USA: 1am is a great time to fly...

Woo, 2 weeks done in the USA! I am now in the lovely city of Seattle, Washington, enjoying the remarkably good weather.

So, things that have happened in the last week.

Hablo un poco de Espanol...

Yeah, last Saturday was spent learning yet more Spanish. I am excusing myself for not doing much that day because my roommate managed to keep me awake until gone midnight with rustling around packing her bag. I was knackered on Saturday morning and pretty sure I was coming down with something.

So, yes, I spent all day learning Spanish and trying to get blog in order.

I also nearly fell into having the gun debate with one of the American guys who worked at the hostel. Fortunately, we both went "uhh, let's not have that conversation" and moved swiftly on. In my defence, I didn't set out to have the debate with him - he made some comment about how back home in Texas, folks shoot their guns in the air on New Year's Eve and I made a perfectly innocent comment that we don't have anything like that in the UK. At which point we realised where the conversation was heading and both did a swift subject change. Well done, us.

Wolves and tigers and bears, oh my!

I spent Sunday at the Alaska Zoo. It was lovely. The zoo is more of a sanctuary, taking in injured and orphaned animals from across Alaska and the US. That said, they do have a few animals that aren't rescues - the aforementioned tigers, for a start.

The zoo is mostly focussed, due to its nature as a sanctuary, on Alaskan fauna. I have to say, though, I think this alpaca was my favourite.

Alpaca just have such expressive, silly faces.

Urgh...

After thinking I was back on track with actually doing things and not sitting around all day,  I woke up on Monday feeling disgusting. It was absolutely pissing down, which didn't help, but as the day wore on, I was definitely coming down with something.

This of course meant that I spent yet another day doing bugger all aside from learning Spanish. Oh, and this might have been the day where I booked absolutely all of my transport and accommodation for the rest of my time in the US... maybe. I don't remember.

The one good thing about this day was having a long chat with one of the English guys at the hostel who is possibly interested in meeting up with me in Peru. That'd be nice.

ALL THE GLACIERS

My time in Alaska came to a glorious end, fortunately. Yep. My final day definitely made up for the many wasted days that came before. It started with an early walk to a public bus stop, where I did my best not to look like a petrified tourist. This was followed by, courtesy of me arriving way too early in the city centre, with a cuppa from a little cafe.

At this point, I discovered that the concept of a cuppa is somewhat lost on Americans. Maybe not all of them, but in the nearly 2 weeks I've now been here, the vast majority of my bought cuppas have been a styrofoam cup with a tea bag handed over separately...

Anyway, there was nothing wrong with the cuppa, not that I would have noticed because I was in desperate need of caffeine.

Then I boarded the Magic Bus. Yes, that was it's name. No idea why. Anyhoo, the Magic Bus, driven by former pilot Tim, was going to take me to the tiny town of Whittier on Prince William Sound. Along the way we stopped a couple of places. First at this little pull in to see if we could spot any beluga whales.

I think I might have seen a couple. Beluga are white, so even through the rain, they should have shown up reasonably well. And I'm pretty sure I saw a couple of white backs that weren't just rough water. Indeed, the water was pretty calm, hence why I'm fairly sure the white patches were whales. I would have liked a better view though.

After that we pulled in for a rest break, at which I successfully resisted the call of the delicious smelling bakery. On mentioning this to Tim, he offered to buy me a doughnut, which sorely tested my resistance. Still not sure how I managed to say no. Possibly because I was somewhat embarrassed by the idea of my sweet old bus driver buying me a doughnut...

Then a stop at a pretty glacial lake. I think it would probably be a gorgeous colour like the lakes in the Rockies - I could see a sort of blue tint - but the clouds were drowning it out.

Our final stop of the morning was at a little platform overlooking a river to see the salmon running/spawning. These salmon are up the river quite late in the season, I believe and you can see that they're well past their best. All of those salmon are probably dead by now.

After that, it was just a case of driving through the tunnel to Whittier. Only... well, the tunnel to Whittier is shared with the train. It only has a single lane. So, on the hour it opens to let traffic out of Whittier, often followed by a train. On the half hour, it opens in the other direction to let traffic into the town. Also often followed by the train.

Much to my disappointment, we didn't get followed by the train, but it was kinda cool driving on top of the rail tracks.

From there, it was just a case of getting onto the boat. Yup, time for a cruise - my first boat trip in quite a while (not counting canoeing and rafting in the Rockies). First things first, I had to find my table, which I turned out to be sharing with a family from Indiana. They were very welcoming, which was great.

And then off to see some glaciers! To begin with we couldn't see much - the rain was still coming down and there was heavy fog in the Sound. Did spot a few sea otters, but the cute fuzzballs moved too quickly for me to get any photos of them.

First photographed spot of the day was a group of Steller's Sea Lions on a rocky haul out.

