one point resulting in a whiteout that left me wondering how the driver was dealing with it (and how sheer the drop at the side of the road was). I decided to put it out of my mind and went back to my playlist of podcasts and Christmas carols.

Our hosts in Vancouver were to be Ted and Betty Siverns. Ted was the minister of the Community Church in Deep River when my parents lived there and, along with a number of other "Revs" we've encountered over the years (one of whom being my Grandfather) was quite a big influence on my family's theology and faith. They met us at the bus station in Langley (one of the suburbs of Vancouver) and we enjoyed an evening chatting about all sorts of stuff and eating some fantastic meatballs (which can be found in the recipes section).

Ted and Betty had a few things to do the next day so we decided to make it our day exploring downtown Vancouver. Most of the North American cities we'd been to so far had had Chinatowns but I'd been tipped off that Vancouver's was one of the best. We had decided that it would be the one we ate in so like the intrepid explorers we are, we ventured into it. My tip-off turned out to be accurate and logical when I thought about it. We were now on the Pacific Coast of North America (8 h ahead of the UK) and if anyone from east Asia heads west, the first place they would find. There was a baffling array of shops selling rice, dried shrimp, mushrooms and a myriad of other unidentifiable things that you could scoop out of boxes and buy by the kilo should you so desire. Finding somewhere to eat was tricky given the number of places available but we selected one that looked OK and went in (the Gain Wah). It was a great place and the staff very friendly, particularly when we were looking confused at the selection on the menus and specials lists and recommended some dishes for us which we duly ordered. They were fantastic so we left a nice big tip for the staff. Incidently, tipping is something that we're really trying to get to grips with here as it seems there's a bizarre system whereby the non-compulsory tip is actually more than compulsory. In fact, many of the businesses here get away with paying their staff a lower-than-minimum wage on the assumption that they'll get tips. If I remember back a few businesses in the UK tried that as well and were nailed up for it. It's not a practice I like.

Anyhow, downtown Vancouver is nice, particularly the area called "Gastown" which is an area which would probably be described as "bohemian" with a far higher concentration of non-chain stores than I've seen just about anywhere. A particularly nice sight is the steam clock which we came across quite by accident. The only down side of the area was the slightly distressing number of homeless folk. At one point a guy came up on the pretext of just being friendly and interested in us but inevitably it lead to "would you happen to have a dollar or a quarter so I could buy a burger". We have a policy of not giving to beggars as we don't think it actually does them any good so we politely declined. It harped back to memories of Cuba though - it's such a shame when no-one really does just want a friendly chat.

The next day Ted and Betty drove us to Steveston which is a fishing port close to Vancouver. It was a great opportunity to sample fish and chips - something I've been missing a bit but was surprised to see advertised all over the area (as opposed to "fish and fries"). I was a bit dubious as to whether the Canadians could replicate this British classic but I wasn't disappointed. It was pretty similar to what you would be presented with in a UK pub.

The whole of the coastline where Steveston is situated used to be awash with canneries, the main industry of the area being salmon fishing. All of the canneries have closed now the fish stocks are depleted but one has opened up as a museum. You wouldn't think that a museum about fish canning would be any could but this one was a particularly interesting history not only of the industry but also of social attitudes over the last 100 years. There were various jobs dished out at the cannery including butchering, cleaning and canning and the nicer jobs (canning and labelling) were always given out to the white folk of European descent. The butchery was given over to the Chinese men and the particularly unpleasant (and cold) job of cleaning was given to the Chinese women and the Native Americans. What was also interesting was the terminology used. All Canadians now refer to "Native Americans" as "First Nations" which is their self-chosen term. On the way home we stopped in by the Aberdeen shopping mall which is in Richmond, now known locally as "New Chinatown". It was a really interesting mix of stores and had one of the most spectacular fountains I've ever seen which was synched in with music which played every hour. I managed to catch it on video so along with whole load of other "Cool things in Canadia-eh?" is in our Canada video.

As well as being an important site for fishing, Vancouver was also important in the fur trade as we saw the next day in Fort Langley. The town itself is very pretty with a number of wee stores and was a great opportunity to get into the festive spirit with all the Christmas goods in the shops. We also took a look at the Fort Langley living museum where we saw a First Nations woman demonstrating blacksmithery (or whatever you might call it!) by making a coathook from scratch. She then gave it to one of the members of the audience by having them guess numbers - the right answer being the year that BC was founded. It was probably just as well we got it wrong as we'd never have got it through airport/Greyhound security. We did buy something to take through Greyhound security at the wine shop we visited afterwards. It specialised in fruit wines (as do Charlotte and myself) and the enthusastic staff allowed us to sample their red AND white mulled wine, both of which were really warming and Christmassy. We plumped for a bottle of the blueberry wine which was the mulled red base to share with Ted and Betty and a bottle of their strawberry wine to take to Portland.

