New Friends

I have been meaning to post this photo for quite some time, however with the travelling across Canada, it was a little bit difficult. I met a couple of lovely ladies just before I left Florida, they were staying in the resort and I got to chatting with them. Carol and Deb were delightful and are a fabulous example of the amazing people that I get to interact with on a daily basis at the lodge. They had some great advice for me in my future endeavors and even took a photo of us on the 6th floor! If you ladies are out there reading this, it was a true pleasure to meet you!!

DLP

So I'm home now, and it's amazing to be back here.  I just adore Victoria and am so happy to be home. I miss Orlando tho, and I'm excited to go back for a visit next week. I have some great news, I spoke to the recruiter from Disneyland Paris and they've approved me for a later start time. I still have one class left to finish to graduate and I wanted to take an advanced french class as well, just to make sure my french is up to par, and if I started in September I wouldn't be able to do that. Plus this way I can tie up some loose ends here at home and that's very nice. It's a big weight off my shoulders, moving to another continent is a wee big stressful!
So I get to stay home for a bit, sell my condo, etc, and sort my life out before I leave! Yay!

So much to say

Well it's been a delightful time! We went to Banff, visited my friends over there, saw the mountains, and ate at my favorite restaurant. Which is 'The Grizzly House'. It's a fondue/hot rock restaurant and it's so much fun!! I adore it there. Derrek ate all kinds of crazy animals. Snake, shark, venison!! Etc. I ate chicken!! It was so wonderful to see my Banff friends and catch up. As per usual we didn't get to stay long enough, and it was hard to leave. From there we went to Penticton to see Lindsey which was wonderful also! We floated down the channel and enjoyed the sun! We only got one day there and then off to van we went. I got to see an old friend there that I haven't seen in a very long time so that was amazing. And now I'm on the ferry to the island!!! Huzzah!!! I can't even express how happy I am to be going home. I'm giddy!!! I haven't been home since January! Yay! .

This is the view of the Bow valley from the resort I used to work at in Banff, the Rimrock! So many memories

The Bow Falls.....still unsure why they call them falls, they're just big rapids!

You know you're in Banff when you run into lots of these guys!

This is actually Penticton as seen from Lindsey's balcony!

 

Niagara Falls

So we left Toronto and headed to Niagara Falls for the day! The way the buses worked out, we got to Niagara at noon and then would be able to leave in the evening for Winnipeg! So we spent the day at the falls. When you get into Niagara, the area around the bus stop is the 'old downtown' area and it's kind of like something out of a zombie movie! It's all boarded up and desolate. No people anywhere. We opted to walk to the actual falls and by the time we got down there, it looked more like civilization again. The falls are stunning!! Absolutely gorgeous! Then there's this random street called Clifton Hill that is like a little mini Las Vegas that just appears from nowhere. It also reminds me of highway 192 in Florida. Crazy buildings and haunted houses and massive dinosaurs coming out of buildings and stuff. Totally random. Massive tourist trap. There's also a few lovely parks and things that we wandered through. Overall I really enjoyed Niagara Falls, I would like some more time to explore it!!  

Toronto

So we just left Toronto. It was lovely. I enjoyed it a lot more than I did the last time I was there, probably because I had some friends to show me around. We had a lot of fun wandering around during the day, we went to Chinatown and all over! Then we went for dinner with some of my friends from Banff, it was so nice to see everyone!! I enjoyed Toronto. I think I could live there, I like how much is going on all the time!  

More Ottawa

I think one of the most amazing things about visiting friends while traveling is that you get to gain an insight into their lives. In Ottawa that meant two kids. Now if you know me at all you know that I'm not good with kids. Not even a little. In fact it's comical how bad I am with children, probably because I never want any. But Aly's kids are different, we got along famously. So I had to take this chance to mention that I can be trusted to ensure that children don't explode or hurt themselves. Derrek is fabulous with kids, he just laughs at how awkward I am with them. I took photos as proof!!  

Ottawa

We have spent the last few days in the capital of our lovely nation!! When we arrived, my lovely friend Alysn picked us up from the airport with her two kids! I haven't seen her in a few years so it was a really fabulous reunion! We spent some quality time catching up while the kids (and Derrek) napped. The first night we went on a really cool walking tour of Ottawa and heard a bunch of ghost stories and stuff. The highlight was a hostel that used to be a jail!!! We got to go up to the top floor and see the cells and they were so tiny it was crazy. The jail was eventually shut down because of the inhumaine conditions!! So cool. It also has this awesome gallows that was the site of the last government sanctioned hangings in Canada. SO COOL!! If we hadn't had a place to stay I would totally have wanted to stay there! Apparently for a long time they had an offer at the hostel where if you could spend the whole night in one of the cells your night was free. However noone ever made it though a whole night so they stopped doing it. I bet I could last a night.