Following a passage between an island and the mainland, we also spotted some bald eagles. More fuzzy photos...

And then, finally, we started seeing glaciers. Loads of them. I'm not sure we saw all 26 as advertised, but we saw a pretty decent number of them. First up, Harriman.

Followed by Surprise. I have no idea why it's called Surprise. It did have some pretty fucking huge icebergs.

And finally the trio of Cascade, Coxe and Barry.

After that, it was pretty much just a case of heading back to port. Of course, this being Alaska and the weather being seriously changeable, the sun decided to make an appearance as we were motoring home. So we saw another glacier or two.

Also, this beautiful waterfall.

Pretty good end to my time in Alaska, I'd say!

Although, that wasn't quite the end... after all, I had to get to Seattle. Which meant getting a flight, because the ferries are bloody expensive. So I had to get another bus on arrival back in Anchorage, this time to the airport.

And there I sat for a good two hours, because in a moment of genius I had decided it was a great idea to book a flight that left at 1am. I probably figured that meant I'd have, in effect, an extra day in Seattle. Never mind the fact that I find it nearly impossible to sleep on planes.

Or that I figured I couldn't check in for my flight until 2 hours before departure. And I turned up at the airport just after 8. So I dossed for a couple of hours, learning Spanish and reading, before I finally gave up and approached the ticket counter. To my utter joy I found that they were checking in my flight, so I pootled off through security (which required removal of jumper, belt and boots, ugh) and then went in search of somewhere else to doss for another couple of hours.

Oh, and there was also the fact that I hadn't eaten since about 1pm and it was at that point approaching 11pm. So I ended up in Maccie D's. I haven't had a proper "meal" as such in MacDonalds for a very long time, so chicken nuggets and chips was... interesting. I'm sure the portion sizes over here are bigger...

Anyways, after another hour or so at the airport, in which time I somehow snagged an exit row seat (woo, short legs and ALL THE LEG ROOM!), I finally got on the plane and proceeded to try to sleep.

Don't ask me how, but I succeeded! I took the lead of the girl across from me who settled down with her tray table pulled out, head and arms resting on it. I figured I'd try the same in the vague hope that I might catch a few minutes doze and woke up nearly 2 hours later. This is pretty amazing for me.

It is too early

Of course, that 2 hours was still only 2 hours. First stop at Seattle airport was a cafe where I drowned my fatigue in a massive cup of tea. Somehow I managed to then stumble out to the light rail station and get on a train to the city centre. I even managed to get off at the right stop, despite getting motion sick and having to force my eyes to stay open.

Obviously I was too early to check in to the hostel, but I did arrive in time to make the most of the free breakfast. More tea for me! I then made vague plans to head to the Seattle Art Museum until my room was available, figuring that the museum wouldn't require too much brain power and I could just look at the pretties.

Said plan got scrapped after I got talking to a fellow guest who invited me to join him for the day. Fair does. As long as it keeps me awake. So I toddled out with him in search of the first Starbucks.

Oh, yeah, I should mention that Seattle is the birthplace of Starbucks. Also; THEY ARE EVERYWHERE.

I had no idea where the place was, so just followed my new friend, which meant we ended up getting directions from a friendly guy at a glassblowing studio. Said friendly man also gave me a whole load of suggestions for places to check out in the city. Nice guy.

Anyways, we ended up at the Starbucks eventually. It's in Pike Place Market, an awesome public market near the waterfront. While my companion joined the hideously long queue to grab a coffee, I decided to support the local economy and grabbed a cuppa from a place a few doors down.

I have no idea how I was even awake at this point. Possibly my brain had pulled its magical trick where it gets so tired it wakes up again. Anyways, we spent some time wandering through the market and then made a stop at the lovely Rocky Mountain Chocolate shop just down the road where I had yet another cuppa and a big slab of gooey chocolate brownie.

Oh my god, the fatigue. At this point, my brain pulled a big fat nope on me, decided it needed to sleep and ordered me back to the hostel. So I had to abandon my guide and head in search of bed.

Mm. Sleep is lovely when you're that tired. Unfortunately, I then woke up at about 7pm starving hungry and with no idea where to get food. I ended up at one of the many Starbucks nearby and downed yet another cuppa. And then straight back to bed. Hurrah.

Eating my way through Pike Place

Even through my sleep-deprived fog the previous day, I'd managed to notice the many food options at Pike Place Market. Which meant first stop the following day was back there for breakfast. I settled on Piroshky, which sells... well, piroshky. These are basically stuffed pastries from Eastern Europe - in the case of this store, Russia. Their potato and mushroom piroshky was delicious as well as being super filling.

Hunger satisfied, I toddled up the road a ways to the Seattle Art Museum that I'd meant to visit the previous day. They have a pretty cool collection that ranges from Renaissance to Native American to modern art. There's even a small gallery of Aboriginal Australian contemporary art. A few favourites include some awesome masks used by a clan local to the Pacific Northwest.