At the Sunday service the next morning Betty had asked if I would contribute something to the music. After some discussion with the music leader (who'd forgotten that she'd already arranged this with Betty) it was decided that I would do a song at the beginning and some music for the second half of communion. I couldn't think of a Christmassy religious song that I fancied teaching them so I opted for my classic - "There Are No Lights on our Christmas Tree" which while not being overtly religious has a pretty good message. It seemed to go down well and I also played "O Come O Come Emmanuel" during communion. It was really nice to take part as given how involved I was at St. James Penicuik, attending a church service but not being part of the guts of it always feels slightly disconcerting. There was an ecumenical service that evening in the Unitarian church which we also attended and ended up at one the house of one of the younger folk from Ted and Betty's congregation. Charlotte and I were quizzed on our adventures over spiced cranberry juice and various edibles - just like being at a church gathering at home.

Part of the beauty of Vancouver is its location in the mountains. You can take a cable car up one of the mountains (Grouse Mountain) and we did this the next day to take in the view over Vancouver. The view from the top was lovely and it was funny how we were back in snow territory again having ascended a couple of hundred metres. In fact, this seemed to be Vancouver's premier winter sports site and we were surrounded by loads of crazy snowboarders and skiiers while we tottered around on the slippery packed snow trying not to become a cropper. Betty was hoping we would see the twinkly lights of the city as the sun set but unfortunately the mists and rain over the city prevented that. It did lift just as we were heading back down so we did get to see it through the car windows. It was an awesome site. At the bottom we found that they had closed the second cable car line and there was a police car and a couple of TV cameras attending to some sort of "police incident" where they were "trying to assist an individual". We never found out the full details at the time but it looks like this was the incident in question - exciting stuff!

Betty and Ted dropped us off at the end of the pier where we caught the boat and then the Skytrain to meet Leo, one of our friends from Edinburgh who's spending some time in Vancouver. He'd arranged to meet us at the Cafe Deux Soleils - a cafe/bar type place for that evening's "Nerd Poetry Slam" which is a competition for poets to prevent a three minute poem on a Nerdy subject. It turned out to be great fun and quite reminiscent of the movie "So I Married an Axe Murderer". We ended up judging but like the mean Scots we are, we made sure we were mean with our points. The main act of the night was "The Klute" who was totally amazing.

It turned out that one of my schoolfriends (from way back in Cuiken Primary School days), Linda Shedden was now living in Vancouver so we arranged to meet up on our last day there. It was a bit rainy and grey (which I believe is typical for Vancouver!) but she managed to tour us round a couple of the Olympic sites including a giant Orca that looked like it was made out of Lego. We the caught up with some old memories and gossip of old "Penicuikians" over a couple of pints and some yam fries. It was really great to see her - a major blast from the past!

Back at the house, Betty had made us a Lebanese feast from some of the recipes she'd learnt while her and Ted lived in Beirut in the late 80s. It was a fantastic meal and was at least as good as the Lebanese food we'd had at restaurants in the UK. You can find her recipes in the recipes section along with the butter tart recipe that we'd made that morning - a real Canadian classic.

As with all of our hosts in North America, I was gobsmacked at the hospitality we received in Vancouver - Ted and Betty even waited in the Greyhound station with us when the bus was an hour and a half late! They were talking about visiting Bath at some point so I really hope that comes to pass.

We were a bit nervous about the bus journey back into the US as we'd be crossing the border with a few food items (mainly our lunch), our contribution to Christmas in San Jose (more later) and a bottle of Strawberry wine from the wine place in Fort Langley. The border crossing was surprisingly easy going and the border guard even chatted (no, reallly!) about how he'd learnt violin as a youngster. When our bags went through the X-ray the two folk manning it were too busy chatting spend any time looking at the picture so if we were carrying anything we weren't supposed to be it wasn't detected. Before long we were met again by our bus driver and headed back into the good ol' US of A!

There's no business like snow business!