The jail cells!!

The location of the last sanctioned hangings in Canada!!

Aly and little Jasmine! Bedtime stories!!

z

Bus Adventure

So we are on a bus! We were waylaid a bit in Moncton but we are now back on track and are on a bus to Montreal!! That is a 15 hour bus trip, just so you all know. It's been fun. And wierd. There's always interesting folks on busses. Currently there's an intoxicated French man talking to himself about how we all 'Le text message' too much. So that's fun. About 3 more hours left until Montreal. I love how noone speaks English here, it makes me practice my French. C'est Bien!! I also forgot to mention that we spent our last night in Moncton at a lakeside cabin belonging to some friends of mine. It was gorgeous!! The lake was lovely and warm. There was a thunderstorm too, and the sound of the rain on the roof was so soothing and wonderful. I have some photos!
 

Peggy's Cove

So yesterday we parted ways from the lovely companionship of Chelsea and David and met up with my friend Mat. He's from New Brunswick so he came to meet us in Halifax! We went to Peggy's Cove, which is gorgeous and in fact I believe it is the most photographed place in North America!! It's absolutely stunning!! I loved it. Ive never been to the east coast of Canada and I'm so happy we came. We decided to camp at a site near the cove. We went to the store and Derrek decided he wanted to cook up some Nova Scotia lobster. So he tried to buy a pot, but they were really expensive. So he found a tin flower vase at winners and got that. And we managed to cook lobster in the vase over a campfire. It was pretty epic! The sunset was gorgeous and we had a really great evening by the fire. Today we are headed off to New Brunswick and are camping somewhere there!! I love the gypsy life!! I could get
used to this!!
  z

Living the dream

Not that I needed a new definition of friendship, but I have found new depths!! Every step so far on this journey that I have met up with old friends, and every stop feels like I never want to leave! I think that's a true friend, one that you never want to leave. We are in Halifax with Chelsea and David and I could just stay here with them forever. As I could have stayed with Katie forever. I think that all we can hope for in life is to have friends that are so close that you never want to leave!! A friend from New Brunswick is on the way to come get us!! The adventure continues!!

All I want to do is travel the world until I've seen everything!!

Best friends!!

 

David and Chelsea have the best dogs ever. Derrek has a new best friend

 

Magpie!!

 

Halifax

For all those who are only checking this blog to make sure that Derrek and I make it across the country, we made it into Halifax. Our plane did NOT get struck by lightning, we are here!! And it is COLD!! There is a delightfully cheeky little thunderstorm going on outside, which I love. We are staying in a hostel, which is a first for Derrek, so check that off the bucket list. I don't really have much to say, because I am sleepy, however, I can tell you that I was REALLY excited to see Tim Horton's....and a street sign in kilometers, and tomorrow I'm hoping to see some Canadian money....I'm basking in the glow of Canada...or maybe that's just the lightning.

Caves!!

We had SO much fun today!! We took off on scooters across the island to explore some caves! There's several different cave systems in Bermuda and one of them is touristy and they run tours through it and it costs money, and the other one is not well known and free and you can swim in the water in it!! In the caves you pay for, you don't get to swim, you just walk through them. So we explored some caves. They were pretty amazing. And a little creepy. I definitely felt as though we were in the beginning of a horror movie a few times. Im in love with bermuda. It's so lovely here. I never want to leave!! I'm still not used to driving on the opposite side of the road, and the scooters make things much more interesting!!   
I also forgot to mention that we had a lovely lovely breakfast with the crew before the other two had to leave (by the way, their plane got struck by lightning and they got stuck in Bermuda, something we are hoping doesn't happen to us!!) and this was our lovely breakfast dining room!!! Pretty!!

Island Time

Last night we had a phenomenal dinner at the fairmont, it was amazing!! I took some stunning
photos of the property. We had a gorgeous table on the patio! The sunset was unbelievable!! Day one in Bermuda was amazing!! There's this thing called the 'Non-mariners Race' and people build boat like floatation devices and see who's boat goes the furthest with the most people still on it! And the rule is if you fall off you aren't allowed to get back on so competitors will jump to other people's boats and try to push them off and stuff. We didn't actually see the race but it sounded really cool. We got some inflatable boats and chairs and stuff and tied them all together and floated around in the cove. It's really cool because there's like 150 or more boats in the cove, all there to float around and watch the race. People tie their boats together and go onto other peoples boats, or will jump off their boats and swim to other people's boats. It's pretty neat. So we spent the day pirating around the water, we visited other people's boats, and then we found our own private island!! We explored the island, had some nap time in the sun, and were beach bums in the Bermuda triangle all day long!! It was just lovely!! Tomorrow we get to go see some caves!! Exciting!!