Ottawa, the capital of Canada. I'd been intending to go here since i was at UBC 2 years ago and finally i got there. I've heard countless times that Ottawa is beautiful. True that. Sadly i only had time for one day there and half of that was spent doing tours around the parliament buildings and standing in rooms where history was made. Slightly sad, but i must confess that some of the highlights of my whole trip have been tours around houses of government! I love the borrowed elements and the history in the architecture. The influence of the gothic and Westminster is pretty obvious in the Parliament building, but i also love the other buildings in the city, which have clear European influences. This is possibly the only city in Canada where the bilingualism laws make sense, and it was my first feeling that the eastern side of the continent was starting to bear a resemblence to home. Ottawa has a great cafe culture and a wonderful cosmopolitain atmosphere with an accumulation of cultures in a laid back and cosy-sized green city. The UK and Europe felt just a short hop away.

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Some cool nooks and crannies in Toronto, and the obligatory rainbow shot of the American Falls on the US side of Niagara, and the more familiar Horseshoe Falls viewed from Canada.

Looking down on weirdness, somewhere between vancouver and Vancouver Island

Vancouver, my favourite city, taken from a seaplane - the most fun way to fly!

Orcas off Vancouver Island, BC

I'm dying of heat exhaustion and sleep deprivation in Toronto, but at least i'm recovering my tan that Vancouver wiped off of me. BC weather will do that to you, so i'm told.

I've heard many unflattering things about Toronto - all from Canadians who aren't Torontonians surprisingly enough. So i had low expectations about the 'New York wannabe.' So i'm pretty surprised to admit that i like it. Really like it. Yes i see what people are getting at. It is no New York, but it is definitely east coast, definitely has an American flavour but it still retains something unique that makes it pretty cool. It has gorgeous 3 storey terraces dotted around where most other cities would rip them down and sprout some skyscrapers. It actually has good bookstores rather than the usual chain ones that only sell classics and best sellers. It is a mecca for all Tim Horton fans and is home to the refinery that happily transports sugar around the highest sugar consuming country in the world - 2 facts that appear to go hand in hand. It isn't blessed with Vancouver's environment, but it tries to make things pretty on the harbourfront, so i'll give it a pat on the back for trying.

I've done the usual tourist activities so far - a ride up to the top of the CN tower, a boat ride round the islands and a tour of the Skydome stadium. Today i took a bus trip to Niagara Falls. I've looked forward to this for so long and hyped it up so much that, to be honest, it was a little underwhelming (but this might have something to do with running on 3 hours sleep, mind). I didn't really get a sense of the scale until i was down in the boat and then the sheer power becomes obvious as you feel the boat straining to take you further forward into the mist against the flow of the water. They give you ponchos to wear to keep dry but it was so hot that i declined and thoroughly enjoyed my temporary drowning. As for the towns (plural, one is on the US side and the other on the Canadian side of the border) it seems that the Niagara Falls are competing with each other on who can cram the most number of attractions into one space. The Canadian side definitely wins. Think Margate on speed and you get an idea of the gaudiness. It thoroughly distracts from the natural beauty of the area. The American side appears rather more sedate and in tune to its surroundings. Perhaps i will come back someday to inspect it.

Other notable events of the day include my introduction to Toronto's home grown version of hip hop, called T-dot. Think of a keyboard drums demo sped up to rave speeds, add the sound of popping corn, Nintendo's Super Mario soundtrack and an array of noise clips from every Disney and Hanna Barbera character invented and you get an idea of the hideous sound. After 5 hours of it on a bus i was ready to slit my wrists. This was endured on an American style school bus with zero suspension so you get a chiropractor thrown in. I don't know how i survived with my spine intact.

Tomorrow i blitz Toronto with all that remains on my to do list as i realise i could probably do with another day to scratch the surface of this city. I'm planning on a 'museum crawl' so i can hop from air-con to air-con. Then its a train to Ottawa to pay homage to my hockey team, the Sens, and check out a few mounties outside parliament.

OK, we DID nearly wreck the car racking up a mammoth 2200km in 2 days, extreme tests of the suspension and a few near misses! I dr0ve too! Mary rented a most massive 4wd SUV automatic - i have never driven any of the above before, especially not on the wrong side of the road. It was pretty nerve-racking at first but fun. I was mad that Mary had rented such a massive car but when it mattered (ie when we hurtled towards oncoming trucks over a very water drenched freeway) it pulled through for us. We made it as far as Prince George and were headed back down when we had our near death experience and exclaimed some pretty hilarious but unrepeatable last words. It was only several hours later when we arrived at our destination for the night (Lillooet, suicide capital of British Columbia) that Mary pondered if we had actually died and been sent to hell. She even spotted a burnt out pickup at the bottom of a cliff! Both Prince George and Lillooet were pretty dire but we saw some amazing scenery on the way, especially the later stretch from Clinton to Whistler. I was mad coz Mary spotted 2 bears whilst i was driving, but my hard work was rewarded with my own sighting later when i spotted some young bear road kill. Not quite as nice as a living breathing one. We saw too many deer to care about and zero moose, despite our pleas with mother nature to trade a few deer sightings for a moose one. We also failed to see the Northern Lights, it just never seemed to get black enough, plus the sky was pretty cloudy. So a full days' driving and staying up til 2am and enduring the horror of having a bat fly past my face all came to nowt. But the sky still looked pretty gorgeous anyway and it was a road trip well worth doing as i hadn't laughed so hard in ages.

I survived the mosquitos. I've been back in Vancouver for nearly a week. Done the most important things - frequented my favourite restaurants, drank my favourite beers and wines and generally got fat courtesy of my parents' credit cards. I am back in the land of maple iced donuts and my waistline hates me for it.

I've done many cool things in Van City and around, including seaplane flights, another fantastic stint at paragliding (the best view of my favourite city) and some whale watching (including a baby orca!) But by far my best moment was watching Zidane receive a red card in the World Cup final, and being greatly amused by how much Vancouverites took glee in seing France lose. It's a Quebec thing, i guess.

Now i'm Surrey - kinda near Vancouver, in a Canada scale of things. Mary and i are taking a 2 day road trip tomorrow with no specific plan other than head as far north as we can get and to try to remember to turn around again, coz if i miss my flight i'm screwed. Mary wants to see the northern lights but we have no idea where to find them. North, i guess. So we'll just drive and drive and drive until our rental car is wrecked. It's a good plan. Foolproof......

Canadian Rockies

Calgary, Alberta