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?

Canada: Sunburn, road tripping and more whales

I am well into week 3 of my trip now and onto my second country, Canada. Here's what's happened since my immigration fun last week.

First up, I spent a couple of days in Halifax, Nova Scotia. After the palavah at Immigration and a strange almost-jet-lag, I decided to be a lazy bugger and spent most of my first day lounging around the hostel, emerging just for an hour or two in the morning. That was just long enough to locate the nearest Tim Hortons and revisit my love of what is essentially a Starbucks/MacDonalds type fast food place. I don't know what it is about Tim's, but I'm still in love with it nearly a decade after I first visited Canada.

Ahem. Moving on. In the afternoon, I accidentally ended up organising a mini road trip with one of my room mates. Bearing in mind I hadn't even been in the country 24 hours and my social skills are... limited... this is pretty impressive. Woo for this.

Due to the sudden change of plans - I had originally intended on spending nearly a week in Halifax - I spent my second day with my new road trip buddy trying to see a couple of city highlights. We started off with the Citadel, which is a big fort us Brits built to keep the French and the local Mi'kmaq people out.

Apparently it was never attacked, so I'm assuming it worked as a deterrent. Pretty interesting place, with the slightly kitschy bonus of having all the guides costumed as soldiers.

That's the guys who fired the noon gun, which they still do every day at the Citadel.

For added relevance, given the date, the Army Museum at the Citadel is home to one of the poppies that filled the moat at the Tower of London.

It's the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme, by the way.

We then decided to head down the waterfront and catch a ferry across to Dartmouth on the other side of the bay. The view of Halifax was nice. Dartmouth... not so much. We came back pretty quick.

No left turn...

Next morning the road trip began. Just as my road trip buddy, Shula, got the hang of Canadian roads with the help of another guy from the hostel. She's fine now, but I had a couple of squeaky moments the first day or two! Damn every other country and their insistence on driving on the wrong side of the road.

From Halifax, we took a leisurely drive up to Digby, a tiny little place on the Bay of Fundy. Lovely hostel - very social, which meant we spent most of that evening chatting with the other guests and then went out for ice cream at gone 10pm. Amazing ice cream was had, although my stomach began to regret it later in the night. Meh.

English... French... Acadian... uh...

We had hoped to go whale watching on the Monday, but were told that there was only one trip going from our chosen company that day and we didn't have time to get there from Digby. So instead we went for a drive around the area, starting at the beautiful Bear River.

There's lots of artists around here and a whole host of little galleries and shops. I picked up some art print cards and then grabbed a delicious iced tea and brownie at a cafe down the road. So much yum. And yes, the Canadians are so far conforming to the stereotype of being super friendly.

From Bear River we headed up the road to Annapolis Royal, the original capital of Nova Scotia, where we had a wander along the bay front in the blazing sun, I got a bit more sunburnt and we checked out the tidal power station. I quite like renewables (as should you all!), so I thought this was fascinating.

The Bay of Fundy famously has one of the highest tidal ranges in the world (average spring tide is 14.5 metres), so a tidal plant here seems sensible. Water passes through the causeway as the tide comes in and is collected in a head pond on the landward side. When the tide starts going out again, they let the water back out of the head pond, passing through turbines on the way. Ta-dah. Electricity.

Science bit done.

Then we had to do some shopping and got some free salmon skewers because they were about to go out of day. Thanks, supermarket man. Would've been better if we hadn't then nearly charcoaled them and set off all the smoke alarms in the hostel...

Zoe 3 - 1 Whales

Our final day in Digby dawned a bit grey. I phoned the whale watch people and was warned that the chances of seeing whales wasn't great because it was very windy on the bay and they wouldn't be taking the boat out very far. We decided to head down anyway, because if the boat did go out, we'd have a chance of seeing something even if it wasn't whales.

So we piled mine and Shula's bags into the car, making sure we had enough space for Renee from the hostel to hop in with us, and headed on down Digby Neck to the tiny village of Westport. This involved taking 2 little ro-ro ferries, which only cost $7 for each trip, plus you only pay westbound.

On arrival in Westport we were again warned that whale-spotting chances were slim and that now even getting out on the water was a diminishing possibility because so many people had dropped out. We decided to stick with it though and after grabbing a refreshing cuppa, trooped onto the boat.

For nearly two hours we stared out into the bay, willing a whale to appear. I even considered trying Dory's whale-speak on them. Renee spotted a seal and then we saw some puffins.

And then Renee, with her super eagle eyes, spotted a whale. Just for a second. I'd say probably a minke going by the size and shape, but I only got a brief look and by this point, the skipper had got word of whales elsewhere and we didn't stop.

