Week Twenty Four.

This week has been a lot about chilling out and settling back into our little Banff life, getting back to work and back into a routine. Which has been a lot harder than I hoped let me tell you. I'm so bloody tired all the time. It doesn't help that I seem to have picked up a stupid chest infection thus preventing me from sleeping between the hours of 3am and 5am - always a joy, napping has become almost as frequent as when I was at uni. Not good.

But in those few moments when I have not been sleeping, we have actually done some lovely activities. We went out for the most delicious Sunday lunch in Canmore, and enjoyed an afternoon in the sunshine catching up with our friends and eating good food. Directly after we took a little trip to Canadian Tire where Danny treated himself to a bike, and has enjoyed many hours in the two days following, fixing it up and taking it out and about the town. I'm glad he has a bike now that the snowboarding season is coming to an end, I think he is slightly concerned about what he is going to do to occupy all his spare time in the Summer, so this is certainly something good.

I am actually really looking forward to the Summer here. I want to go rock climbing, and hike all of the four mountains that surround Banff, go canoeing, take some bike rides (if I am allowed to get a bike) and just generally live a fitter and more healthy lifestyle. After Coachella and a week of road tripping and eating more McDonalds than I can ever bare to think about, I am really motivated to try and eat right and exercise and get my body into a fit state. Then hopefully I won't get all these bloody colds and chest infections, reverting me back to a childlike state wishing I was at home with my Mum looking after me.

With this in mind I spent all of Monday in bed/on the sofa feeling extremely sorry for myself, completely out of it on some disgusting tasting cough syrup working my way through the Harry Potter films. There is nothing that could possibly be wrong that Harry Potter couldn't cheer you up just a tad. And tea. I have drank a fair amount of tea. And made the most delicious tasting broccoli and cheddar soup. That is one good thing about being ill. It forces me to eat vegetables. Even if they are coated in milk and cheese, it's still vegetables!

Tuesday I was feeling a bit better, so after the most incredible of all lie ins, Danny and I grabbed our Banff Ambassador Passports and headed up to the Banff gondola on Sulphur Mountain. Those passports are absolutely brilliant. So many good freebies on there it is unreal. We would have had to pay 40 bucks each to take a return trip on the gondola and with these passes we managed to do it for free. It was a lovely way to spend a couple of hours. We got off at the top, and wandered along the little 1km trail up to the top viewing platform. The views up there are stunning, especially now we are coming into Summer and the water is crystal blue. It's just beautiful. Fingers crossed I can get my hands on a bike soon and enjoy some trips around the lakes in the sunshine. We shall see.

A Traditional English Roast.

Yesterday I was awoken to a text message from a very excitable Fabian, telling us how much he needed to go for a roast dinner today and he wanted us to accompany him. He had found an English pub in Canmore that did a traditional English roast, with English beer and even English sticky toffee pudding. I literally could not reply quick enough. I bloody love roast dinners, and although none can beat my Mum's (obviously), after 4 months of not having a roast, I was more than ready to have one. 

Of course I was running late, because I'm useless, and because I'm not feeling tip top, so everyone came in for a nice cuppa on the balcony in the sunshine - just to make everything feel a bit more English and then we headed off on the drive to Canmore. We went to a pub called The Georgetown Inn, very British I know, and we headed straight outside onto the patio. There was a glimmer of sun on one bench so of course we had to sit there, summer is coming, I promise. 

We started off with the most yummy Ploughman's Platter. Homemade scotch eggs, roast beef, goats cheese, stilton, crusty bread, salad, beetroot, pickled onions, red onion chutney and dijon mustard. It was absolutely delicious, and despite the fact it is meant to share between two, it was the perfect appy for the 5 of us, leaving plenty of room for our mains. Of course, once I'd looked at the menu, I completely forgot about the roast dinner and opted for traditional fish and chips, served in newspaper. Yum. Yum. Yum. Sarah joined me in that choice, Danny and Fabian had the roast, and Halie had the biggest and most awesome looking stuffed yorkshire pud with mash and veg. I did have slight food envy, I won't lie. We then rounded everything up with sticky toffee pudding and ice cream (obviously) and a caramel and strawberry sundae. God I feel English again and I love it. 

