Part 2 of P’s bachelorette started out in the Uber, and a very silent driver. He dropped us off at the Disney port, instead of the Norwegian port, and we walked under the glaring sun for about 10 minutes to get to the right spot. Glad we didn’t get run over. Off to the Bahamas we go!

First thing I noticed was that there were quite a large range of ages in the passengers, lined up to check in and board the Norwegian Sun. There were some families with children, a few bachelor and bachelorette parties, and just a whole bunch of people ready to have a relaxing weekend. First thing we did was eat at the Four Seasons restaurant on the boat. Let’s start with dessert. The rose water blood oranges with blackberry sorbet were my most memorable dish:

The large serving of nachos was pretty impressively made, with lots of cheese and chicken. A dab of guacamole is on top of the whole mess:

I didn’t go around taking photos of all the food that we ate everyday, because it did get somewhat repetitive. All the food was good, and I didn’t get sick from (or of) anything in the 3 days that we were on board. We ate 6 to 7 meals a day, and with the package that we purchased, we had unlimited access to all the beverages! I got pretty tired of pina coladas, and switched to negroni’s and vodka soda by the last day.

The weather was not the best, and we missed one of the ports, where we had booked an excursion. Sadly, I ended up napping most of that day. It’s days like that where I wonder what I’m doing with my life… Sleep more than 8 hours?! What is the meaning of life?! I think I gotta learn to take it easy…

I don't think I'd take this cruise again, but would consider other cruises. Thanks to the very friendly Norwegian Sun crew for showing us a good time!

Click here to go back to P’s bachelorette, part 1.

Not sure why I’m so sleepy today, maybe it’s the cumulative stress of city life or the island life withdrawal. Or Mercury in retrograde. Here’s another delicious meal we had, post Stingray tours, at Over The Edge on the Grand Cayman Island:

H and I shared some fried conch fritters and the shrimp (Calypso Grill still wins best shrimp).

Pina coladas were refreshing.

Their local fruit, ackee, fried up with cod, served with rice and beans, plantains, and vegetables. And an extra side of nice views:

This was a very slow meal, following a long morning of boat riding, getting soaked in sudden rain storms, swimming in the Caribbean sea with the fish and stingrays. The service was slow, possibly because we had almost 20 people, and the food was just OK. Price was again overpriced. The other guys all wanted to go home and nap. If you know me though, you’ll already know that I don’t love the idea of napping, and I dragged H, P, and V to find more views…

Continue the Jerk Chicken Tour...

According to Google, Sam’s Quality Jerk & More! is the place to get the very best jerk chicken on the island. H found this, and after our little foray around Cabana Bay, we were ready for food. Maybe we weren’t quite ready to be greeted by the piles of meat at the entrance of the shop:







Piles of very fresh meat, and extremely spicy jerk sauce (be careful with this sauce). I was very excited for an affordable meal that would actually be filling. We also came back again on the morning of Day 4, simply because it was so irresistible. They open in the morning at 7AM for breakfast usually, except Sunday, when they’re closed all day on. Why, you might wonder? 

H asked one of the cooks, “Are you guys open tomorrow?” (GCM Day 2 for us was on a Saturday).

The man chopping the meat chuckled, “No man, CHURCH!”

Imagine a Jamaican accent.

CLICK HERE FOR JERK CHICKEN TOURS PART ONE.

The final day of this trip was intended for the drive home. We went straight from Hood River to Feast, which we’d heard about from P, who’d heard about it from V. 

This place is amazing. The photos don’t do it justice, and there was so much food, I couldn’t try everything.

The food wasn’t perfect, as you can tell from the rib that had all the extra gunk left on it. Still, I’d definitely come back for the sheer volume and variety. You can make your own soup noodle! There’s a stir fry station! There are delicious mussels, clams, crab, cray fish, LOTS Of cocktail shrimp… And we were only there for lunch ($14)! Dinner would be a whole new ball game!

H didn’t want to leave, but everything good or bad must come to an end. Back to good old Vancouver…

CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO DAY 1

After a full day of shopping, we were pooped and did not want to go through downtown Portland, in case of protests, even though they were mostly peaceful in that area. We ended up driving back east to Hood River, and decided to grab a quick pizza to go from Pietro’s Pizza. There was a full arcade from the 80’s or 90’s with a claw game, racing games, ball toss games... H and I were a bit too exhausted from the stress of driving to really care, but it was definitely a good way to keep guests entertained while the food was in the oven.

The place was pretty empty, but what do you expect for a Monday night? Foot ball was on. There was a family with a toddler girl, who was screaming her head off, and another young couple who looked like they were also from out of town. With the help of one of the ladies there, we only took 5 minutes to order off their extensive menu. I apologize for not remembering what we had, but it was half of something with Canadian bacon, and half of something with Alfredo sauce. While the pizza was cooking and in our haze of fatigue, we ended up winning an adorable penguin stuffy from the claw game! It was extremely huggable.

