Welcome to Vancouver This city can boast of 120 Starbucks, reaching 300 within the entire metropolitan area. According to trustworthy sources there are only 2 Second Cups. Instead of Second Cup Vancouver's Canadian competition here is Blenz. And then off course there are the unavoidable and ever popular Tim Hortons. Also, as a little piece of useless information, the Starbucks at Waterfront Station was the first Starbucks outside of the US. source: Jessica from Tourguys.ca It seems that once again I have come to a city that is wholly and completely different from what I imagined. I had an idea that Vancouver was just a downtown of tall glass skyscrapers. And well it is. But it is so much more. With only 120 years worth of history, Vancouver has a surprisingly rich and quirky history ... read more

Thanks to long running soaps such as Dynasty and Dallas, I hold quite strong prejudices against the idea of a Western 'getting-rich-quickly' oil city. I never thought that I would take a liking to a place which is all about cattle and oil and intimidating skyscrapers. In my imagination, all that happens in such places are continuous dialogues between rich people who like to cheat and scam each other while they fumble around in intrigues about their weird family relations and discussing who-is-betraying-who. So imagine my surprise when we arrived at Calgary, Alberta in the midst of the most important event of the year; the Calgary Stampede. Though the city is full of intimidating skyscrapers and cowboys and oil-dynasties, it has a friendly feel to it with lots of different areas to explore. Unlike Edmonton, downtown ... read more

After a few days in Edmonton and as my boyfriend got four days off work, we decided to make a trip South into cattle country and the Rockies. The planning was extremely hectic and after having stopped at several Canadian Tire stores to find a two-bed tent, I was surprised when we actually drove out of Edmonton. Leaving Edmonton we took hwy 2 in the direction of Calgary, enjoying how the scenery changed from flat prairie to hills and laughing about how no mountains were visible in Mountain View Country (though I expect it to be because of the weather). On the way we stopped at Gasoline Alley south of Red Deer to get gas and an iced cap. Gasoline Alley is a lane which runs parallel to the highway for a long stretch midway between ... read more

Information from YellowPages.ca: Starbucks in Edmonton = 44 Second Cup in Edmonton = 41 Tim Hortons in Edmonton = 45 Welcome to the continent of chain stores, heavy trucks and endless raffles! Welcome to North America, more precisely the city of Edmonton (population 782439), capital of Alberta. Not many people can boast that their first overseas adventure began in Edmonton. I dare say, not many tourists can boast to have visited this city, as it is not a major tourist attraction and is overshadowed by cities such as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, and even Calgary. Though I shouldn't mention Calgary in a blog about Edmonton, seeing as they are ardent rivals. My plan is to stay in Edmonton for an entire month, while getting to know the life in Edmonton, something which has proven a bit ... read more

The hill of Crosses It is said that this saddle bag hill 12 km outside Siauliai was once a pagan alter. How this remote location, far from anything, came to be a holy place is unknown, but the legend describe it as such. Many centuries later it became the home to a cross or two, this is estimated to be around the 1830's, and today the saddle bag hill hosts hundreds of thousands of mainly wooden crosses placed there by pilgrims and a large part by especially Polish and German tourists. The crosses are mostly wooden and unfortunately many of them are identical and have their origin in the souvenir boxes at the entrance. But others are of a more personal caracter, and it is interesting to find in the forest these few trees which truely ... read more