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.