I think this Sunday dinner thing might become a tradition. The pub is the most lovely place and now that summer is creeping in it's the perfect idea to have a nice morning bike ride, stop off at the pub for lunch and cycle back, thus minimising the calories. The only downside to this plan was that other than Sarah, none of us have bikes. So off we went to Canadian Tire, where after an hour of deliberating Danny and Halie both treated themselves to a new bike. Looks like Fabian and I might be running after them on next weeks lunch date...

Week Twenty Three.

Well in case you weren't able to tell by the last few posts, this week has been pretty damn incredible to say the least. In one week we have driven from Banff, across the state border, through Montana, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and finally California, partied at Coachella, explored Vegas, and driven the entire way back. It was certainly a hectic week. But in terms of highlights, I have a lot.

Just driving into California, seeing all the palm trees, experiencing the heat and setting up camp at the most beautiful Lake was pretty spectacular. The heat did get a bit too much for me in the end, but just for a short while it was nice to not be surrounded by snow and erratic weather. Just sun. Pure sun. At Coachella my favourites of the week were, in no particular order, The Weeknd feat. Kanye West, Florence and the Machine, Milky Chance, Belle and Sebastian, Axwell ^ Ingrosso, Royal Blood and Clean Bandit. It was kind of weird to be at a festival in minimal clothing trying to find any form of shade just for some short relief from the beaming sun. As an English person I am much more used to gracing festivals in wellies, several layers, ridiculously attractive waterproofs and praying for the sun to peek out from behind the clouds just for one set. It was a little bit surreal.

And Vegas. Well. Vegas was ten times better than I expected. I expected everyone to be drunk and spend all of their time gambling, and of course there is that, but there is so much more. We needed at least two more days there to get anywhere close to doing all of the things that we wanted to do. I cannot begin to explain the vastness of the place, they have squeezed so much into a relatively small area. One minute you are on the bus looking at all the skyscrapers, the big Trump building, the stratosphere, the monumentally huge billboards, and the next there is nothing to see but desert. It really is like nowhere I have ever been before and I really hope we get the chance to go back and finish off what we started this time round.

As for now, I am bloody exhausted and am falling asleep trying to write this. Tomorrow it is back to the real world, with an exciting morning of house work and food shopping, followed by an even more exciting evening at work. It's fair to say reality will hit with a bang. Night all.

Las Vegas Baby.

Oh Las Vegas where do I begin. Boy oh boy has it been a busy couple of days. Danny and I have never been to Vegas before so we wanted to make the most of every single second that we had in this crazy city and do as much as physically possible. This was a challenge to say the least.

We arrived at our hotel about 4pm after a long and very sweaty drive from Coachella, ran up to our rooms to shower and headed straight back out. Of course the first thing we did was go to the nearest shop and grab ourselves a beer, because in Vegas you can wander round and drink on the street. Of course you can, it's Vegas. The same as you can smoke inside - a concept I will never quite get my head around, weird. But anyway, beer in hand, we took a wander all the way down the strip taking in all the sights there were to see, and there were a lot!

Venice, Paris, Egypt, New York - all in this one city, it's pretty impressive actually, the effort that has been put in the make the different areas look like the cities that they are representing. The buildings around Venice really are incredible. We stopped off at New York New York and went on the rollercoaster at the top of the building which was pretty damn fun. We then went to one of the bigger hotels for the biggest frickin buffet I have ever seen, stuffed our faces full of food and then wandered about some more. There is so much to see you could spend hours just sauntering about the strip, taking photos of anything and everything. We stopped off at the Bellagio to watch the fountain show which was pretty cool. It was shorter than I expected, but it's still rather impressive how the music and the water all blends together. We ended up losing the others, so Danny and I called it a night ready for what we anticipated to be an early start to a busy day come the morning, and we were not wrong.

We headed out at 9am and bought ourselves a day pass for the Deuce bus which heads up and down the strip all day, 24 hours and stops absolutely everywhere! Yes it takes what feels like forever, but it is 10 times quicker than walking. So we decided to go all the way to the end of the line at Fremont Street and work our way back down. An excellent plan if I do say so myself. We went to a highly recommended place called EAT for the most delicious sandwiches, we had our photograph taken with a million dollars, and possibly the most cool thing of the day - we went to The Golden Nugget and rode a water slide through the centre of a shark tank! Personal highlight of the trip I must say. We then headed to the outlet stores, I anticipated my money evaporating at this point, but I actually did not buy one single thing. Yay to me and my willpower. Danny treated himself in the Vans shop to a new hat and some shoes, and even treated me to some new shoes as well. Isn't he a cutie!

