Canada and New York

Our first trip was to Canada, Vancouver, which is not exactly en route to Nepal, but hey, you can't have it all.
The trip to Vancouver was actually already booked ahead of our world trip since we were invited to a wedding. We decided to just add it to the already long list of countries we were going to visit.
Vancouver is a fabulous place and we can heartily recommend anyone to go there on a holiday. When we first arrived we nearly choked on the abundance of fresh air we got. Also the sight of the amount of trees nearly brought us to tears. Having spent two years in Dubai, this is one of the things we missed most, besides our family and friends.
The first few days were spent in a lovely reunion of friends which all flew to Vancouver to spent this happy day with Folkert and Pearl (yes indeed the bride and groom to be).

We walked around Vancouver (which is quite easy as down town is not very big), cycled through Stanley Park, had grass picnics with some bottles of wine (indispensable), and had lots of lovely Sushi (which for a change did not knock a hole into our bank account, go to Samurai on Davie street 1108 ((604) 609-0078)- superb sushi, the thickest sashimi ever for an incredible low price).
The wedding was held on Thursday and a big thank you to mother nature it was a glorious day. The wedding was almost like a fairytale with the little white marquee overlooking a lake and the mountains, and all the excited guests sitting on white folding chairs (yes indeed just like in the movies). Most of us were able to keep dry eyes until the vows were exchanged. These vows were personal and once Pearl had a little breakdown we decided we were all able to whip out our hanky's and have a good cry. After the ceremony there was a beautiful dinner, with lovely speeches and you guessed right, more hanky's. One of our dear friends, who shall remain nameless, decided to tie a serviette around my neck every time a speech started to save me the trouble half way through, thanks Hylco (oops). The day finished with a good old fashioned dancing party with people getting increasingly drunk and merry.

Two days after the wedding we all went up to Whistler to spent 4 days there. Pearl and Folkert arranged all this (with a lot of help from Ruby, Pearl's sister) and we had a fabulous time there.
Whistler is a great ski resort in the winter but in the summer it is paradise for nature lovers. We were staying in two stunning cottages overlooking the forest and had some great drinking and feeding sessions there. The first day we decided to all split up and do our own thing, which in my and Chris's case was parking our behinds in the hot tub on the balcony and enjoying the view with a few bottles of wine. We were soon joined by many other Humm nature lovers and of course our extensive wine purchase was soon exhausted. Thankfully the liquor store was not far so that problem was very quickly solved. The second day we all went rafting, which was great. It was a grade 3 river, which means it was exciting without the constant fear of drowning. After the trip it was time for a barbeque and a sit near the fire to heat up, because hell it was cold. Day three we all decided to go cycling on the beautifully laid out cycle paths. When we got to the cycle store there were two kinds of cycles, mountain bikes and city bikes. Even though I didn't think there would be a great difference, I can now positively say there is a huge difference. Anyway I opted to go on a city bike because it had a much nicer saddle (mountain bikes have one of those hard, narrow saddles, which make sure you can't walk properly for a few days after). The gentleman however did warn me that the breaks were not nearly as good as those on the mountain bike and that it would not be wise to go on gravel paths. Me being sure we would stay on nice paved paths opted for the city bike and off we went. Everything went well for about 2 hours after which most of us decided to take of our helmet as it was getting increasingly hot. Not 10 minutes after this less then wise decision, we found ourselves on a very steep path with a very sharp turn at the bottom, and yes gravel everywhere. By the time I found out what the gentlemen in the bike store had meant, by not being able to brake very well, I was flying down the hill (very closely followed and preceded by many others, with equally terrified looks on their faces) and desperately trying to brake, with only my back brakes (I at least got that bit right). However since this was not doing much, I decided to use my front brakes a bit which was again not doing much at all. In a desperate attempt to reduce my speed I pushed the front brakes a bit to hard, causing myself to summersalt over my bike, almost landing on top of the flying nun in front of me (sorry Nathalie) and landing yes on my helmet less hat. I must have knocked myself out for a very brief moment, as the next thing I heard was Chris flying down the mountain, nearly killing himself, shouting baby baby baby (isn't he sweet). In my mind I was quickly trying to figure out what was hurting but all I could think was my right hand hurts.
As I opened my eyes a lot of people were staring at me and after giving them a brief hello (as you do), I got up and cycled on. I know I was very lucky as I was only scraped a bit with a big bump on my head (so what's new?) but besides that I was ok. Myself and most other girls however decided to call it a day fairly soon after this and we spent a blissful afternoon in the sun near Alta lake. On the last day most people went for a hike, except myself, Nathalie and Blanca. We decided we had enough excitement for a few days and spent another day lazing at the lake, peddling a bit. Pearl joint us as well later on, and after a lot of yapping we had to rush home as we had to make it home for dinner. All in all we had a great time in Whistler and we will certainly be back here at some stage.