An amazing and sometimes bizarre range of masks and headresses from across Africa.

And of course, I saw some ancient Mesopotamian artefacts, so I have to include some cuneiform.

I have a weird fascination with cuneiform script. No idea why. It's not like I can read it.

After spending the morning in the museum, I popped to a cafe across the road to meet up with John, who I lived with for a while when I was at university. We spent a couple of hours catching up, which was nice, plus I got even more suggestions of thiings to do! I'm liking this whole "being able to talk to people" thing.

By the time I left John it was approaching 5pm. My piroshky had gone a long way down and I didn't really fancy cooking. So I made my way back to Pike Place Market and grabbed a pot of clam chowder to take away. Amazingly it stayed hot all the way back to the hostel and it was delicious. Yum.

And then I spent the evening chatting to another of my fellow guests. Definitely getting good at this.

All the geekery

Friday began with taking advantage of the free breakfast at the hostel again, where I was told by a Canadian lady that I'd gone about my US trip planning wrong and was going far out of my way... I'm not sure I agree with her, because I know there's logic behind why I'm going to the places I'm going in the order that I'm going to them, but I wasn't in the mood to argue over breakfast. And she was otherwise very nice.

Anyway, stuffed with free bagels, I went for a walk along 5th Ave and up to the EMP Museum which had been suggested by several people (John and the guy from the glassblowing studio for starters).

It's a pretty cool place. It was founded by Paul Allen, co-founder/creator of Microsoft and hosts an awesome array of geekery, from horror to sci-fi, fantasy to music. As a fan of most of those, I managed to spend most of the day there. I even enjoyed the horror film gallery, partly because the props in the collection are pretty awesome. I mean, they have the stake known as Mr Pointy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I love Buffy. This is cool.

In the fantasy area there are props from The Princess Bride and Lord of the Rings, which meant much squeeing from me because these are among my favourite films. Look, they have Inigo Montoya's sword, used to duel the Six-Fingered Man.

Also, Gimli's Axe, Sting and Anduril from Lord of the Rings. Bearing in mind these are all original props from the films, please attempt to understand why I was so in love with this place.

The sci-fi gallery was also amazing. A huge range of stuff in here, including lightsabers, costumes and this Dalek.

And then onto the music galleries, which focus on Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana, for the obvious reasons that they both originated from the area around Seattle. There's also this awesome sculpture made out of guitars and stuff.

Which leads nicely into a little gallery about the evolution of the electric guitar. Some pretty cool things in there for those with an interest. There's this early Gibson experiment.

I finished my visit to the EMP Museum with a trip into their current special exhibition which is all about Star Trek. Seriously, this place is amazing. Although, stumbling across Data's head in the floor was just a little bit creepy.

But again, they've got loads of original props and costumes. Oh, and a case of tribbles. They should probably do something about that...

Completely overdosed on glorious geekery, I headed back to Pike Place to grab something for tea. I ended up this time with delicious falafel. Om nom nom. And then I actually braved a supermarket and stocked up on supplies. And Tim Tams.

Yes, Tim Tams. You can't get them in the UK as far as I'm aware and I thought you could only get them Down Under. Turns out they have them here and I couldn't resist. More deliciousness.

One more day in Seattle and then I'm getting on a bus to Yellowstone, via Salt Lake City.

Any tips on how to survive long distance bus travel?

USA: Can I have my fingerprints back, please?

Oh my. Nearly 3 months into this trip and I've finally reached my third country. I'm currently in Alaska, where I've spent much of the last week after saying toodle-pip to my Mum and sister. However, I think I left the last post in a bit of an odd place, so let's finish that off, shall we?

Why do you look so worried?

Wow. So, Saturday was our final day with Wes, our (almost) trusty RV. After nearly 2 weeks of driving around the Rockies in which he'd nearly killed us with carbon monoxide, stalled repeatedly and nearly lost a wing mirror, we had to deliver him back to the hire company in Calgary. On the way I spotted a dead elk...

Anyways, we dropped Wes off and then made our way into the city to the fancy hotel Mum had booked for our last night together before she and Amy flew back to the UK. Oh, and I mean fancy. Look at the shiny.

The Fairmont Palliser, originally built by the Canadian Pacific Railway (them again), hence the swank. Anyways, we couldn't actually get into our room because we were much too early, so we dropped the bags and headed out to explore.

Calgary is an odd little place. It's quiet. Very quiet. We popped into a little diner to have lunch - more pancakes for me. Om nom nom.

And then went down to the Eau Claire market, which was just as dead as the city centre. As was the lovely park on the island in the river.

Hmm.