For a while I was disappointed that we hadn't stopped to see what sort of whale Renee had seen. Such disappointment quickly vanished when we caught up with the other whales.

Each of those little plumes is the blow of a fin whale. I counted either 4 or 5 altogether. At first, that's all we saw and then, much to everyone's delight, we saw the whales.

That is the only fairly clear image I have of the whales (there's one towards the bottom left of the image), but we got plenty of time to see them. They swam just ahead of the boat and we very carefully followed them at a distance. For the next 15 minutes or so they kept popping back up. I'm sure we would have stayed out longer, but fog was rolling in and as we turned for port Brier Island had completely vanished into the fog bank. Kind of worrying when it's Brier Island we were heading for.

Suffice to say, we did make it safely back to port, still buzzing from our whale encounter. Westport was very pretty in the fog as well.

Unfortunately, we just missed the ferry back across, so we had an hour to grab some food before heading back to Digby. Delicious and reasonably priced burger and chips was scoffed in the car as we waited on the wharf for the ferry to reappear out of the fog.

After that, it was a super foggy drive back to Digby to drop Renee off and then Shula and I had to begin the epic long drive to Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island. Because of the slightly-longer-than-expected whale watching trip and the missed ferry, we were setting off nearly an hour later than I would have liked. Fortunately, because we had to drop Renee, I had time to use the phone at the previous hostel and give the next one a ring to warn them we were going to be late. Very late. Horribly late.

The drive was uneventful. We finally rolled into Charlottetown after 1am, having stopped just a couple of times for gas and a massive cup of tea from Tim Hortons for me.

And then I slept like a log.

Kitsch-central

First day on PEI we had a wander round Charlottetown, which is quite pretty and also has a cafe that sells amazing Island Strawberry Green Tea. It is delicous and went very well with the blueberry scone which wasn't really a scone - the Canadians seem to have a funny idea as to what counts as a scone. This was not a scone.

After our morning wander, we headed up to the north coast to Cavendish. This was the birthplace of the author LM Montgomery, who wrote Anne of Green Gables. To my surprise, Green Gables actually exists, although the way it is presented now is to match with the books, not as Montgomery knew it. It was a farm just near to the one she grew up on and inspired much of her writing, as did the beautiful landscape around Cavendish.

This is the point at which I admit I haven't read Anne of Green Gables, but the sites were fascinating nonetheless. All that remains of her childhood home is the cellar.

Whereas Green Gables has been preserved and decorated to match the descriptions in the books. I can only presume there must be a mention of this insane wallpaper in there, because it seemed very out of place in such a plain house.

Green Gables, of #anneofgreengables fame, actually exists at #cavendish on #princeedwardisland. Not sure who was responsible for this amazingly #colourful #wallpaper though... #canada #literature #nationalhistoricsite #greengables #pei #travel #roundtheworld #rtw #decor

A photo posted by Zoë Dixon (@kiwifruitpolice) on Jun 29, 2016 at 4:35pm PDT

Attack of the midges

Our final full day on PEI began with rain, which fortunately cleared to gorgeous blue skies by the time we set off towards the north east of the island to the little Greenwich peninsula. This is part of the Prince Edward Island National Park and very pretty. Rolling sand dunes, forests, grassland and this floating boardwalk over the pond.

Beautiful clear sea.

And a lovely view of the dunes.

Pretty nice afternoon, but with some time still to spare, we headed across the narrow eastern end of the island to the little town of Souris and its quaint lighthouse.

Didn't stick around long, but there's some good views to be had from that there lighthouse. And then back to the hostel, where I made the most disgusting looking hoisin stir fry ever. Tasted all right though.

This morning, we have driven from Charlottetown to Campbellton, New Brunswick. Along the way we've stopped to admire the pretty coast of PEI.

Grabbed an ice cream at Borden-Carleton, just before the massive Confederation Bridge to the mainland.

Stopped at Tim Hortons in Miramichi, had to back track because the road was closed for no apparent reason and then picked up a hitchhiker just outside Campbellton who proceeded to tell us all about his family history and the Battle of Hastings. And took us across the river into Quebec where confusingly all the signs are in French only.

Oh, and I must mention that I'm staying in a lighthouse. A LIGHTHOUSE. Yeah. This trip is pretty awesome.

Tonight there's going to be fireworks because it's Canada Day and then tomorrow is our last day with the car. Final day of exploring New Brunswick before I leave Shula and head off to Quebec City for a few days.

Happy Canada Day, folks.

Iceland: Whales, soup and... penises?

