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Our flight to LA was actually not too bad until we arrived in where it was just chaos as they were having a $700 million dollar refit at the airport!! Took us 1 hr to get through customs (with a very rude customs inspector) then had to transfer onto our flight to Vancouver which went pretty well until we were picked out for a random search going through security to Canada which was awful. We had sit in seperate little booths and had our daybags searched and our shoes etc swabbed and the detector system went crazy (not a good sign). Aparently we have some phosphate on our shoes which is used in making explosives so they suspected us as potential terrorists and were looking at us rather sternly until they swabbed other things in our bag which also set the machine off, so they re-x-rayed everything and decided nothing was wrong. They said it was probably some spray fertiliser used when they were doing the gardens in the beach house (though how it got on my ipod i dont know!)- then even more annoyingly we had to repack our bags in record speed (do these people not understand how
long it takes me to pack, dam them!). We boarded with flight finally with about 10 minutes to spare. When we arrived in Vancouver we went straight to tourist info to find out how to get into the city centre, we were told we could either get the shuttle bus for $26 or a taxi for $30- when we asked if there was a cheaper way ie. a normal bus we were told no- WRONG, we later found out we could have got a bus for about $5, good old tourist info. After an expensive taxi ride at about 9 oclock we eventually checked into our hostel in Vancouver which was basically a homeless shelter!! Couldn't believe it so we had to pay the first night as we couldn't cancel that late so we stored our bags and at 9.30pm headed to find somewhere else- there was just no way we were going to sit on that bed never mind sleep on it. (For anyone looking to go DO NOT stay at the Grand Trunk hostel/homeless shelter!) We did eventualy find a good hostel but a little more than we wanted to pay but it was clean and no way
where we staying where we booked! We were finally sorted by about 12 oclock, only problem was our body clock was completely mucked up so I dont think we got to sleep till about 3-d'oh.
Our main reason for going to Canada was to do a cheap last minute cruise up to Alaska but the following morning we found out they don't do stand in places on cruises anymore so would cost us about double what we expected so decided we'd have to give that a miss until the future. We spent the rest of our first day dodging homeless people (very big problem in Vancouver) and spending more wasted time at another tourist info where we were told canada doesnt have normal trains by 3 girls then finally another lady brought a timetable over (do these guys know anything?) and then on the internet and searching through the lonely planet trying to decide what to do for the next 3 weeks, we decided to head to Whistler and go from there. We had one more day in Vancouver so we went for an explore; had a nice walk around the harbour and to one of the beaches
which was packed- not something you'd expect to see, a beach and snowy mountains in the background! Away from all the homeless people, the city is actually quite nice and worth a visit.
On the way to Whistler we were lucky enough to see a big brown bear on the side of the road (alive i might add, its not like oz and kangaroos), as we were on the bus we couldnt stop and take a photo so you'll just have to take our word for it. Whistler is beautiful, the ski season just finished so no skiiing (unless you're an expert then you can go to the top of the mountain) which was a bit of a pain as Gra realy wanted to have a go and had just about convinced me to have a lesson. However we got a realy good deal on lastminute.com and stayed in a realy nice posh hotel with a 40" plasma tv and a bath- trust us when you've been traveling for this long a bath is pretty exciting. As we couldnt ski we spent our time wandering around the shops in the resort (managed to finally get a new jumper, a
bargain at $10 reduced from $50), and walking to the nearby lakes etc.
After a few days there and lots of time on the internet trying to work out where we should go next we made the decision not to go any further and instead head to LA early. Basically we found canada realy expensive to backpack around and although the scenery was nice it just didnt have the same feel as New Zealand, so it felt like we had been there already and done it all, only better! Its likely we'll go back on a holiday and do things properly rather than backpacking around, and Alaska is more of a draw than Canada as it seems it is mainly big cities and not much else. So after 5 nights in our luxury hotel we got the greyhound back to Vancouver and stayed in the same hostel- not grand trunk. By now our body clocks were sorted, only problem was other people in the hostel decided to have a party that went on until gone 3am- oh the joys of hostels!
next stop US of A..............
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