We ended up giving it to the little girl, who immediately gave it a biiiiiig squeeze and stopped making that horrible sound. Adorable. Hope she has a bright future ahead of her.




The next day the rain cleared up a bit before we hit the road, so we had a chance to walk around Westcliff Lodge:



Nice little place to stay. People here are warm and friendly, everything is clean. I’d come back in a heartbeat, there’s so much to explore around here!

Labour day long weekend came and went. Some great memories with H, and the Point Grey homies (PNW).

Sunrise on the 1st Day

Cedar Creek

Cheers!

We visited the Lakeside Dining Room at the Hotel Eldorado for brunch:

Fabulous.

Supercalifragilicious.

There were so many options! Alaskan king crab, mussels, shrimp, waffles, eggs benedict, omelettes, and real chicken, didn’t taste like it was made in bulk although it was. There was a roast beef station with one lonely chef manning it. He was also making the omelettes and the waffles, handling the line up like a pro. Then, there was the dessert table – fluffy tiramisu, creamy crème brûlée, chocolate cake and cheesecake, and MORE. Sometimes buffets are just disgusting, because all the food is cold and just looking sad, but this was nothing like that. It was definitely one of the best buffets I remember going to my life (perhaps the fact that we were starving from all the wine tours contributed to the deliciousness).

Us after the brunch.

It was a nice chill weekend, nothing strenuous, other than stretching our tummies. I love going to the Okanagan! Maybe H and I will make it a yearly thing, and eventually visit ALL the wineries there!
Real life caught up though, and the Samsung Note 7 exploding batteries are really traumatizing me. It doesn’t help that J at work keeps sending me links about exploding Jeeps, garages burning down, and warnings to not use the phone. Apparently some airlines are banning the use of Note 7’s. The Samsung store reps are just horrid though – they don’t really care about helping the customers and wouldn’t let me return my phone without all the accessories in hand. Their response to the whole thing:

“Samsung prioritizes the safety of their customers, but to date, there have been no instances of the Note 7 exploding in Canada.”

What if it’s my phone that is the one in a million explosive one? The sales reps at the Metrotown store just brushed me off. He showed me that he still had his Note 7 in his pocket, and seemed to insinuate that I’m wasting his time. I can see you’re busy, but providing customer service and helping out your customers is what you’re paid to do. The sales rep made me feel stupid for even coming into the store to ask him to exchange my phone when it’s their manufacturing defect that is inconveniencing all their customers. Horrible experience, after paying close to $1000. If I’m crazy and the phones are actually safe to use, why is Samsung bothering to recall them?

Others are having a tough time exchanging their phones too, and apparently, it should be powered off now.

Well, let’s just hope nobody gets hurt in this. I’m not charging my phone overnight if I can help it, but it's my alarm for work... 24 in a million chance it will explode...

Here’s where you can read about the rest of the trip

Day 1 and Day 1.2

Day 2 and Day 2.2

Day 2.3 and 3

Day 4, 5, 6, 7

It’s only been a month since we came back, but it feels like years. It’s a whole new world over there and still so much to explore. I only briefly touched on our glacier tour, so I wanted to bring us back to the good old days when I was in Iceland…

We went on our glacier tour, booked through Trip.IS at their office for about $220CAD per person. They provide a guided tour of Solheimajokull, all the equipment (crampons and pickaxes), and a bus to take us there. Also included a quick ice climbing session (no pictures, because I was too busy being spiderwoman). There are some tours for a much better price, but we were pretty last minute so we didn’t bother searching too much.

The snow is black because of the ash from recent volcanic eruptions (2010? is that still recent). The ash actually helps to protect the ice and insulate it. There were random cracks and  holes, so it would’ve been a pretty treacherous hike if we did it on our own.

I really can't wait to go back, but with Europe the way it is now (France... Turkey... less recently Brussels), I can't help but be afraid to visit. I think I've decided on a few places I want to see, so look forward to more #luwesatravels posts.

Continuing Day 1 from the previous post...

We wandered over to Reykjavik Roasters next to get some coffee and wake ourselves up:

H picked up one of the bags of coffee, and they were kind enough to grind up half the bag of beans for us so that we could have it every day at the house. TPL got a hot chocolate to warm up:

Where else would this look be acceptable?

Check out their Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reykjavik_roasters/

They have great coffee, and it was another amazing little shop to hang out in. If I had more time, I would’ve loved to just sit here, people watch, and read the novels I’ve been trying to catch up on (Northanger Abbey is on my list right now).