Wow, my time in Iceland went pretty quick. I'm now in Canada, exploring the Atlantic provinces for a few weeks before heading inland. I spent much of my 10 days in Iceland feeling like I was just on holiday and that come the end of my stay, I'd be heading home. Obviously that's not the case and now it feels like this is finally real. Weird sensation.

Anyway, enough of that rambling. Here's what I've been up to over the past week.

The Ring Goes... North

I took a 6 hour bus around the Ring Road to get to Akureyri. This is Iceland's second biggest city after Reykjavik, although city is being generous - there's only about 18,000 people living there. It's a lovely little place though, all spread out down the side of Eyjafjordur and surrounded by mountains.

The drive itself was pretty cool too, given that the weather held out all the way there so I could actually see the scenery. It feels a bit like driving through New Zealand - the landscapes here are huge for such a small island.

FOUR HUMPBACK WHALES!

My first real day in Akureyri, I'd planned to go to the city museum and then to the Botanical Gardens in the afternoon. The gardens are the northernmost botanical gardens in the world, so that would have been good.

However...

Akureyri and the nearby town of Husavik are supposedly the best places in Iceland from which to go whale watching. So, on my way down towards the museum I stopped in at the whale watching companies, thinking to book a trip for the next day. The first place (and the cheapest) turned out to have availability for that afternoon, so I jumped on that instead.

That didn't really give me chance to go to the museum, so I headed back to the hostel, grabbed my cold weather gear and went back down to the harbour.

We spent about an hour motoring down towards the mouth of the fjord in search of whales and were rewarded with sighting 4 humpbacks over the hour or so we spent down there. Unfortunately, I'm still getting the hang of my new camera, so all of my photos are really bad. Here's the best of a bad bunch.

The highlight of the trip, though, was the moment we turned to head for port and caught sight of this.


That, is a pair of humpbacks breaching. Repeatedly. I think they did it 2 or 3 times each. Fortunately, the guide on board the boat filmed that, because I managed to miss every single breach with my camera and eventually gave up in favour of just watching this amazing spectacle.

I didn't get much done for the rest of that day... too busy buzzing about whales.

Wait, I fib. I went for a walk down the fjord. I had intended to walk down as far as the airport, because the runway sticks out into the fjord. I got as far as the end of the runway and gave up because it's actually quite a long way and the wind is very cold and I was wearing the wrong shoes and I should just stop making excuses, right?

Anyway, the fjord is very pretty and full of little families of eider ducks. The ducklings are adorable and I was very tempted to steal them all.

Here there be monsters...

My second day in Akureyri, I did make it to the city museum, which had a fascinating exhibition about the history of Iceland maps. That is, there was a room full of maps of Iceland and I was in heaven. Here there be monsters and a koala called Harold.

Then I went for lunch at the Nordic Bistro and finally tried Icelandic lamb soup. Really delicious and the bread that came with it was just as good. I'm not normally a fan of lamb, but it was so warming and just what I needed after walking back from the museum in the strong winds which blow down the fjord.

#delicious bowl of #icelandic #lamb #soup or #goulash with #fresh #bread in #akureyri, #iceland. #food #travel #rtw #roundtheworld

A photo posted by Zoë Dixon (@kiwifruitpolice) on Jun 21, 2016 at 3:09am PDT

As with all things in Iceland, not exactly cheap, but worth it.

I had intended to spend the afternoon exploring the Botanical Gardens that I'd missed out on the day before, but the wind was picking up and as I left the bistro, a huge black cloud had settled over the length of the fjord and I didn't fancy my chances of a dry afternoon so headed back to the hostel to lounge around - midnight sun isn't entirely conducive to good sleep patterns.

Sure enough, it pissed down all afternoon. I made up for the wasted time by heading back into town in the evening to catch Finding Dory at the tiny cinema. It's one of those little local places where they still put an interval in, even when it's not needed. Funny seeing the film with Icelandic subtitles and I had great fun trying to work out what all the Icelandic adverts were for.

The Ring Goes South

(and if you're not singing the Lord of the Rings theme... shame)
Tuesday morning I got back on the bus and headed down south to Reykjavik. Fairly uneventful, save for the 5 minutes we had to stop the bus because a huge herd of Iceland's famous horses were crossing the road. They just kept coming! Beautiful animals and my photos don't do them justice.

Oh, and then there was the drunk woman who got on the bus and sat next to me for the last hour into Reykjavik. Very drunk, very loud and at one point randomly burst into tears. I didn't know what to do so I just left her to it.