30 hours is definitely the longest on a bus we've done so far. Makes those epic 10-hour jobs in South America seem like quick local trips. Anyway, our bus was late into Arctic Winnipeg, but our next couchsurf host, The Angel Rachel, was waiting for us there with her car. It had been a long trip, full of sleep deprivation and Mennonite people being picked up by horse and trap in the middle of the night. It's on journeys like this that the bus begins to feel like a home.

Winnipeg was quite a contrast to Deep River, where the snow had been but a dusting, and temperatures were above 0 °C - tropical by comparison. This was proper winter, at -13 °Cand snow up to your shins. Rachel spirited us away back to her house, where a veritable gaggle of students were cooking home-made pizza. It was quite a party, and so welcome after an eternity on the bus. I must mention Rachel's pillow room which we were originally going to sleep in. It was just that - a room filled with pillows. Nice. Every house should have one.

After pizza and booze the locals went out clubbing, leaving us to catch up on the sleep the Greyhound wouldn't let us have. Next morning Rachel seemed pretty hungover, but nonetheless bounced down the stairs declaring it time for morning snow angels. It had been snowing all night and everything was white and fluffy. She leant me a garish puce snow-suit which looked like an 80s relic, and we made a couple of welcoming snow angels on the front lawn. Then her housemate Anna emerged and the two of them cooked a supreme breakfast of potatoes, eggs, mushrooms and cucumber with dill and chilli sauce.

On plan that day was to meet up with a former colleague of Paul's dad, Dean. He picked us up that afternoon with his small son Calyan, and we went to a 'Human Nature' park to have a walk and look at bison. We also had a peek round the visitors' centre which had a gallery of stuffed (dead) animals which you were encouraged to stroke. It was a fab idea - in most places I've been to you'd never be allowed to do that, and it must be great for kids.

We then went back to Dean's house for Sunday dinner (a tasty roast chicken) and met his wife Michelle and baby Shanti (I hope I've spelled the children's names right). Michelle has started up a chocolate business and gave us a supremely tasty bar to take away with us (see http://starlightwhisper.ca/ for more details!).

We were due to take the bus to Calgary at 11.30 the next evening, so we had another free day in Winnipeg. This was a windy and bitterly cold day, but we nonetheless decided to make an 1 1/2 hour walking pilgrimage for breakfast (Canadian pancakes, bacon, eggs and maple syrup) and Harry Potter. When we reached the bus station later we were treated to the most polite and friendly security check I've ever experienced. So they are possible! A lot of the Canadian stations have adopted the US-style security checks because a couple of years ago someone got their head chopped off by a psycho on a Canadian Greyhound. Blimey!

The journey to Calgary was a piddling 20 hours. Gah! That's a jolly jape to us! We were told Calgary was at -30 °C and currently the 2nd coldest place on the planet after Antarctica. Well that was good to know! We don't have any proper winter clothes (aside from the hats, scarves and gloves kindly donated to us along the way) so we've simply been wearing ALL of our clothes at once. It sort of works, although Paul does look funny wearing two pairs of trousers.

Jared, a comrade from the Inca Trail, picked us up and took us to drop our stuff at John (also of the Trail)'s condo - which he'd kindly leant to us. What a star! Then we trundled along to the local ice rink where Jared was playing in a hockey game. There were kids practising figure skating when were got there, which was pretty impressive. Jared's game wasn't quite the same style as the one we'd seen in Ottawa, but it was good craic. I couldn't believe how cold it was when we got outside, though. -25 or something. We hadn't even had those kind of temperatures in Norway!

We had no actual plans or expectations of Calgary, and as all our friends had to work, Paul and I just took a wander. I was surprised at how quiet the streets were, and couldn't put my finger on the reason, until we sat down on a bench in a shopping mall and found a map. A whole load of the buildings in the downtown area are connected by a network of walkways - so you can get to a good number of places without having to go outside. That's why the streets seemed so deserted! We walked around outside for a bit longer, found Chinatown, and then decided it was too cold so hurried home. That evening we went for beers with the Inca Trail folks - Jared, John and Heather. It was good craic, and great to see them all again.

On Thursday we'd arranged to meet Brandee, who we'd met in North Carolina. Her flat is basically a music studio for her husband Pedro, who is a Chilean musician. We had a good time talking about music, before heading for a late lunch in the Sunterra market downtown. This was a great place as you could pick up free samples of yummy things all over the place. Then upstairs was a classy cafeteria-style arrangement where we chose something tasty out of a choice of bubbling cauldrons.

