Hello. Sorry, this blog didn’t see any action in the whole of January. I guess I felt like we didn’t do anything exciting enough to justify a blog. I feel blogs have to be quite formal. If I could start this trip again I’d place more emphasis on the more informal BlipFoto which I update every day with a photo. You can see it on our lifestream, on the front page of this blog or at www.blipfoto.com/drl.

That said, we did do something quite exciting at the end of December which I still need to blog about. Dog Sledding. That’s coming soon honest.

January was a bit of a quiet month. Dark. Wet. Lot’s of work and no play, the sort of thing that makes David a dull boy.

We spent much of the month planning what we still need to do. We hit our half way point at the end of January and Emma has compiled a list that could fill a small library of places we still need to visit and attractions we still need see.

We’ve got another trip to Vancouver Island in March to see a whale festival. 20,000 whales migrating towards Alaska pass through a small village for a week at the end of March.

We’ve got our cruise up to Alaska in May. Emma, me and 1000 people of an older generation. We’ll be quite at home.

And possibly the most exciting bit of all. As we don’t want to have to face reality as soon as leave Canada we’ve started arranging another road trip. This time around Australia. Emma has bought another Lonely Planet guide and has started highlighting all the pages in it.

By the time we arrive back in the UK in September(ish) we will have fully circumnavigated the globe.

If 2011 is as half as good as 2010 then it’ll be one great year.

Merry Christmas from a snowy Whistler. A proper white Christmas.

A full write up and photos will be on the way at some point, but for now here’s a video of how we spent Christmas Eve.

the last 6 months in digital photo terms

6 months ago Emma and I left Aberdeen on a plane London bound.  Then another plane which took us across the pond to New York where our adventure began.  6 months. Half a year. It’s amazing how quickly time is passing.

We’re not quite half way through our trip as our 1 year Visa only began when we entered Canada, but the halfway milestone will be with us in 6 weeks and we still have a list longer than our arms of things we still need to do and places we still need to visit.

I started looking through all the photos we’ve taken over the past 6 months and thought I’d share some of my favourite. Not all these photos are masterpieces, they are just pictures that bring back some fantastic memories.

Top of the Rock in New York
Maybe the most gob smacking view ever. Made it all real. New York was the first place we visited and maybe one of the best. Most definitely will be heading back, and soon.

Our first camp site on the longest day of the year
Brings back so many happy memories. Also scary memories thanks to the thunder, lightning and spiders.

Driving
7000 miles we drove. Well, I say we… Emma drove.

Garden of The Gods, Denver
Wow. Obvious how it got it’s name really.

The Road to Nowhere
Some of the back roads with the least scenery provided some of the most breathtaking moments of the trip.

Mount Rushmore
Still doesn’t seem real that we’ve seen Mount Rushmore.

Yellowstone National Park
The most beautiful place on earth, and you can quote me on that. We first saw it on a tv documentary and thought it looked nice, but nothing beats seeing it with your own eyes.

Lee’s Ferry
How I pictured driving across America would be.

At the Grand Canyon
No camera can capture how big this place was.

The Californian Coast
I need to go back there and do the drive in more detail. An amazing part of the world.

Seals at Santa Cruz
This photo doesn’t really need a caption does it?

A real life bear, in the wild
And this was only a baby. We had a full grown adult bear outside our tent at Yosemite several nights in a row. Scary stuff.

Alcatraz
Another jaw dropping moment on our trip, Alcatraz Island. It was every bit as great as you’d think it would be.

The Coast Starlight
It’s hard to say what my favourite part of the trip would be, but the 22 hour Coast Starlight from San Francisco to Seattle has to be up near the top.

Vancouver, our home for a year
So after 7000 miles across America, we made it to Canada.

Sunset at the Inukshuk
Shots like this, just a small walk from our flat. Can’t ask for more than that.

Vancouver from Grouse Mountain
I could stare at this view all day.

Long Beach on Vancouver Island
Cancel what I said about Yellowstone being the most beautiful place on earth, Vancouver Island is.

What I’ve realised as I compiled this list is that it is impossible to sum up my favourite photos of the past 6 months, there are too many to choose from, and I was only looking at the ones I had added to Flickr. There are still many more on my hard drive, some of which I’ve barely even looked at since they were taken. I guess they will only see the light of day once our trip is over and we reminisce.

I’m generally quite a confident person, there’s not a lot that scares me.

Running out of money and building up debt worries me.  As does lightening (and that’s only after our camping experiences earlier in the summer). But apart from that, I’m pretty good at everything else.  Oh, and hairdressers, I’m not confident when it comes to them.

As a kid it was fine. Mum book the appointment. Every 6 weeks she’d take us. I didn’t have to speak as mum spoke. I got the same thing every time. Job done.

As I got older my schedule didn’t fit in with mums, so I started booking my own. Same hair dresser though, so everything was ok.