Moving on…

1. Lost luggage
2. Lost on the trail
3. Lost cellphone
4. Lost Altoids box
5. Lost passport

All found. This is the place to find yourself. There’s so much space to develop and grow. It was exactly what I needed.

1. Lost luggage

We arrived on the 24th after a 7 hour plane ride at the lovely KEF airport. I was feeling quite excited and refreshed, because I slept pretty much the whole way. H makes a magnificent pillow. We went through customs with no problems, met up with TPL, and went to grab our luggage. We all grabbed our stuff, and waited for T’s suitcase to come out of the chute. We waited and waited and waited for a black suitcase with a little red string on the handle. Where was it?!

As the rest of the crowd dispersed, we realized it would not make sense for us to keep waiting pointlessly, so T went to the counter to ask. D and TPL went to get the car, while H and I went to pick up alcohol at the duty free (it’s so much cheaper!). T eventually had some forms to fill out and was sitting near the conveyer belts, where one of the airport attendants was checking the remaining pieces of luggage left behind. There was a black one, a random stroller, some other bags, and a grey one. The airport attendant approached T, who was sitting forlornly by the belts.

“Is this one yours?” she asked, pointing at the grey one. “It has your last name on the tag.”

“No, it’s not, mine’s black, it’s probably somebody else’s.” T was sure that it wasn’t his. “If it’s mine, you can laugh,” he says, stubbornly.

“Pretty sure it’s yours, it even has the same flight.” The attendant starts laughing.

At least we picked up some good alcohol:

We dropped off stuff at the place we were staying (Airbnb is the way to go in Iceland – we each spent about $218CAD for 7 nights), and headed back out for what was supposed to be breakfast, now brunch. Went to Kaffi:

This place took a bit of hunting to find – had to ask a kind stranger for help. Food was great, maybe because we were all starving. It was pure vegan heaven. Too bad I’m not a vegan. We were now ready to continue exploring the rest of this quaint little city (town?).

Didn’t make it all the way up to Tin Hat Hut. We were about halfway there, but a series of unfortunate (preventable) events occurred.

First, we were late for the ferry. Then, we didn’t have enough gas, because there wasn’t enough time.

We took the Dixon Road, as described here: http://www.clubtread.com/routes/Route.aspx?Route=998

Veloster Turbo cannot handle gravel roads… I was clenching my hands and starting to sweat. Some websites advertise 1 hour drive to get to the trail head, but I suppose, not in a low vehicle.

The first wooden sign along the road:

A 4x4 pickup drove by just before we reached this sign – the driver was laughing.

This was the sign where we decided to turn back (about halfway there):

The drive along the logging road isn’t very nice, no views, logging trucks rumbling by, and rough, jagged terrain.

After turning back, we tried to hit up the SCT via another route… Rainy Day Lake was the destination. We made it to here:

Again, bumpy gravel road that the Veloster could not handle. We gave it a good try, but we had to turn back. Ended up on an empty camp ground, sleeping in the car after a dinner of Mountain House Macaroni and Cheese:

This was quite delicious and extremely simple to make – add water and mix. Lots of cheesy flavour (cheese addiction is a real thing, if you haven’t heard already). I would get this again.  8/10.

Here are some other links to Tin Hat that I found:

http://sunshinecoasttrail.com/tinhat.html

http://www.clubtread.com/routes/Route.aspx?Route=998

http://www.sunshinecoastcanada.com/blog/232-52-weeks-of-trails-week-50

 

I bought the Sunshine Coast Trail Hut-To-Hut Hiking book. All set for next year. BETTER WATCH OUT.

We hiked to Skookumchuk Narrows, and passed by Brown Lake:

We went to both North Point and Roland Point. Roland Point has a closer view of the rapids and kayakers were using this spot to enter the water:

These rapids only occur at certain times, when the tides are right (there’s a tidal schedule somewhere on the Internet).

You probably can’t tell what’s in the titanium pot on the right (H bought this pot for $70. SUPER lightweight), but we had instant noodles in there. Sardines to top off the noodles.

H was covered in sweat during this hike, possibly because he wore his Patagonia down puffer jacket the whole way. It was an easy hike.

Here a few places to look for hikes along the Sunshine Coast:

http://www.sunshine-coast-trails.com/

http://penderharbour.org/Recreation/Trails/trails.html

http://www.sunshinecoast-trail.com/

http://www.sunshinecoastcanada.com/hidden-gems/sunshine-coast-trail

 

We went to pick up groceries at the IGA at Madeira Park afterwards for dinner:

Cedar Creek wine, tortellini, spinach, pepperoni sticks, and crushed up Ruffle cheese chips.

We still had not yet discovered a good coffee place. Coffee on the coast is watery and not effective. Will bring my own next time.