I then had great fun trying to explain to the bus driver on the local bus that I wanted to get off at Rauðarárstígur. I can't pronounce Rauðarárstígur so I tried asking for the stop before Hlemmur, which it is and at least I can pronounce Hlemmur. He just thought I wanted to get off at Hlemmur. Fortunately, the ticket's the same price regardless. Phew.

It's bigger than me...

On my final full day in Iceland I took a wander to the Phallological Museum. Yes, Iceland has a museum dedicated to the penis. It is bizarre. This is a sperm whale penis. It is definitely longer than I am tall. Which is sort of terrifying.

Perhaps more terrifying is the fact that some crazy Icelander actually donated his own... bits... to the museum when he died. No photos of that. Too freaked out. Also, boar penises are curly. Like pigs' tails.

Moving swiftly on. Having weirded myself out with the museum, I decided to take a walk around the bay to Grotta, which is either the lighthouse or the island the lighthouse is on. Either way, it turned out to be quite a lot further around the bay than I'd anticipated. I did make it though, just in time to see the lighthouse vanish into a fog bank. Going...

Going...

Gone.

It's amazing how quick that fog rolled in. Fortunately it was still quite warm and at least it was dry. Due to this, I was getting thirsty and also hungry because I'd just walked 4 miles and my breakfast had gone a long way down. Lucky for me there's a whole bunch of little cafes and the like down at the harbour.

The harbour was 3 miles away.

So by the time I got there I was starving. Which meant when I crossed the road and a wave of delicious smell hit me, I headed straight into a tiny burger bar. And I mean tiny.

There I had the most deliciously greasy burger and skinny McCains chips. Yes, Iceland uses McCains chips. And while the burger was greasy, it was definitely proper meat. Yum. Not like MacDonalds, which reminds me...

Having stuffed my face and with my legs protesting that I'd just walked a lot further than I have for quite a while, I decided to head back to the hostel. And I finally found where they're keeping it.

See, the Bus Hostel in Reykjavik is the proud owner of the last Big Mac sold in Iceland. They keep it on the bar. Ta-dah!

And then I watched the Iceland-Austria match and cheered when Iceland scored a goal in the closing seconds to set up a meeting with England in the next round. Oh, the conflict - Iceland are the underdog and I love an underdog, but I'm English. Who the hell do I support? Guh.

Nothing to declare

So dawned my final day in Iceland. It began with an argument with the Delta Airlines site when I tried to book a flight from Calgary to Anchorage, just in case I was asked for an onward ticket at the airport. Got that sorted eventually, but I nearly gave up and would have risked it.

Fortunately, the rest of my day in Reykjavik went much better. I had a stroll around the city and finally had a look inside Harpa, the funky looking concert hall on the bay.

Also bought myself a little souvenir in the form of a funky little luggage tag, because I realised after the debacle at the airport on the way in that I should probably have some sort of ID on my rucksack.

Then I grabbed a delicious falafel and feta pita for lunch before heading up to Hallgrimskirkja. This is a huge church on a hill in the city centre. You can see it from all the way across the bay in Akranes. I'd been up it when I visited last year, so I wanted to see whether the view was any better with clearer skies.

Sort of. It was a pretty cloudy day in Reykjavik. After that, it was off to the airport again.

Uneventful airport times (save for a slight delay), uneventful flight in which I finally watched Deadpool (awesome film) and then about 45 minutes later than scheduled, I arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

And promptly had to go and talk to Immigration. Which would have been fine, but my brain thought it was about 1am by this point. I had to show the nice lady my online banking to prove I had the funds for my trip, tried to explain that I had no firm plans except to be in Vancouver on August 12th and that I'd booked a flight that morning to leave Canada on August 29th.

It probably didn't take as long as I think it did, but I was getting seriously concerned they weren't going to let me stay as long as I needed. And I could feel myself going pink, guilt complex kicking in. Maybe I had done something wrong? What other proof did they need? What the hell was I going to do if they didn't let me have my 2 and a half months?

Yeah. That wasn't a great way to arrive.

Fortunately, after much babbling about my very vague plans ("how're you getting around?" -"umm... I'm going to take buses and trains. I think... I'm told they're all right. Umm... I don't drive."), the nice lady finally stamped my passport and let me in.

Phew.

Then I just had to wait another hour to get the shuttle into the city. Lovely friendly chap gave me directions, just in case the driver couldn't drop me outside the hostel. And then I drank a huge cup of tea because OH MY GOD I NEEDED THE CAFFEINE.

And so, I am now in Canada for 2 and a half months. Ish. More adventure awaits.

Anyone else had fun with Immigration before? Do share!