Squamish and Port Townsend trips

With my Dad's friends we drove up to Squamish to go to the Railway museum there. This turned out to be a fantastic museum. It had many different trains to see, and many you could climb about in/on. They also had some historical buildings: a house from the 40s and a stations built from the original plans.

My desk

This is the desk I want! It has a typewriter and an adding machine. One of the booklets on the desk is an instruction manual for using the telephone, including the optimal distance to hold the phone from your lips!

Ray, Linda and I

Climbing to look inside one of the locomotives

Then last Thursday we drove down to the States. We stayed in Port Townsend for a night, then drove back on Friday. It was lovely down there, but ended up being a lot of driving (and some time waiting at the border in both directions)

On the ferry from Coupeville to Port Townsend

View of Port Townsend from the ferry. It is almost a heritage town - it has many buildings and houses build in the 19th century, the oldest being from 1860. Our hotel was built in 1889.

Hiking Hurricane Ridge

On Friday we drove out to the Olympic National Park and hiked up to Hurricane Ridge. We had a picnic up there, joined by some chipmunks and even a deer. The view was spectacular, the background of this picture shows some of it. 

The last couple of days I have been trying to do the last few things on my list before I leave tomorrow. We walked to the beach, had sushi again, I saw my friends ... Now hopefully ready to fly back to Frankfurt for a new school year! 

Painting

Our big project for the summer (well at least the big project for my summer) was to paint my room. I think the last time it was painted, decorated or changed in any way was at least 10 years ago. Definitely time for a bit of an update. I did some organizing and got rid of some things, but mostly it was just new paint. I had to keep the purple though, and even went way more purple :)

The process, and the slave labour :)

Home in Vancouver!

I have been home for three weeks now, with another week to go. We have been busy and done a lot this summer holiday already. We took a trip to Gibsons, I went over to Vancouver Island, and tomorrow we are going to Washington to stay in Port Townsend for a night.

Robert came home the second weekend I was home. While he was here we managed to get our annual family photo. This time we managed to get a decent one on the first try:

Sadly no cats made it into this photo

While Robert was home, we took the ferry to Gibsons. Robert and Christie went kayaking, but I wasn't too keen on joining them this time. So instead Dad and I went for a swim in the ocean. Overall I think I enjoyed it, but I was not so sure at the time. I do not like how you can't see what is under the water...

Last Thursday Dad and I went on one of our bike rides across Vancouver. This time we cycled through South Vancouver and ended up on Kent Street, just past the Knight Street Bridge. We had read  in the National Post about this little eatery in one of the lumber yards. It was an interesting place. You had to know you were looking for it to find it, and then inside it was like an old diner ... but with a bit of a slant in the floor. The food was pretty good though!

You can sort of see angle of the floor in the photo :)

Last weekend I took the bus and ferry over to Vancouver Island. The first stop was a night with Pat in Nanaimo. We had a very nice meal out on Friday night, and then woke up Saturday to a bright sunny day. We took a morning walk along the harbour by her house.

Checking out the biggest yachts in the harbour, with a view of Pat's apartment block behind

Saturday afternoon I took the bus to Victoria, where Robert met me downtown. We wandered around, and then he took me to a nearby store that had a whole bunch of old cash registers. I have to admit that I did stand there trying to decide if anyone would notice if I walked out with one. 

We ate dinner downtown and then headed back on the bus to his house. I spent Sunday with him too. We hiked up Mount Doug in the morning, getting a great view of the city, water and mountains. Then Sunday afternoon all of his housemates arrived back from weekends away and I got to meet them. A few more of his friends came over for dinner. I believe that I had a very normal dinner at his house. Everyone pitched in and helped, and the end result was some delicious salmon. And that is saying a lot, given I normally don't even eat salmon! 

I came home on Monday, and we have spent the first half of this week showing my Dad's friends from England around. Pictures of those adventures and more to come soon hopefully!

The Rock

My summer holiday started early in a way. The last weekend before school was out, I took off to the south of Spain for a long weekend. I had got permission to miss school on Friday so I could join my parents and aunt in Gibraltar. I flew, via Zurich, to Malaga. My parents had a rental car, so they picked me up at the airport and we drove back to La Linea, where we were staying just on the border of Gibraltar.

I have heard lots of stories about Gibraltar, seen pictures of when my Dad and Christie went there in 2008, yet somehow I still had completely the wrong image in my head. I knew it is called "The Rock" but I did not expect it to be to only rock. La Linea, on the Spanish side of the border, is basically flat, and then out in the water towards Africa is Gibraltar, a sudden mountain. I found it quite impressive. I think I enjoyed it so much partly because of this surprise and the wow factor involved.

On Friday we made it back to La Linea late afternoon. This gave us time to walk over the border in time for an early dinner on Casemates Square and then walk around Gib. We walked around to Sandy Bay. Here we managed to find the remains of one of the bunkers that my Grandpa Waltham had built during the war.

On Saturday, my only full day in Gibraltar, my Dad and I went caving. We took a tour of the Lower St. Michael's caves. This section of the caves was first discovered in 1943, and very shortly after my grandpa went down them, and even went swimming in the lake. It was tough going, even with many ropes and nets installed along the way. 

I loved it! Climbing up wet rock face with holes below leading to some underground abyss :)

The lake where grandpa swam. No swimming allowed any more, though I don't think I'd want to!

We made it!

After the climb we met back up with Mum and Auntie Pat. After some much needed food, we walked back down the Rock. Auntie Pat and I went into the tunnels. They go right through the rock, and have many 17th and 18th century cannons in them. I can't imagine trying to get a cannon up there! We also saw a bunch of the Barbary apes, including one with a very cute baby:

Last morning in Gibraltar before heading back to the airport. We took the bus to Europa Point, where we could look out over the water to Africa.