After a very relaxed day, we headed out to the 1988 Olympic Park. This was the winter olympics that Eddie the Eagle was at as well as the famous Jamaican bobsleigh team whose exploits inspired Cool Runnings.

Yeah... bobsleigh... we went in a bobsleigh. Down the '88 track. Piloted by the Aussie team's pilot. Clocked something like 78mph on the way down.

It was awesome. Slightly terrifying at points. I mean, I'm short. You're supposed to keep your head up so you can see which way the bends are going, but I struggled at times. Too short to see past Mum. Resulted in a couple of bounces of my thankfully helmet-clad noggin off the sides.

So cool. Definitely recommend it.

We also had a go at the scooter luge they have on the site. Much less terrifying, very much fun. Although I did get stuck behind Amy who appeared to be driving like a granny. This is coming from me, the woman who managed to ram herself repeatedly into the wall many years ago on a kid's ride at a theme park in Germany. I should have been the one pootling along worrying about corners. I wasn't. I was sitting impatiently behind my little sister, wondering why she was going so slow and wincing every time someone overtook us.

Ah well. I had fun. I would have gone back for another go, but Mum and Amy weren't interested and there was a big old rain cloud rolling in.

Indeed, as we waited for the taxi to arrive, the rain started. Fortunately we found a tiny bit of shelter with these little signs about Olympic events.

We were trying to come up with creative names for them. Mum had an accidental un-PC moment when she titled the last one "competitive hopping" and I had to point out that the icon was actually for disabled sport, so yes, the figure did only have one leg. We thought it was quite funny afterwards.

And then Tim's for tea and a night in a nice, big, comfy bed. Ahhh.

My credit card is crying

Tim's, yet again, for breakfast. Followed by a trip to the Calgary Tower, which is like the CN Tower, only littler and much less crowded. And cheaper. And you get an audio guide included in the price. Take that, CN Tower.

Anyways, there are excellent views from the top and the audio guide is pretty awesome. Lots of interesting stories about the history of the city.

After that, it was time to say goodbye to Mum and Amy who had to catch their flight back to the UK. I headed off solo again, this time to a hostel just down the road from the hotel.

I spent the evening fighting with booking sites, trying to sort out a bit more of the US leg of my trip. I should have done this weeks ago, in preparation for dealing with whatever immigration questions I might face trying to enter the US. But no, I had to leave it until the night before my flight.

Fortunately, everything behaved in the end and I got everything booked for the first 2 weeks of my US leg. My credit card, as a result, was a bit shocked.

I spent my final night in Calgary trying to get some sleep in anticipation of an early start the next morning. I was rather foiled by the girl in the bunk beneath mine who snored. All night. Non-stop. Ugh.

Should I have a stamp?

Said snoring roommate meant that I was a right grump when I crawled out of bed at 5am the next morning. After a remarkably long (but cheap) bus ride to the airport, I got checked in and went to face the US Customs and Border Protection officers at pre-clearance.

There I was, all prepared with my tablet full of downloaded ticket confirmations, bank statements and travel insurance. The guy looks at me, takes my passport and tells me to put my hand on the scanner. So now the USA has my fingerprints. He hands back my passport. Sans stamp or anything to indicate how long I'm allowed to stay. He waves me away.

What the fuck?

Anyway, it's still only just gone 7am and I haven't had any caffeine, so I think nothing really of the fact that my passport has no stamp. Grabbed a Tim's for breakfast (probably my final Tim's for a long time, sad times).

Onto the plane, which is a little regional jet thing. Very tight on space. Uneventful flight, save the 40 minutes we spent sitting on the taxiway waiting for our gate, which I spent chatting to the guy next to me about travel.

And then I was in Seattle. I'd been told at the airport in Calgary that my bag was checked all the way through, so I figured I'd just go to the gate for my flight to Anchorage. Cabin crew on the plane disagreed, saying that anyone getting a connecting flight had to collect their bags, recheck them and go through security.

As a result, my sleep-deprived, caffeine starved self was just a little bit confused when I got off the plane and had to go in search of some sort of customer service person to help me. They confirmed that I could just go to the next gate. Hurrah.

Still, I was a bit worried about that security thing...

Obviously this wasn't too much of a problem, because I got on the plane with no problem and then spent a lovely few hours watching Disney films. Yay.

No security to go through at Anchorage, which confused the hell out of me, so I had to make use of the free Wi-Fi to make sure that I hadn't somehow managed to skip security at one of the three airports and that it was quite all right not to have a stamp in my passport. Google (and the US government websites) said, yes, that's fine, calm down.

And then I spent the afternoon lazing at the hostel. Oh, and I met an Eskimo lady. I should point out that she called herself an Eskimo lady, which surprised me because I was taught at school that Eskimo is a somewhat derogatory term. She was lovely.

Anchorage, why are you so warm?!

I spent my first morning in Anchorage having the most delightful lie-in. Oh, it was glorious. Hurray, catching up on sleep.

