North America 1

Sunday the 21st of March was the longest day I ever had! I had a whole day in Fiji chilling out at the beach and doing what you do there. Then I headed into Nadi and caught an 11pm flight to LA. We landed into LA at 1pm the same day. Then we flew from LA to Vancouver and it was still the 21st of March, at 7pm. Bizarre!

Canada (Vancouver)

Arriving into Vancouver was a shock after all the nice quiet small places I'd been, though it was good to see a friendly face with Nav meeting us at the airport. We stayed in the city with her family for a few days. Most of the time was spent pottering around downtown Vancouver and peeking into shops and bars. The city seemed incredibly busy and loud, and very rude. Although not rude in a normal way, just rude because it was so impersonal. Shopkeepers seemed so fake and uncaring with their rendition of "you're welcome" after every time you said “thank you”. The streets were lined with beggars and drunkards stumbling around, and hoards of 'trendy' North Americans with their baseball caps on sideways. It was all an immense culture shock after the genuiness of the Fijians and Kiwis.

Canada (Vernon)

The drive to Nav's home town was just under 5 hours and took us over some of the Rocky Mountains. It was even snowing up the top, so we threw the obligatory snowball!

Vernon itself was classed as a desert, nestled in a valley between mountains. Nav's home was a lovely house right on the edge of Okanagan lake. We were told that in summer people take out their boats, swim in the lake and walk around in shorts and bikini tops. Then they told us we had come at the wrong time of year as there was no snow for the skiing, and it was too cold to do anything else! It was fairly cold for the first few days but cleared up soon after with beautiful sunshine.

Whilst Matt and Benny were around we packed it all in, with a trip to the Mission Hill winery and learnt how to taste wine properly (slurp that drink!), we went to watch an ice hockey game (ok so it wasn't a big game, it was Nav's brothers tournament, but that was great in itself, what a brilliant sport!). We visited a few pubs and even got to see (and dance onstage with) the Canadian band '54.40' who were known throughout Canada. Nav's family owned a pedalo too, so we went out onto the lake on that. We went for a walk by Kalamalka lake (lake of many colours) which had spectacular views accross the water of trees and mountains. Canada sure was pretty.

Matt and Benny didn't have much time left so they caught a night bus to Seattle and continued with their travels. I stayed behind with Nav and we spent a few days chilling and enjoying the sunshine that came out as soon as the boys left. We tried some of the Kava that had been purchased at the airport in Fiji, but it wasn't quite the same. It did make us sleepy though!

Our plans to do the big road trip of the USA weren't going ahead. Matt and Benny didn’t have much time, and I was running short of money (blast that video camera!) plus Nav wasn't going to make it. I decided to make a trip down the west coast of the US before returning to Vernon for the nice weather, and then hang around NY/Toronto for a little while on the way back home. It wasn't the visit to the USA I'd imagined but was fine for the moment. Plus N. America seemed so big and fake after the other places I'd been. Onward I went...