After we came back to Vancouver we decided it was time for yet again some action. So up we went to grouse mountain and started on our climb to the top. Well since I am not the fittest person around I told Pearl, Folkert,Tjerk (Folkert's brother) and Chris to go ahead and I would meet them, once I dragged myself up there.
The Grouse mountain trail is very famous in Vancouver and some people actually run it daily in a nice steady trot which takes then about 35 minutes (and right after the climb they make sure then run even faster back home to the psychiatric hospital). However I soon decided these people were out of their minds as my breathing could be heard a mile ahead within 10 minutes (or was that only 2 minutes). The trail is about 2 km long and 1 km high so basically one long stair climb up. Once I reached the top in 1,5 hours (which I am proud to say is not all to bad), I found out Chris walked it in 1 hour (which of course we need to do something about before we start our trekking in Nepal), Tjerk and Folkert 1 hour 10 min's and Pearl in 1 hour 15 min's. Guys I take my hat off for you as that was amazing. During the trip I vowed I would never ever do that again, but once you reach the summit, wow what a view. Yyou can see the whole of Vancouver downtown from the top and it was amazing. I was quite happy however that it was a unanimous decision to take the gondola back down.
The next day Chris had to go to the clinic to do his eye surgery (see separate section) and I went out to try and find carrot juice ( no kidding, Chris insisted that it would be good for his eyes..)

We then decided we didn't want to spent another 2 days in Vancouver itself, but wanted to go to an island instead. Since we were very badly prepared, no LP or nothing, we were heavily depended on the info from Vancouver's locals, Pearl, Ruby and Norman, who advised us to go to Salt Spring Island. So the day after the operation and the check up that gave us the A ok, we took the BC ferry to Salt Spring Island which turned out to be a lovely cute little island where mostly retired people and left-over or aspiring hippies reside. However at first when we arrived at the harbor we were told the only way to get to our hostel was to hitch hike. Since my mother always told me never to go with strangers this was quite a new experience.
Luckily, Chris charmed himself into some poor honeymooners' car, and dragged me in with him.They took us all the way to the hostel, which is about 5km from the "town", Ganges.
Since the island was mostly inhabited by older people and hippies this of course created a great relaxed atmosphere, which is just what we were looking for. We were staying in the only hostel they had on the island, and this also turned out great. The hostel had various sleeping options, such as Tipi's (Indian tents), tree houses and normal tents. We had however already booked a room in the hostel, which was perfect for us. The hostel was situated in a forest, no where near the village so we decided to go to the village and rent some bikes. We were lucky to get a ride from one of the other guests as the walk would have been far too much for our techno-yuppie tired feet.
Once we got to the village - eeuh, I mean the town, and we visited the little tourist office it dawned on us that it was Sunday so hey, not many shops were open. Of course the nearest bike shop was closed and after an hour search for the other one shop (which we couldn't find), we came across one of the residents who suggested we could better get a moped.
Hey great idea, we thought, since we only had one full day on the island and we wanted to see as much as possible. Again back to the tourist office, to find out where they rented mopeds and we were sent to the other side of the lake (again quite a walk) before getting to Moby's pub, come restaurant, come fishing place, come rent a moped/car/bike/boat. Of course they were out of mopeds (it was Sunday after all), but we could rent a car for a similar price, hence how we got from renting a bicycle to leaving with a car. So much for our first attempt at low budget traveling!.
Anyway the car turned out great as we were able to go everywhere, without freezing to death, as it got very cold here in the evenings. The first thing on our day was to go to Ruckle park and have a walk around. The evening before we had met, around an imaginary camp fire and a warm cigarette, some very nice people from Germany (believe it or not!) who also wanted to go to the same park, and who hitched a ride from us.
We spent a very pleasurable 2 hours wondering around this beautiful place, before heading back to the village, for our first ever kayaking lesson. There were four of us in total and we had a great laugh trying to get the hang of paddling on the land. Once we were in the water, we were rather wobbly at first but all this went magically ok. However after a fierce paddling stretch of about one hour, my arms were about to give up. Amazingly everybody else seemed to be quite relaxed and in tune with nature. I however was begging time to go by as my arms were about to fall off. Our guide very kindly gave my her, very light and comfortable peddles which made me feel a whole lot better. She however also thought my peddle were a bit on the heavy side, and after opening them and about 10 liters of water came out, we both knew why. The last place we wanted to visit, before it was time to catch the ferry back again, was Maxwell mountain. This was a nice drive up (thank god again for the car), and was awarded by a magnificent view of the island. Unfortunately it never looks as nice on the pictures so you will just have to take our word for it. The ferry back went without any hick ups and at 23.00 we arrived back in our hostel in Vancouver, tired but very happy. The next day our plane left to go to New York and Pearl and Folkert came to the airport to say goodbye.

