I'm not crazy, I just have another conciousness in my brain

Technically, I've been home for two days, but I'm recording what I did on my final few days, as I didn't get around to doing it in Canada:

On Saturday I visited the Museum of Anthropology. It was good, (and not just because an episode of Smallville was filmed there) but it's quite hard to produce a quality museum when the civilisations and cultures it should be dedicated to have been completely wiped out.

I then wandered around some botanical gardens, saw the Bloedel Conservatory (as seen on Stargate SG1) but didn't actually get to go inside because the guidebook lied about closing times. In the evening I went to the second largest Mall in Canada, which turns out not to be a very impressive boast. I ate mall food and bought a Ben Folds Five CD. It probably wasn't worth the trip, even if I did get to experience Canadian teenagers on the skytrain (exactly the same as other teenagers, but with even more stupid hair).

There were few animals or interesting coffees on Saturday, so it wasn't as good as my other days.

Sunday contained the most ridiculous decision made by me throughout the holiday (with the exception of waiting until Vancouver to buy butter pecan coffee syrup, more on that later). It was raining. Very Hard. I decided to continue with my plan to hike up Lynn Canyon. I got wet. Very wet. Even my underwear was soaking and a bus driver and some Australians laughed at me.

However, Lynn Canyon was stunning and the downpour only contributed to the effect, There was a 10km hike around Rice Lake, the 30 ft pool, two falls and the far-more-rickety-than-the-last-one suspension bridge. There was even a sign telling me how to be "Bear Aware". I deliberately contradicted it in the hope of becoming aware of a bear, but it didn't happen.

Monday was Kitsilano beach (georgeous, I could live there), the sighting of the only domestic cat I saw on my whole trip (grey, fluffy, unsociable), Vanier Park, the Inukshuk statue (very cool, got slightly sunburnt), Bloedel Observatory (actually inside this time), The Daily Planet, and the scouring of all three known locations of second cup coffee houses which the website totally lied about. There was no butter pecan syrup.

Tuesday was another trip to Kitsilano for my last flavoured latte of the trip (a straightforward caramel one) and then a rather long trip to the airport and the frantic spending of my Canadian change on Hershey chocolate.

The train journey accross the Rockies was fantastic. There were many high points, but I must say the provision of free coffee and doughnuts at the station when the train was delayed impressed me no end. You don;t get that on WestCoast Mainline.

There were mountains, some more mountains and some extra mountains and then some elk and sheep (the tanoy woman got very excited about the sheep, in both english and french, are sheep rare in Canada?) also there was a minature tiger. I'm chooosing not to consider that it may have been a tabby house cat with a sense of adventure.

Vancouver so far is lovely, much improved on Calgary with the one great disadvantage that they don't have the butter pecan lattte shops. That's very sad. They say it's better to have loved and lost a butter pecan latte than never to have had one at all, but I'm not so sure.

Oh, and I stood outside Luthorcorp! It's not quite as impressive in real life without MR standing in a long coat, but it was exciting nonetheless

Today I shared a packet of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups with a brown squirrel.

# of moose seen = 0
# of bears seen = 0

Oh, and fringedweller and indian_skimmer, do you want me to pick you up Sports Night DVDs?