We didn't want to waste too much time shopping (that's right Mum I said waste time shopping!) so we headed straight to the Stratosphere which is this huge building with 3 theme park rides on top of it. Unfortunately the one that dangled you over the side of the 921ft building and span you round was shut due to high winds, but we thoroughly ended the other two rides. The XScream was a sort of rollercoaster that shot you out and dangled you head first over the side of the building, slightly terrifying but still fun. The Big Shot is classed as the worlds highest amusement ride as the 160ft tower is built on top of the 921ft building itself. This one was by far my favourite ride ever I think, possibly second to Air at Alton Towers. It shoots you up in the air and gives you a moment of weightlessness before pulling you back down to the ground. If only it repeated it a couple more times, as it was over before I really had the chance to enjoy it.

Despite the fact that it doesn't seem like that much, those few things had taken up six hours of the day, so we headed back to meet the others for a spot of gambling at the casino next to our hotel. I have never gambled before and don't really like the idea of throwing away my money, but i put 20 bucks down at the $1 roulette table and it was actually surprisingly fun. I doubled my money in the first couple of goes but just kept playing until the initial 20 i put down was gone. I had fun, I enjoyed myself but I'm definitely not the kind of person that would fritter away money on the off chance that I might win some more.

So after watching the boys play Blackjack (a much more confusing game than Roulette) Danny and I headed off the see Cirque Du Soleil KA at the MGM Grande. My God was it impressive. The way that some of those acrobats move, and the fireworks and explosions and the general set - it was like nothing I've ever seen before on stage. There was supposed to be some kind of storyline behind the show but neither Danny or I could quite fathom that out. After the show we hopped straight on the bus to try and watch the last light show of the night at Fremont Street, but it was just too busy and unfortunately we missed it and had to make the long slow busy journey all the way back to our hotel. And that is that. Vegas is over. In the morning we will be making the extremely long and tedious trip back to Canada. Here's hoping I get my second year visa and we have time to do another road trip around the US, Vegas still has a lot more to offer us.

Coachella Day Three.

Well the day is now here. The final day of Coachella 2015. I must admit, it was the least thrilling of line ups out of all three days but I was certainly really looking forward to a couple. Our day looked as such: MØ, Built to Spill, St Lucia, Vance Joy, The Cribs, Kaskade, Florence and the Machine, David Guetta and Drake.

There weren't many acts that we knew in the morning, so we decided to enjoy some time in the sun relaxing around the pool and having a couple of drinks at the camp before heading in. The first act of the day was MØ, and I was super excited to see her. I only knew of one of her songs before hand, but Danny assured me she was great on stage and really performed, and he wasn't wrong - I loved her set. It was made all the better that it was inside one of the tents so I could shelter from the afternoon sun and just enjoy the music.

I won't lie, out of the acts listed above, the next I knew was Florence and the Machine, so I just spent the rest of the afternoon following the others around, having some food & drink, and bobbing along to the music. It's actually quite fun listening to artists and bands that you have never heard of before, I've discovered music I enjoy that I would've never listened to if it was not for this festival so that's pretty cool. I've made myself a nice little list of albums to download when I get home.

So Florence. Well we all know she's got a belter of a voice so I knew I was going to love every moment of her set. Unfortunately at Coachella weekend one, Florence got a little bit too into her performance, jumped off the stage and broke her foot so for this weeks performance we were treated to an acoustic show. It was slightly disappointing that we didn't get to see her in all her jumping about/crazy glory, but her voice is so incredible there is no way you couldn't have thought her acoustic show was brilliant. I really enjoyed it, AND I knew the music so I could sing along which was even better.