After that we headed to the Cantos music museum which is a great little place that most Calgary locals don't know exists. As a result of that we got a private tour ($10 each) with a couple of knowledgeable young ladies who showed us every type of keyboard instrument conceivable, and a few others besides. There were a lot of amazing instruments to see, and visitors are allowed to play quite a lot of them upon request. Pedro was over the moon. The collection is also home to Elton John's piano and the Rolling Stones' mobile recording studio. It was all really good fun.

Next was Vernon, and our bus took us through the Rockies and other snowy landscapes. We were met by Jill and Bryn (Jill is my Mum's first cousin and godmother) who welcomed us with much needed soup.

Our first day was action-packed. It was the first day of the ski season, so we headed up a mountain and hired cross-country skis. Paul and I had ski-ed once before in Norway, but we had mostly forgotten how to do it and were like Bambi when he's first learning to walk. It was quite terrifying, but we got the hang of it in the end (after face-planting several times). Bryn and Jill went off for a ski of their own and left us to practise with a hill. They were good teachers, though, and so after an hour we were quite comfortable with a wobbly and tentative snowplough.

After all that hard work we'd certainly earned some calories, and Jill provided them in the form of some fantastic brownies that we spent our whole stay eating (see the recipes page). That evening was another excitement - we had tickets for a production of 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' in the local community theatre. It was the baby of Camille Martens, a former Olympic rhythmic floor gymnast and featured what seemed like her entire gymnastics school - 92 incredibly bendy kids, anyway! It was an interpretation of the story I'd never seen before and a great idea to showcase their talents whilst drawing a big audience. The theatre was packed.

Sunday some more of my extended family came round - Jonathan, Sarah, and their kids Alexander, Thomas, and baby Maren. Calculations told me Jonathan is my second cousin (whilst Jill is my first cousin once removed - anyone who's spent time with my mum's side of the family knows that the game 'working out how we're related to one another' is a popular pass-time at family reunions. It's a big family). We took the boys out sledging in a nearby playpark (thus 'breaking the ice' over their shyness, so to speak). Paul was in 'dad' training, it seemed.

After dinner later, Paul gave them a bit of a fiddle and Gay Gordons lesson. The evening was loads of fun - so nice to meet this part of the family. We saw them again the next day, going over for dinner after a long walk in the snow. Paul got his second session of Dad training. When w arrived we found out that the boys had already decided that he would be taking them sledging!

Earlier in the day we'd spent a while looking round the mall for a non-chocolate advent calendar for Paul. This was not easy. In fact, not possible at all.

Paul is not a fan of the uber-commercial chocolate jobs, but sadly the simple window-with-pictures-behind ones are turning into a thing of the past (I have fond memories of recycling our calendars every year, the game being to bash all the windows down with little wooden mallets shouting 'whack attack!', and continuing to bash them every time they popped up again).Not to be deterred from his Christmas ambitions, Paul decided to make his own, with surprising success! Earlier he'd fixed Bryn's new printer, so he got to be the first to use it. The pattern that he made for his calendar can be found at...

Back, A4

Front, A4

Back, Letter

Front, Letter

Our final day in Vernon was spent up the mountain on the skis again. I'd had rather a lot of coffee in the morning and was jittery as could be - but I think it gave me the energy to complete the 10km we calculated we did! Paul and I are now cross-country pros.

It being St. Andrews day, we spent that evening rather appropriately at a Scottish country dancing club. It was pure coincidence that it was on that day, but nice for us I suppose! I haven't done much actual country dancing (what we're used to is ceilidh, which is much simpler and much wilder) so we learnt quite a few new dances, as well as teaching a few of our own.

All in all we spent a fantastic few days with Jill and Bryn - and hopefully we'll see them again on whichever side of the Atlantic that may be. In the Greyhound station waiting for our bus to Vancouver, we witnessed a mildly dramatic police arrest of a seedy subject in flip-flops. (We knew he was seedy immediately - who wears flip-flops in this weather?) It was quite calm - the policeman waited around, then spotted the guy and walked up to him. Come with me, he says to the guy. Why? Says the guy. For the possession of stolen property. The guy doesn't protest and goes outside where he's cuffed. Then there are many discussions, the guy's led in politely and the policeman picks up some suitcases which are under suspicion, and they leave. Most people didn't realise anything was going on!

Anyway, Vancouver, last stop in Canadia, is next.