Then I moved away from home and had to find a new one. I genuinely hate having to move hairdressers. Different styles. Different waiting arrangements. Different places to hang your jacket. You’ve got to let someone you’ve never met in your life before put their hands through your hair. I hate it.

I found a hairdressers I liked in Aberdeen and went their for a few years. Although they did listen really loudly to the radio station I worked for. I never told them what I did for a living and I’d get highly embarrassed when a promo for my show would come on while I was getting my hair cut. I always put on a slight accent on whenever I was in the hairdressers so they could never make the connection.

So then we moved to Vancouver and this problem arose again.  The last time I had my haircut was back in the UK on the day of our leaving party. That was over 6 months ago. It was the longest it had ever been. It was becoming a hassle. Working with food means I have to wear gloves, but the hair was so long that I’d have to brush it out of my eyes every 2 minutes. Of course every time I touched my hair I had to wash my hands and change gloves. My long hair was single handedly breaking the glove budget and on the verge of putting my employer into receivership.

So I had to face my fear and go get it cut.

So I’m already not confident about going to get my haircut. I’m not confident and having to explain what I want done. I’m not confident to have someone I don’t know touch my hair. And to make matters worse, who do I get to cut my hair? Someone who looks, and sounds, exactly like Father Dougal Mcguire from Father Ted.  That didn’t help the confidence levels.

Anyway, the hair has been cut, I can see clearly now and at this rate that should be me till we’re pretty much ready to leave Canada. And then I’ll be able to go back to my old hairdresser.

The only thing is, I too now look like Father Dougal Mcguire.

There’s nothing more embarrassing than going to pay for something by credit card and it coming back declined. Even worse when you’ve already eaten what you are paying for.

It’s not like your debit card declining. There could be a whole host of reasons for that. Like being paid late, or the money sitting in the wrong account. But when the credit card declines, to the innocent bystander it looks like you’ve used up all your available credit and you really have hit the lowest of the low.

That’s what happened to me today. Card declined. I was only in my online banking yesterday so I knew I hadn’t hit the credit limit, not yet at least.

It must be the Halifax bank’s flipping brilliant fraud detection system. You can’t hear my sarcastic laugh as I write that, but trust me, it’s there. You’d think by now they would realise I was abroad.

Not to worry. Emma paid for the food and we headed home where I would call the Halifax to give them hell.

But here’s a tip for you. If you’re ever abroad, don’t use your credit card when it is snowing back home because if it declines you are getting yourself into a whole host of problems.

The 24 hours a day 7 days a week Halifax Card Hot-line was closed. After various button pressing on Skype (which is a nightmare for phoning call centres) I got through to a human. After going through my story and answering all the security questions he told me the department that deals with credit cards was closed due to snow.

Apparently only 2 members of staff could get in yesterday, the rest were stuck at home. Really? Only 2 members?! What has happened to the UK?! Every year it gets snow and every year the place crumbles to a halt. Man up Great Britain.

So while the staff of the Halifax bank are enjoying a snow day, I’m unable to spend any money. Suppose it’s a good way to save.

I regularly get asked if I ever feel homesick while I’m half way across the world. I have a set of standard replies to this question.

#1 I’m only here for a year. It’s impossible to be homesick when I only have 365 days to enjoy the place. If I waste time feeling homesick now I’ll regret it later.

#2 I haven’t lived ‘at home’ for several years now anyway. Aberdeen seemed as far away from home as Vancouver does. All be it Aberdeen had a nightly ferry back to Shetland, Vancouver doesn’t.

#3 With Skype I really don’t feel 7000 miles away. In fact I probably see and speak to my parents more now than I did living in Aberdeen.

Really I should be getting commission from Visit Shetland for the work I’m doing over here. Regularly I’ll have discussions with customers on “do Shetland sheep dogs exist?” “yes” and “I bet it’s really cold in Shetland?” “not as cold as Vancouver”. One customer even told me he’d “been to Finland, but never Shetland.” If only I’d had my atlas with me.

Saying that, I think Visit Shetland may cope without my work. I spotted this in the local 24 Hours newspaper the other day.

Now I feel homesick.

Yesterday was Remembrance Day, a chance to remember all those who have suffered as a result of war.

Back home we remembered  but pretty much got on with our day as normal. Over in Canada it’s a bit of different story. Remembrance Day over here is a national holiday.  Shops, schools, businesses and public transport are all closed or at least operating on a limited service. It felt really bizarre all be it quite respectful.

But it meant for us, being a statutory holiday, time and a half plus a days pay. I know that’s not what Remembrance Day should be about, but for those of us who are on minimum wage in one of the most expensive cities in the world, days like that make a massive difference.

It will come in handy for our up and coming trip to Vancouver Island. We were due to head to Seattle to see the Scottish band Idlewild next weekend but that’s all changed.

