SO, it's a fairly drastic change of plans to be in New York City this early. I was supposed to go to Chicago from Vancouver, then Boston, then New York. HOWEVER, the Greyhound ride from LA to Vancouver was horrendous! Apart from being LONG (36hours) the bus was dirty and smelly and some of the people travelling were a little scary. Not that I like to think of myself as a snob, but there were occasions I didn't feel entirely safe, SO I decided not to get the Greyhound to Chicago (that would have been an even longer trip), but to fly instead. The flights to Chicago were double the price of those to New York, so I ended up here.

I can't say I'm TOO upset about it! There is A LOT to see in New York and I wouldn't have had enough time to get through it all in the originally scheduled 4 days. I'll update more on my adventures here once I have had them, so watch this space :)

As for Vancouver - it was incredible - totally worth the Greyhound slog. It's an incredibly beautiful city. The high mountains all around are covered with forests and they plummet into the harbour and various inlets around creating dramatic scenery.

It was FANTASTIC too to see Dion and Adriana after all these years and meet their gorgeous little boys, Noah and Liam. The change of plans worked out well cos it meant I have a few extra days with them. The boys are very smart and really well behaved (although I'm not sure their parents entirely agree with me :)) and we bonded. By the end of it 'Cousin Cat' was part of the furniture. It was actually quite funny cos the whole day today I kept thinking 'where's Noah, where's Liam? I've lost them' :)

Dion and I bonded too over several beers on several nights - hmmm....got to be done I suppose, but it was great to reminisce and chat about the family. I was also treated to personal tours of Mount Seymour, Whistler and downtown Vancouver. I was 'dragged' on a mountain bike trail just behind their house, which I found pretty scary in places, BUT which inspired me to think about maybe taking it up as a hobby! It combines my love of hiking and bike riding. I'll have to start off on baby trails though because the steep inclines and slippery rocks do make me a little nervous. It was just so lovely heading through the cool forest (Vancouver was in the middle of a heat wave while I was there!).

I also spotted racoons - a fair bit of them. They liked the cherries on the tree outside my window and would pick on them all night long pretty much. The first night I (of course) thought it was a bear outside and was too scared to look - the blind was down but the window open and I didn't want to see what monster was waiting on the other side - turns out they're just little racoon faces staring back at me from the dark - SO cute!

Sushi is popular in Vancouver and Dion and Adriana took me out one night for an 'all you can eat' feast!! Which only cost $28!!! It was awesome!! And we totally got our money's worth - YUM!

SO, there's no doubt I'm aiming to return to Vancouver some time. There is so much to do and it will be really cool to see the family again xx

Thanks for reading and watch out for photos (they'll be coming soon - it's just difficult to upload in public locations in the US so I might ahve to wait till I'm back in SA which is only 2 weeks away!!)

Cat