Late Update

First off, let me apologise for not keeping this blog too up-to-date. It's a kinda funny thing - for once in my life, I actually have something worthwhile to write a blog about, but of course, I'd much rather be out and about doing stuff than sitting in and writing a blog! To be honest, the only reason I'm writing this is that I'm stuck on a train between Seattle and Portland at the moment.

So the trip since my last update:

I made it to New York and had a great time there. I stayed in the New York Loft Hostel over on Varet Street in Brookyln, near the "hipster" Williamsburg neighbourhood. On my first night arriving, I met up with the ace Simona and went for a wander around the city, mostly not knowing where the hell I was going. I got me a mobile phone for very little money, and I began on one of this trip's other big outcomes - the eating of lots of giant hamburgers. The weather was amazing, but the heat pretty stifling in the city. A nice wee trip down to the beach at Coney Island was pretty pleasant, it's a very strange place. Lots of seeing the sights in Manhattan, one of the highlights being the International Centre For Photography, where I saw an exhibition of some pretty amazing Japanese photographers. On my last night, I managed to get in touch with Carol Finnie, my Dad's cousin, and we went to her local for a few beers. Of course, a few beers turned into a lot of beers, and I ended up leaving the pub at 3:30am. Which, y'know, would be fine, except that my flight was at 7:30am. I hopped in a cab over to the hostel, although having to give the cab driver directions with my knowledge of NY was definitely not reassuring. Quickly packed my rucksack and managed to jump in a cab out to JFK airport with an English guy who was flying out too. Unfortunately however, the cabbie was even less good with his directions, actually taking us to LaGuardia airport first, and when we finally got to JFK, getting lost on the road between terminals. I made it in just on time for check in, still pretty drunk and very very tired, so of course security went to town giving me the full "step aside please sir" treatment and a pretty thorough interview on the origins of the packet of sweeties I had in my pocket.

The flight sucked. I maintain that using the reclining seats on economy class flights should be made a hanging offence.

Landed in Vancouver - weather was just as grey as I'd kinda expected. My first hostel turned out to be more of a hotel. The individual bedrooms were good for sprawling out and catching up on sleep, but the location was in one of the roughest areas of town, with junkies, meth-heads and alkies all over the place. That was just during the day, you should've seen it at night! Thankfully after two nights there, I was able to move up to the Hostelling International hostel on Granville Street. I met a lot of great people there - Beppe, Marie-Eve, Jane, Sean, Vasiliki, Sadie and Alicia were all a bunch of sound people, with the ladies in particular loving my kilt the one night I wore it to go out. The HI on Granville Street has been the best place so far, and I'd definitely recommend it if you're in the city.

Next was a real fun part. From Vancouver, I jumped on an old rickety DeHavilland Beaver floatplane out to Salt Spring Island, about 25 minutes flight from the centre of Vancouver. Salt Spring reminded me a lot of Arran, only with good weather and no midges. I couldn't find accomodation, so I grabbed me a cheap tent before I left Vancouver and camped at the Ganges Campground, just outside of Ganges, the main town on the island. The tent was pretty cramped, but the ground was good, and I had the entire campsite pretty much to myself. Thankfully, the weather was excellent the whole time, otherwise the outdoor showers wouldn't have been much fun. There wasn't a great deal to do on Salt Spring, but that suited me just perfectly - needed a bit of relaxing-in-the-middle-of-nowhere time after New York and Vancouver. Made the mistake of tryin to cycle the southern half of the island on a clapped-out Specialized Expedition hire bike, but thankfully the bus was able to take me home from the bottom of the island. Had to wait two hours for the next bus, but got chatting to a really sound English chick called Kate, and spent those two hours having a few nice cold beers looking over the harbour. Coming home relaxed, if a little sunburnt, meant another floatplane ride. We had to pick up passengers from another island on the way back - we were experiencing some turbulence, so on the way from Maple Bay back to Vancouver, the pilot decided to stay low, actually flying UNDER some electricity cables between two of the islands. Pretty scary stuff, but really good fun.

I got back to Vancouver again, only this time staying in the Cambie Hostel on Seymour Street. Bedroom was pretty good, just sharing with one pretty cool French guy called Cedric, but the hostel wasn't all that great. The people weren't all that cool, although I did enjoy a few beers with two (unconnected) Aussies called Kate and Chak. I did however, discover an excellent gameshow called Hole In The Wall. Caught a bizarre sporting event in the form of the Red Bull Soapbox Race, saw a Grouse at the top of Grouse Mountain, and found a really good pub that played Slayer - those things made the second vancouver visit pretty nice for me.

Right, anyways, the train is approaching Portland now, so I'd better stick the laptop away. I'll hopefully get back on shortly to tell of my experiences in Seattle!