I then attempted to bring the blog up to date. I failed. Epically. So instead of moping around the hostel, I took a walk into the city and visited the Anchorage Museum.

Glad I did. A big chunk of the museum is closed for renovations at the moment, but the parts that are still open are brilliant. There's an excellent display covering the major native groups that live in the state, with some really interesting artefacts.

The gallery had quite a bit of input from Alaska Natives, from what I could gather, which I think is wonderful.

There's also a great section downstairs that's clearly aimed at kids, but I couldn't resist. My inner child had great fun playing with all the interactive displays. I even made a very short stop motion film featuring a couple of moose and a bear...

And of course, the obligatory infra-red camera.

As I left the museum, it was still way too warm. I had rather imagined Anchorage (and Alaska in general) to be a bit cooler, but it's been over 20 degrees every day so far, I think.

The Day Of Nothing

I actually have no idea where this day went. I think I probably wrote a blog post. And then read. A lot. Definitely read a lot. And nothing else. Productive much. I think I just needed a day (or three) to chill.

Hablas Espanol?

First, I realised that the hostel, which provides free breakfast, has a waffle maker and the staff actually provide the waffle mix. Which meant syrupy waffles for breakfast. Om nom nom.

After another lazy morning, I decided I couldn't just spend all day doing bugger all again, so I took myself for a walk along Chester's Creek. When I GoogleMapped this, it came out at about 3.5 miles for my planned route. It should have taken me just over an hour.

I'm pretty sure I did it in about 45 minutes, so either I went a different way or Google lied to me. Possibly a bit of both. At least I got out in the fresh air for a bit, but jeez, Alaska, why are you so warm?!

I spent the rest of the afternoon refreshing my Spanish. I had a bit of a freak out when I realised it's now less than a month until I plan to be in Peru so I thought I'd best brush up on my very rudimentary language skills. So far, my go to phrase is "Lo siento. No entiendo." (I'm sorry. I don't understand). This can be followed by either:

"Hablas Ingles?"

Or:

"Hablas mas despacio, por favor."

Basically, if anyone tries to talk to me, I'm screwed. Maybe.

You're welcome, Miss Zoe

After a day of apparently not doing anything other than farting about trying to learn Spanish, I made the effort to find something to do. This may have been partially spurred on by questions over breakfast from fellow guests about my plans for the day. Of which I had none at that point.

I ended up going into the city and taking the trolley bus tour. The sales chap insisted on calling me Miss Zoe, which I found both odd and sort of adorable. The tour itself was actually pretty interesting and included all sorts of little nuggets from the former school teacher who was our guide.

Passed by Earthquake Park, which was a section of the city which slipped quite a long way towards the inlet during the huge 1964 Good Friday Earthquake. We also got a glimpse of Denali, the mountain from which Denali National Park gets its name. Not bad, considering Denali is over 100 miles from Anchorage.

Also passed by the huge numbers of small planes that fly out of Anchorage. Apparently Alaska is home to half of the small planes in the USA. That's pretty impressive.

And then lunch, before I popped in to book a cruise around Prince William Sound to see all the glaciers. ALL THE GLACIERS. Hopefully I'll also see some wildlife. That'd be nice. Maybe whales again...

I spent the rest of the afternoon in the Visitor Centre, mostly watching the many films they have about Alaska's wildlife, its history and the aforementioned 9.2 magnitude earthquake. That was a few hours well spent, and free to boot.

Basically, my first almost-week in Anchorage has been relaxed. Surprisingly, my travel brain hasn't been yelling at me to get out and do things, so clearly I did need to take a break. No worries though - plans for next week include the cruise I booked and possible visits to the Alaska Native Heritage Center and maybe the zoo. Should keep me busy. Plus I have lots more Spanish to catch up on.

A few more days in Anchorage and then on to the lower 48!

Language Barriers: El regreso?

I spent January re-doing the entire second season of my Spanish course. All 40 episodes of it. But now I've finally moved on from the beginner lessons to the intermediate level. Hurrah!

It feels like quite a big step between the two levels. The course I'm following has jumped from using short conversations and a lot of explanation of grammar and vocabulary to having much longer conversations, although retaining the explanations afterwards.

Which is great for increasing my listening skills but I keep finding myself having a minor panic partway through the conversation sections. It goes something like this: get it, get it, get it, AAARGH A PHRASE I DON'T UNDERSTAND!!!, oh, get it, get it, get it.

So, I'm going to stick at it, but I'm at least getting more confident with the basics. I'm pretty sure I can get round the Spanish speaking bits of my round-the-world trip without too many language problems now. I'll just have to remember that pronunciation and vocabulary in Peru and Chile is a bit different to the Castillian Spanish I'm learning. And I'm sure I'll end up saying something wrong and make a fool of myself at some point, but isn't that half the fun?