New York
We arrived in New York at 22.00 and took a cab to our hotel. The web site of this hotel "The army Carlton" promised us a very arty hotel, whereby every room was painted by a different artist and indeed it was the case. Our room was painted in very happy colors, with numerous, almost naked ladies on the walls and ceilings. Chris was of course a very happy man. However after a quick tour to the bathroom and a closer look a the room, showed us the place was very run down and extremely dirty. It was also only USD 99 a night (which is very cheap for New york) we still didn't feel very happy here. After spending a night on the hardest and squeakiest bed I ever slept in we went down, called the Gershwin hotel, and packed our bags at lightening speed. The Gershwin hotel is a lovely place on 5th and 27th and is packed with Andy Warhol's and other pop art paintings. It was clean, very nicely decorated and again only USD 99 per night. Nathalie (the poor girl on the bike in front of me in Canada) had given us the number and name of this place as she had had a similar experience when she went to New York a month or so before us and highly recommended this place.
In turn we would like to do the same for everyone who will pass through NY on their travels. Since again we had very little time in NY (only two days) and we wanted to see as much as possible of this wonderful, vibrant city, we decided to go to Times Square first to try and get tickets for a musical that afternoon. However when we arrived at the TKTS stand on Times Square (this is a ticket boot where you can buy tickets at 50 discount) it seemed another 1000 tourist had the same idea, and the line went on for about 3 hours (TIP: go to the TKTS office downtown in stead of on Time Square.. there is rarely any line there.. and go early to be able to get the good seats).
Not wanting to waste time we went to the theatre which was showing Thoroughly modern Millie and we tried to get tickets there. Again the line was quite long so I had the bright idea of going to find a phone boot and calling the ticket master office to see if I could buy the tickets over the phone. By the time I was finally helped by the lady it was quite a while later and the tickets were a lot more expensive this way. I took the executive decision of returning to the theatre and stand in line with Chris to try our luck there. Unfortunately the waiting in line had actually not taken that long so when I arrived back at the theatre I just saw Chris walking out ....without tickets. This is not the first time we thought, GSM are bloody handy. Chris of course thought I would have bought tickets and had just stepped out of the line, so there we were an hour later and no tickets for any show. We quickly got over our disappointment though and decided to go to a comedy club in the evening instead. So we went to buy a Gray line bus ticket ($35 per person. Some other lines offer the same for $25!). This bus drives a fixed route through down town New York and makes a stop at every worthwhile site. You can basically get on and off as much as you like on this tour as a new bus leaves every 10 minutes. We spent a lot of time going around China Town to check out the great bargains and went of looking for a dim Sum place advertised in the Where magazine. Unfortunately this was a slight disappointment, which is probably also the reason why I can no longer remember the name of the place.
After that we went for a nice cappuccino in Little Italy. Little Italy was surprisingly small with only two streets. We then returned to the bus and finished the rest of the tour back to Times Square. Here Gamal decided he wanted to have his picture taken, again, so we spent another hour trying to get him in picture nicely with the bright, merry colors of Times Square. This was not easy! Of course now we were again almost running late for our comedy club, but after running a bit, and nothing ever starting on time anyway, we got to the club, with some time to spare. We spent a hilarious, hungry 3 hours with various new upcoming comedians. Most of them were fabulous even though a lot of them were first timers (well done guys). The next day we had to get up early again as this was our last day and we still wanted to do some shopping. We wanted to buy some electrical stuff (guess for who me?) and things for our camera as they were a lot cheaper in the States then in Europe and also we wanted to make a visit to ground zero. We were both amazed with how emotional this place was even though it was almost one year after the attack. There is a church in front of ground zero called Trinity church and the gates around it were still covered with poems, letters, flags from every nation in the world, T-shirts, letters and begging letters from people looking for their relatives. This gave us some idea of what this day and many days after must have been like for the people of New York. It was very emotional and i for one certainly was choked up for a long time. At 18.00 hrs we had to be back at the hotel as our shuttle was waiting to take us to the airport where we arrived way to early for a change. Our plane left at 22.00 ours on it's way to Holland. What a great way of starting of on our trip, we had a wonderful time in Canada and the US and are now very excited to start the Asia part of the trip in exactly one month time.