I've got so much to write on this entry - I wrote a whole load at the weekend but managed to delete it and lost all enthusiasm after that!
We left Victoria by ferry last Monday and arrived at the harbour front of Seattle that evening, once again in pouring rain! It's an exciting way to arrive in a new city, and country, though. Our overriding first impression of the city was that it's entirely populated by insane people. Don't wander between 1st and 4th streets near Union after dark, unless you really like meeting odd people. After discovering this we spent Tuesday trying to get a broader, sunnier, view of the city. As I don't have forever in this internet cafe I'll summarise our week in Seattle - explored Pike Place Market, went to the theatre to see 'To Kill a Mockingbird', did the underground tour of the city, spent a day embarrassing ourselves in a karaoke booth at the Experience Music Project (very fun!!), saw an amazing vaudiville show including a belly dancer, contortionist and various acrobats in a little, slightly seedy bar near the hostel, saw a live band, sat in a box at the symphony, went out drinking with some Australian guys who had been on the underground tour, blew our budget in Macy's, tried on ball dresses and lamented our lack of high heels (very girly day that one!), eventually in a bid to save money I taught Jo how to play scrabble! We ended up really enjoying the city, it's just such an interesting place, utterly mad - the city was even built in a mad way, but it grows on you. We met up with Giles, Shannon, the girls and Angie and went to the Aquarium and then headed to Bellingham. Had a lovely weekend with Giles, Shannon et al - the girls are so entertaining! Really sweet kids. Giles drove us up to Vancouver on Monday and we went to the Science Project (with Emily in tow we could play on the machines safe in the knowledge 'it's ok as long as there's a child with you'!!). We are now in a downtown hostel. We had a fantastic evening up grouse mountain with Angie last night, we saw grizzly bears, deer and mountain wolves and had dinner watching the sunset over the city - truly beautful and our cameras couldn't do it justice. It was a lovely sunny and clear day, we spent the afternoon relaxing in the chinese gardens. Today we saw the Georgia O'Keefe exhibition at the art gallery and went our for sushi and to see a play called 'Hanna's Suitcase' with Angie, about a victim of the holocaust. It was a really moving performance and brought my English Lit studies rushing back to me! (I studied holocaust literature and film). We are setting off early tomorrow to see the capilano suspension bridge, and possibly even walk across it if we're brave enough! It's a really long bridge across a canyon - I'm just hoping it's not a windy day!
I popped into a shop today and have somehow ended up with 2 hats and 2 new bikinis (I'm now carrying 5 bikinis in my backpack) not at all sure how I'll pack the hats. Travelling lightly is clearly not going well.
We fly to Hawaii on Friday, to Oahu (honolulu). I really wanted to go up the volcano but it's on Big Island and we haven't really got the time to go there. We've decided to cut down our stay in Hawaii and head to Fiji sooner as it's a fair bit cheaper! Having got a little sunburnt yesterday, in Vancouver, in October I think I'll be very glad of my hats soon!!