David Guetta slightly overlapped Florence's set, so we dipped out a bit early to go and catch the end of his show. His music is usually pretty fun to have a dance to, and last week he brought out The Black Eyed Peas as his special guests, so we had high hopes of someone fantastic. Oh how wrong we were. David Guetta decided to bring out Nicki Minaj, which obviously excited the crowd a fair bit. However, she walked on staged, danced a little bit, lip synced along to a verse and waltzed back off again. We stood there until the end of his set, thinking she must be coming back on, but no, that was it. So yeah, definitely disappointed by that one. But that was nothing compared to what was coming up next.

The headliner of the night, and in my opinion, by far the worst act I saw over the entire weekend, the biggest disappointment was Drake. My God that man loves himself, and boy will he tell you about it. For a start he came out half an hour late for his set and left 15 minutes early, so we got 45 minutes instead of 90, and at least 15 minutes of that was spent telling us how incredible he was and how much we should love him and respect him. God he didn't half go on. And then when he did sing, it was just one verse and chorus of a song and then he would go onto the next - no full songs. We were just hoping the saving grace would be an awesome guest. Last week was Madonna, he was the closing headliner for the weekend, surely it was going to be good... Oh no. It was Nicki Minaj again. And again she did a silent cameo, walked on stage, gave Drake a hug and walked back off again. Everyone in the crowd stood there for a good 20 minutes after his set was done, thinking that surely there must be more, but alas there was not. It was a very crappy end to an otherwise awesome weekend, I certainly won't be looking up Drake tickets anytime soon that's for sure.

Coachella Day Two.

Well today is going to be a hard one to beat that's for sure! I loved every single second. Today was the day that I knew the most artists playing, so I knew I'd enjoy it for that reason, but I didn't realise I'd have quite as much fun as I did.

Our day started off with Clean Bandit and followed on with Royal Blood, Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, Milky Chance, Chet Faker, Hozier, Belle and Sebastian, alt-J, Kasabian, Jack White, Flosstradamus, The Weeknd, and Axwell ^ Ingrosso.

Clean Bandit was a great start to the day, we had heaps of fun jumping around to all their upbeat music in the glorious mid afternoon sunshine. But Royal Blood were who I was really excited to see next. I absolutely love their song 'Monster' so not only was I looking forward to seeing them play that, I was looking forward to what else they had in store - and I was not disappointed, it was awesome. We relaxed in the shade of the beer tent, had a couple of drinks and watched the next set on that stage and then headed across the way to see Milky Chance. Their song 'Stolen Dance' gives me so many happy memories of going out to visit Danny in France last year so I was stoked to see them play.

Belle and Sebastian were pretty awesome too. I'd seen them previously at Bestival in 2013 so I knew I was a fan, but this show was just so fun. Not only do they have fun, catchy songs, they get so involved with the audience. So much so that they brought up about 20 people on stage, including the cutest little kid with big yellow headphones on, just to have a dance. It was so heartwarming and I left in the most lovely mood. Not every gig would leave you feeling that way I'm sure, so they were definitely one of my favourites of the day for that reason alone.

Kasabian obviously brought the house down, and were incredible in every sense of the word - but who expected anything else. The atmosphere in there was the most fun, everyone jumping about and singing (oh and the lead singer was a joy to watch). We went over to watch Jack White at the Coachella stage straight after and it just wasn't my kind of vibe. The rest of the group absolutely loved it so I'm sure he was fantastic but I took the time to go for a wander and look at all of the art around - which is another awesome thing about Coachella, there's just so many crazy awesome things to look at. I ended up wandering through Flosstradamus' set whilst they were encouraging everyone to run at each other and go mental - trying to navigate my way through a mosh pit with a two foot long churros was pretty interesting to say the least.

Next up was the act I had looked forward to all day - The Weeknd. I'll be honest I'm not the biggest follower, but I know 4 or 5 of his songs and boy do I love that man's voice. He played my favourite song, gave me a couple of others to download as soon as I get home, and then he exceeded all of my expectations by bringing out Kanye West as his special guests. Jeez did the crowd go crazy. I think Danny though I was slightly mental as that totally isn't his kind of music at all but I loved every second and it put me in great spirits to finish off the night with the final 20 minutes of Axwell ^ Ingrosso. Jumping about to awesome tunes, with lazers going here there and everywhere and confetti and everything you could possibly imagine from a show. I fail to see how tomorrow could ever compete with this. Such an awesome day. Absolutely awesome.