Week XXVIII – XXX

Canada – Alberta and British Columbia

I am back. Back from the Rockies, back from wild animals and the raw Canadian bush. It wasn’t bad at all. Although, there was a lot of rain in the beginning and massive fires in the middle. Afterwards, there was a lot of water too, but I think that’s quite common when you go to an island. In the end, everything worked out without casualties, so I’ll call it success.

Now, I don’t want to bother you with a lot of text. Let the pictures talk..

The Canadian nature with amazing mountains, waterfalls, dunes (with jump)..

..perfectly and glacier-water coloured lakes (Lake Louise just one of many)..

the awesome wildlife from bears to chipmunks, moose and whales..

and other interesting stuff from bear traps to garbage cans..

I left the west coast of Canada and exchanged it for Ontario, where I’m currently in the big lake area, in Toronto.

Week XXV

USA – Washington, Seattle/Mt. Rainier

The United States are different in many ways. It seems like people enjoy being told what they are allowed and not allowed to do. At least they accept loads of signs all around telling them about fines they’ll receive and jails they’ll have to visit for doing various things. I heard bus drivers shouting about random things, was told not to lean on walls or take pictures, had to face the most complex tax calculations when buying chocolate bars, but also went up rather random office buildings to visually document the views without being bothered by anybody.

Anyway, I stopped arguing with random people some time ago in Australia – so I was able to simply enjoy Seattle. Last Friday, I went with four fellow travellers and a rental car to mount Rainier to do some hiking. To see a volcano with glaciers, almost perfect blue skies and to wander over big white snow fields was definitely one of the highlights of the last week. Unfortunately, the weather was rather changeable and I got a bit sick soon after. If it were the air-condition systems everywhere or the rather cloudy and rainy weather doesn’t matter.
Nevertheless, I got up to Vancouver, Canada by the Greyhound bus without any difficulties and took the chance of being not a hundred percent healthy to sit back and relax my first days in the province of British Columbia.

Around Seattle – Pike place market, the place where grunge was born, the locks around Ballard (with fish) and at mount Rainier (with lakes and jumps!)..