Idlewild are one my favourite bands. I’ve seen them in a whole host of settings. Once I saw them in front of 5 people. Once I saw them sound check. Once I saw them as they were recording their greatest hits DVD. So when I saw they were going to play Seattle I thought that would be kind of cool.  Sadly Rod Jones from the band ended up breaking his collar bone and the gig was cancelled.

Thankfully for us, being highly under prepared, we hadn’t booked any accommodation or transport so we didn’t lose any money.

So instead of heading to Seattle we’re now going to take a trip over to Vancouver Island.  We’ll hire a car, as it’s bizarrely cheaper than getting the bus, and spend a few days along the storm coast where the next land to the west is China.

Expect a lot of photos!

In the past, whenever Shetland would appear on the TV I’d get very excited. My head almost had difficulty believing that somewhere I had seen with my own eyes could also be seen on the big screen that sits in the corner of the room. Suddenly it seemed real. I was pretty much in a state of shock for the whole of Simon King’s Shetland Diaries and watching family holiday videos was always a bit of a nightmare.

Since starting our adventure in June I have had to get over this a little. If I sat down in front of the telly for one afternoon, it would almost be a guarantee that at least once I would be able to say “oh, I’ve been there”.

Emma’s a fan of Sex In The City. She makes me watch it (honest). Set in New York it uses all the famous New York landmarks. I’ve been there.

I’ve noticed there is a large number of movies that use a shot of San Francisco flying over the harbour buildings on the wharf.  Hereafter, the new Clint Eastwood movie, uses that shot. I’ve been there.

The Hollywood Walk of Fame appears on telly at least several times a day. I’ve been there. And by the way the Hollywood Walk of Fame isn’t nearly as impressive as I thought it would be. TV makes it look much grander and bigger.

There’s even references in songs that I now go “aah, I’ve been there”. I heard The Eagles Ventura Highway the other day for example.  Do You Know The Way to San Jose?

Now here is going to lie a problem with Vancouver. The number of movies and TV programmes that are filmed here is astonishing. At least once a week I will walk past some sort of production. Sometimes big budget, sometimes (and mostly) smaller budget.

Apparently Jack Black was a regular customer of the cafe I work in earlier in the year when he was filming a movie in town. And I was speaking to someone the other week who saw George Clooney 5 times in the space of 5 days recently.

And next year when I go to see the movie “This Means War” starring Reece Witherspoon and directed by Will Smith I will be able to say “I’ve been there”… litterally. I walked through the set last night on my way home. They had closed off the street I normally walk down, errected massive flood lights and were blowing smoke through massive industrial sized fans. For a moment I thought there had been some sort of terrorist incident, then I remembered that I live in Vancouver and it was so much more likely to be a movie being shot.

God forbid there ever be some sort of terrorism…  ”nah, there’s no panic, I’m sure it’s just a movie.”

The adverts over here, and the whole of north America for that matter, are bad.  Think UK, and think 10 times worse.  More repetitive and even less humour.  Annoying cheesy jingles are every where, even on adverts for community colleges and pet re-homing centres.

But occasionally one sticks out. For me it’s this one.

So it has dawned on me that when we first left the UK, this blog was being updated every couple of days. Since we’ve arrived in Canada there has been 3 posts. But that’s all going to change as of now.

We’ve been out the UK for 4 months now. That’s a third of a year. It’s scary how time flies. I am, and always have been, one of those people who’s constantly aware of how much time is left.  We’d go away on holiday and on day 1 I would have in the back of my mind the thought that we only had 14 days till we head back home.  With that mind I am very much aware how of how much we still have to do in Vancouver and how little time we have to do it.

Life in Vancouver continues and we are both very happy with our new home.  Yes it’s the most expensive city to live in Canada, and yes we are both on minimum wage jobs, but some how it all seems ok. Maybe by the end of the year we will think differently, but for now, we’re enjoying it.

Our little apartment is perfect. It’s in a great location close by to everything. It’s not the cheapest, and we could have saved money living further out, but at least living where we do we don’t have to spend money on public transport every day. Swings and roundabouts. It’s only downside is that it’s a little on the small side. I’ve recently started doing 5.30 am starts at work and trying to get up, wash, dressed and have breakfast without waking Emma is impossible.  If she wakes up early I have to be up and make her breakfast. If I wake up early and happen to make the slightest sound then it is all hell to pay. It’s tough being a man.

Emma’s preparing for the Christmas rush at her job which should keep her occupied to January. I’m busy sleeping after all my early starts. Money is tight, but I wouldn’t change anything for the world.  (Maybe I’d change the early starts, but you can’t have everything).

And one other thing I’ll change, the number of posts on this blog.

Starting now.

P.S. I’ll try and update some photos in the next couple of days.

P.P.S One thing that does update more frequently is our Lifestream page.