Besides, at least I'm making the effort to learn some of the local language. Admittedly, this is as much because I have a fascination with languages as for its actual practical use, but given that the usual British idea of communicating with the locals seems to be speaking loudly and/or slowly, I figure I'm doing better than most.

DO...YOU...SPEAK...ENGLISH?

So, the plan is to complete the intermediate level of the course before I depart in June and then to complete the advanced level (as far as possible) between then and October when I plan to be in South America. Then will come the real test of my learning - whether I can actually talk to native speakers. I'm guessing the answer will be "sort of".

I've come to that conclusion because during the lessons, if my brain draws a blank on something or can't think how to say it in Spanish, it decides to try it not in English but in German. I haven't spoken much German since I finished my GCSE nearly a decade ago, so this is just a little bit ridiculous. For example, when trying to work out how to say that I only speak a little Spanish, my brain helpfully pointed out that in German that would be "nur ein bisschen." Not great.

Solo un poco

We'll get there in the end!

Do you learn some local phrases when you go travelling? Any tips for learning a new language? Why not share in the comments below.

Destination Daydreams: Quebec

Destination Daydreams has returned from the haze of Christmas and New Year and this time I'm looking at the beautiful Canadian province of Quebec. Enormous, as is much of Canada, with the population concentrated in the south and the wilds stretching away to the north. Oh, and predominantly French-speaking. Better get brushing up on the French I learned at school...

So, where to go?

Cities

I've got a week or so currently set aside to explore a little of the province so where should I go? Well, Montreal is certainly an obvious option. One of the biggest cities in Canada, packed full of culture - what's not to like? Well, apart from the fact that I'm not over-fond of big cities. I'm willing to forget about that though because SO.MANY.MUSEUMS. So, let's say I spend 3 or 4 days in Montreal overdosing on culture.

Where next? Quebec City. By bus or train - prices seem to be relatively similar at this point. Perhaps I should take the train and make the most of a little comfort while I can. After all, later on in the Canada stretch of my trip I'll be taking buses across the vast emptiness in the centre of the country. More on that in a later post.

Anyway, Quebec City. Looks like a quaint little place, full of beautiful old architecture. Maybe a nice place to unwind for a couple of days? I'd like to see if I can get out into the countryside around it as well, perhaps find a more outdoorsy activity. Canoeing would be lovely. I like a nice paddle - somewhere nice and calm where I can float along in peace. Ahh.

More museums... in another city

From there, I'd like to revisit Gatineau. I took a trip to what was then called the Canadian Museum of Civilization while on holiday with my parents. Now the Canadian Museum of History, it was the only time we got into Quebec and I'd love to go back to the Museum and explore the city some more. It's just the other side of the river from Ottawa and would provide an excellent gateway for the Ontario leg of the trip.

I mean, look, this museum is amazing. Even my dodgy photography of my even dodgier 2007 photography can show that...

I'm still researching other places to visit in Quebec, but I have to admit that I'm a bit limited by my lack of transport. Buses and trains can only get me so far, after all. That said, I'm also going to have to keep a close eye on how much time I spend in Canada, since I've got a fixed date for meeting up with my mother and sister in Vancouver. Oh, decisions, decisions!

If you could go anywhere in Quebec, where would you go? Do you think a week or so is enough time to really appreciate the province or should I stay longer? Let me know in the comments below.

The Grand Tour: Convincing People I'm Not Crazy

I'm going travelling for a year. Did you know?

I'm assuming if you've been paying vague attention to the blog that, yes, you probably did have an idea. Friends, colleagues and relatives though... that's another matter.

I went out for a meal with some folks from work a while back and the reactions to me going away though positive were usually followed by the inevitable.

"Are you going on your own?"

Why yes, yes I am going on my own? Why so surprised? Plenty of people go travelling on their own and the angry feminist bit of my brain (most of it) wonders whether my colleagues would have bothered to ask if I was male.

Anyway, here's why I'm not crazy to go off travelling on my own for a year.

1. I'm not an idiot.

I may have an immature streak but I have enough common sense not to go wandering off in the dark through places I don't know.

2. I do my research.

Following on from the above, I do my research before I travel. That doesn't mean my plans won't change when I reach a destination, but I'd hope I know enough about the area to not get into trouble.

3. I speak English...

OK, so I'm relying on the fact that many people all over the world speak English, but I'm hoping this means I'll not have too much difficulty making myself understood.

4. And I'm learning some other languages.

The major non-English-speaking areas I'm visiting are Peru and Chile, so I'm making the effort to learn at least basic conversational Spanish. I'm also brushing up on my existing French and German for when I get to Europe and am considering learning a few words of Khmer for Cambodia.

