McPlassmann Honeymoon

So we left San Fran and I'm now shopped out. Vancouver has this street called Robson St and Hester now has many bags and I am the jacket carrier.

Money has been spent - not by me tho... haha!

Anyway so we left San Fran and went through American passport control and customs - it seems Hester looks more like a terrorist than me after all! She got selected (maybe she is a crazy german, who knows) to go through "special screening", where she had to stand in this booth thing and get sprayed by jets of air. Weird Yanks. She says, she didn't scream, but I think that was only at the request of the guy at passport control... I got in trouble because I tried to take her bag and shoes and he thought I was some miscreant trying to steal them! Yes I had a 4 day growth.

United Airlines was only a 2-hr flight, but possibly some of the most amateurish service I've ever received on an airline. The flight attendants sadly don't stack up next to the Virgin blondes we get in Oz.

Canada has been a pleasant change from the airport right through to today - customs was easy, they were friendly and Vancouver is a fantastic, laid back city with friendly ppl, plenty of nice coffee shops, shopping and dining. A bit of a change from ol' San Francisco - not that we disliked San Fran, but it's nice to walk down the street without feeling like you have to protect your wallet or constantly get a cup shaken at you asking for spare change. Not that I know what the various coins are in the states yet - they still have $1 notes!! A bit backward?

Today we went up to Grouse Mtn which sits right at the foot of Vancouver, so only a short trip across the harbour in a "SeaBus" then a "RoadBus" up the mountain - where we then got on a "AirTram" - otherwise known as a gondola to the rest of the world.

The view is spectacular, and guess what - it was snowing! Ppl were still skiing and it seems it was the penultimate day of the ski season, so there were plenty of ppl still around. It was only zero degrees, so not too cold really.

We only have today as our full day in Vancouver, which is a bit of a shame, because it seems there's much to do here. There is a great cozy coffee shop just down from our hotel that seems popular with the students - our area we are staying seems great. There was a big ice hockey game on here last night - playoffs between the Dallas Stars and the Vancouver Canucks - everywhere has "GO CANUCKS GO" on it - pretty good atmosphere, tho they lost last night.

So tomorrow we're off to collect our car, attempt to stay on the right, no, left side of the road (I've just been told it's the right, so I hope I'm not the one driving) and drive inland, towards Kelowna, Banff and Calgary. I hope we don't hit any moose.

Till next time!

Hesti and Craig

Well, here we are in San Francisco - the city of the Golden Gate bridge, gay pride, victorian architecture, Full House and as Hester keeps reminding me, Charmed.

The city is interesting, both beautiful and a bit dirty - I guess all large cities these days have elements like that. Our first day we visited the Wharf and checked out the Golden Gate Bridge which was a good view over the bay. We managed to go in the wrong direction on the bus but we sorted that out easy enough - we got off and went back the way we came

The cable cars are very cool, the city is incredibly steep in parts - there is a street called the "World's crookedest street" that is just zig zags and looking down from above it is crazy that they even decided to build on it.

The cable cars were designed like trams but without an overhead power - instead there is literally a cable lying beneath the tracks that *pulls* the carriage up the hills. Back when they were built in the late 1900s, the horses couldn't get up the hills with a carriage - so the design is quite simple but ingenius.

Today we went to the civic centre and did some shopping - beating off beggars at every street corner we walked on. They seem to be everywhere, but particularly the neighbourhood we wandered along today, it was a dirtier end of town. Up around where our hotel is at Union Square is the arts area so it's very nice and the wander down to the shopping, cable cars and Macy's etc is pretty pleasant. It was a bit of a shock to wander through the dodgier end of town this morning, we saw a side of SF we hadn't seen up until now.

The Victorian architecture despite having being destroyed to a large extent in the 1908 earthquake and fires, still looks great in the downtown area and gives the city a nice character.

Unfortunately we didn't realise we had to book about 2-weeks ahead to get on the Alcatraz tour, so we missed out on doing that, which I was quite disappointed about.

We're off to Vancouver tomorrow morning, and from what we've seen on the news today, to SNOW! Perhaps the weather will fine up a bit over the week we're there...

That's all for now, till next time!
Craig and Hester

Here's our dinky little travel blog since I've been too busy/lazy to get the one on the McPlassmann site finished!

This site seems pretty cool, so it'll do the job

Our odyssey starts tomorrow so stay tuned!