Just proving to my cynical mates that i ate octopus balls in Japan. Hardcore!!!

In the words of Samwise Gamgee, "Well, I'm back." I've been back in Kent for just over a week now and have been keeping myself busy with the huge task of sorting through my photos and have also had little daytrips to Dover, Nottingham and Dymchurch to catch up with friends and family. I have further little outings to London, Brighton and Nottingham planned to try to meet up with more of you and to try to fool myself that i am still travelling. It's ok-ish to be back as i no longer have to carry my life around on my back and am glad to be around my old mates again. But I am utterly convinced that i have missed the summer. I spent my last few weeks of travelling checking the BBC website and pouring over images of the English heatwave and dried up fields and such. I had a gut feeling that when i got back i would have missed the 2 week British summer and it certainly seems like it. Note the grey cloudy skies in my photos. I am assured there is another heatwave on the horizon but i'm not convinced. I reckon its a conspiracy to try to convince me that our climate isn't so bad and that it is fun to live in the UK. I am begging for sunshine so i keep my tan going a little while longer and it would be nice to have a winter that doesn't start in August. Bring on the sun, please.
Thanks to all those who have posted on my blog and cheered me on, and to all those mates who have hosted me on my travels and to the mates i have made along the way.

Gotta love New York. This city always promises excitement and always delivers. Slight mistake arriving mid-summer though - outrageously hot and reeking of rotting garbage. Still, you feel like you've reached the peak of what life has to offer when you wander these streets. You really do have the world at feet - every nationality represented, every kind of cuisine, and the cogs of world power clunking away as the business moguls sip lattes.
I have the good fortune of having 2 friends to visit in New York, one in midtown and one in the Bronx, so i got to see and do plenty of new things whilst hanging out and catching up. And i'm very pleased to say i repeated only one activity: the Staten Island ferry - when something is free its hard to resist. The highlights of my activities include a tour of the UN headquarters (dream job), being a member of the audience at a TV show taping, the Lower Eastside Tenements Museum, and a view from the top of the newly re-opened Rockefeller Tower with the best view of the Empire State building and just a sheet of glass separating you from the thrillingly close edge to a 90 storey drop below - gulp. Some of my best memories come from simply pounding the pavement and wandering along as glimpses of landmarks pop out from gaps between buildings. Also the pretzels. Mmmmmm

Empire State building viewed from Bryant Park; Empire State, midtown and downtown viewed from the Rockefeller Tower; Grand Central Station and Chrysler building.

Quebec city was everything i hoped for and more. Definitely worth the 3 hour bus ride and back for just a daytrip. I've looked forward to seeing this place for years and was thrilled to snap up a ridiculous number of photos of Chateau Frontenac, the most photographed hotel in the world. Love it.

Montreal waterfront, and the city viewed from Mont Royal

If London and Paris were to get it on, Montreal would be their lovechild. It is the best of both cities in a fairly compact size with a small mountain thrown in, all the better for viewing and admiring it all. It has the best of French bistro-style restaurants but with the open-mindednesss to have a myriad of world cuisines on the same streets. It has all the charm of old and cobblestoned streets and baroque-inspired architecture, yet has stylish new buildings in-keeping with the general feel of a city that knows its heritage yet embraces modernity. This is the most confident, classy and cool of Canadian cities. I love it.
What's more, you get to practice your French without being rubbished when you mess up. AND Quebec beer actually tastes good. Really good. AND it has oodles of lovely parkland overlooking the city, and mountains a few miles out where you can paraglide. AND it has an English speaking university that is world renowned and might just get me a better looking CV. AND it has just about won me over and convinced me that i want to come back and study here sometime - prior to emigrating to New Zealand of course. Dream on, dream on.....

Montreal's old town, including the city hall where Charles de Gualle's speech from the balcony sparked off a violent campaign for Quebec separatism. Thankfully they are (relatively) happy to be Canadian now. C'est la vie.

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.