5. I track everything.

Basically, I am my father's daughter. Dad's an accountant and I've got into the habit of keeping track of everything I spend while away so that I know if I'm going to have cash problems. Hasn't happened yet. Likelihood is that I'm not going to end up stranded in the middle of Australia having blown my budget.

6. I'm a fairly friendly person.

I'd like to think I'm the type of person who people wouldn't mind pointing towards the bus station. Because I'm bound to get lost at some point.

7. I've done this before.

On a much smaller scale and in a slightly different context, but I went out to Australia to study for a year, on my own, not knowing anyone when I got there. It was amazing.

See, I'll be fine. But I'm going to leave this here for concerned friends/relatives/colleagues just in case. The thing is, I keep being told by others that they could never do something like this. And I wonder whether it's a lack of motivation (job, family, house tying them down) or if they're genuinely scared of going away on their own.

I'm not brave. There's plenty of things scare the bejesus out of me, but travel isn't one of them. Travel is an adventure. Not something to be scared of.

Have you gone travelling alone? What would you say to convince people you weren't crazy?

Language Barriers: Tête, épaules, genoux et pieds

I'm about half an hour away from finishing the second block of my Spanish course. Hurray! It's taken me rather longer than I intended, mostly because my attention span is appalling.

On the plus side, it does seem to be sinking in and I'm fairly confident I can understand the basics. Question is, do I carry on into block 3 or do I take a break?

Nah. Let's go with neither of the above. I'm going to give Spanish a break for a bit (read... a month or two?) and refresh my French instead. Yeah, sounds like a plan.

I learned French when I was little, so how hard can it be to catch up on the basics? I can introduce myself, say I don't understand and I know way too many silly things like animals and colours.

Oh, and I can sing Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes. Which I mentioned to my teacher at primary school when we were learning French and then she asked me to teach it to the class. I think I refused...

So I figure I'll do the first block of French lessons (1-40 on Coffee Break French) and then I'll go back to Spanish.

I'm hoping I might get to use the French relatively soon, since I'm trying to talk a friend into going abroad for the first time. We're currently torn between Paris (so she doesn't have to get on a plane) and Krakow.

Oooh, I wonder if I can find some Polish lessons. Anyone know of any good resources I should dig out?

Short post is short.

Language Barriers: Catching up on Spanish

I've got a bit behind with my Spanish. I got interrupted halfway through season 2 by my trip to Wales and only got back into it just before I left for Ireland.

I'm on it though - back to the old hour a day routine. Or at least trying. Not necessarily finding the time what with all the adventuring we're doing around Ireland (of which more next week when I get back).

Still finding it fun though. Season 1 of Coffee Break Spanish focussed mostly on phrases used by tourists, which was great since my original idea had been to just get the basics so I could get by. Season 2 though has moved onto the grammar rules and this is brilliant. I love languages and knowing how they work, I find, makes them easier to understand. It means I can take an educated guess at what someone might be saying, even if their words aren't always ones that I recognise.

Of course, it does help that I studied Latin at school and there are some similarities in verb endings and in the verb roots themselves. For example, present tense verb endings are as follows in Spanish vs Latin:

OK, so they're not entirely obvious, but they feel like similar patterns to me and it's helping me to remember them.

One of the best things I'm finding with this programme though is that the tutor gives both the Spanish and South American pronunciations where they differ. This is great for me because one of the major reasons for me learning Spanish is to get by in Peru and Chile, which will of course use the South American pronunciations.

Once I've got through Season 2, I might take another break from Spanish for a while. I fancy trying another language. Radio Lingua offer French, German and Italian for free as part of the Coffee Break series, so I could try one of them. I already know quite a lot of German and enough French to say I don't understand, so maybe Italian?

I'm thinking though of the places I plan to visit on the Grand Tour that aren't English speaking. The next non-English speaking place after Chile is Cambodia. How hard do you think it is for an English speaker to learn Khmer? Anyone know of anyone good resources for basic phrases?

Language Barriers: Cupla focal...

Oh dear.

The Spanish learning is going so well that I decided to try Welsh as well. Not because I'm currently in Hay-on-Wye and fighting off hordes of Welsh (yeah, right). More because it's an interesting language and it'd be nice to be able to work out what some of the road signs say.

Of course, me being me and not quite thinking this through, I made a start on my Welsh language learning adventure in a lunch break at work. Sure I must have pulled some weird faces because I was trying not to repeat the phrases aloud. At least with my Spanish lessons I've been listening to them at home so only my dad and sister have to put up with my slightly mangled pronunciation. Indeed, my dad's still amused that the tutor on Coffee Break Spanish is a Scot.

Wait till he hears the Welsh lessons I've found...

The Welsh course is (helpfully) by actual Welsh people. Which is great. But the course itself is a sort of "learn by repetition" sort of thing. It's very dry compared to the fun of Coffee Break Spanish, but it seems to be building vocabulary quite quickly.

That said, it's not holding my attention so I've moved on for now. Instead I'm making a start on Irish. As you may have gathered from other posts, I'm heading out to Ireland for a couple of weeks with friends in September and given that a lot of our route goes through Irish-speaking areas (Gaeltacht), I thought it would be cool to be able to say a few words.

Cupla focal...

I'm enjoying my Spanish lessons loads so I had a poke around the Radio Lingua Network website and discovered that they do a short course in Irish, helpfully called One Minute Irish. It only covers the very basic and unlike the basic podcasts for Spanish, German, French and Italian, it's not free (£7.50 for the 10 lessons). However, in keeping with Coffee Break Spanish, it's turning out to be good fun and I'm beginning to get my head round some basic phrases.

Dia duit!

It might be One Minute Irish, but the actual podcasts tend to last 3-4 minutes; enough time to go through the phrases a couple of times and get your tongue round the slightly weirder parts of Irish pronunciation. Someone explain to me why dia duit, meaning "good day", is pronounced almost jia ditch?

The lessons themselves are great and rely on repetition, but if you want to know how the phrase is actually spelled the podcasts come with synchronised flash cards so the words come up as they're spoken. Personally, I found it easier to listen to the lessons first and then go back through and see how everything was spelled. Best not to confuse myself with counter-intuitive spelling!

It's pretty good fun. Not sure I'll be brave enough to actually try it out on real Irish speaking people though. I feel funny looks might be the only response... We'll see.

Language Barriers: No hablo español...

Well, that’s gone and done it. I’ve committed myself to learning Spanish. I plan to achieve a high enough level of proficiency that by the time I hit the South American legs of the Grand Tour I’ll be able to hold a decent conversation with people. Even if they do still laugh at my pronunciation.

What do you mean, Spanish is pronounced differently depending on where in the world you are? Psht.

Seriously, though, I think this could be good fun. Prior to the beginning of July, my grasp of Spanish was limited to por favor and gracias. In the space of 2 days that expanded to cover a whole range of greetings and basic questions. You know, the usual – what’s your name, where are you from, etc etc.

And all achieved in the space of little over an hour. Wahey. This is courtesy not to my amazing language learning skills (although I do rather love them and it’s a shame I didn’t keep up my German and what little French I had) and more to the fact that I found a great little language learning programme online that teaches through bitesized podcasts. So I can do an hour, half an hour or even just 15 minutes of an evening and still feel like I’m achieving something. If I really wanted, I could do it in my lunch break or on the walk home from work.

Puedes hablar más despacio?

Ok, so sure the first few lessons weren’t all that taxing. I’m sure there must be something coming up about genders and tenses and all those yummy things I remember from German and Latin, but I must have a bit of a head start there, right? I studied Latin for 4 years (highest GCSE grade in my class, fuck yeah) and there’s enough similarities between the two that I’m hoping I won’t find it too difficult to grasp. Plus, there’s also quite a few similarities between Spanish and English so hurray for that too.

From starting the course, it’s over a year until I plan to be in South America. Plenty of time, right? I might even start on the French and Italian courses and maybe take a little refresher in German given that currently my German has diminished to yelling Was ist los mit dir? at my laptop when it’s refusing to work. Obviously I do actually remember more than that, but that’s just such a lovely phrase when Bob the Third is throwing a hissy fit and I’m getting hacked off with him.

Moving on.

The programme is called Coffee Break Spanish and it's presented by a couple of Scots. The podcasts themselves are free but you can pay for additional content like lesson notes and whatnot. We'll see how well I do with just the podcasts first, I think, and then maybe I'll look at forking out for the extras.

At the time of posting this, nearly three quarters of the way through the first season of 40 episodes. No doubt I'll need to go back over certain episodes and recap on things that I'm not sure on, but I think that's pretty good progress from knowing just a few words to being able to hold at least a small conversation. I'm also now able to ask for directions and use that delightful phrase beloved of travellers:

Lo siento no entiendo

I'm sorry, I don't understand.

I'm pretty sure that at the moment my understanding of Spanish is better than my spoken Spanish - that is, I can understand what people are saying, but I haven't quite got the hang of speaking it myself. Like I mentioned above, though, I'm not going to be anywhere Spanish-speaking for over a year, so I've got plenty of time to work it out. For a start, there's 3 more seasons of 40 episodes each of Coffee Break Spanish to go at.

Should be fun. Let's face it, learning a language has to be more fun than that time I had a fever and my brain decided to try to operate in Latin. Failing that it switched to German. For an entire night. It was awful...

I'll be making Language Barriers a regular thing, so look out for more posts about my language learning adventures! Maybe by the next time I post, I'll be able to say:

Hablo un poco de español

You can find more info about Coffee Break Spanish and the other courses offered by the Radio Lingua Network here: http://radiolingua.com/