OH, CANADA!

Four days after landing back in the UK from Croatia, and I was off to the airport again. This time it was out to Canada where I was attending a friend's wedding. I was looking forward to the break, as three days of work in London and one early-morning train to Stratford-upon-Avon had given me no time to recover from Croatia. Sleep deprivation and vitamin deficiency had left me absolutely shattered.

So I flew off to Toronto on Air Canada (no thanks to bloody Zoom Airways) and was met at the airport by the husband of my father's cousin. I didn't even know my father had cousins. Apparently that makes this guy the husband of my first cousin once removed...whatever! I was just happy to be collected from the airport. Having someone waiting at the airport NEVER happens to me. So I had a free lift to a nice cozy bed for the evening which was absolute luxury. These cousin-type-people lived in Burlington, so the next morning after a short tour of the town I caught a train into Toronto where I was hoping the real action would be.

Well, the only action I saw was behind my eyelids. I'm always surprised by my complete lack of tolerance for jetlag. You'd think being the 'seasoned traveller' I like to think I am, I'd have it all sorted. Alas, I was too knackered to go out for pre-wedding drinks on the Saturday evening but luckily pulled myself together in time for the big day on Sunday. My friend's wedding was fantastic. Held at a yacht club, it brought back happy memories of my sailing trip of a week earlier and the service itself was very moving - I think I must be getting softer in my old age ;) The reception was much more fun than the average wedding, in my humble opinion. The happy couple were just so happy! And they had a lot of time for each of the guests, which I have found quite rare in my experience. Usually I feel like I'm intruding on a family 'do'. This one however was great.

My next adventure was a day trip to Niagara Falls. I was expecting a disappointing trip to an over-hyped tourist trap, however it was absolutely amazing. The power of the falls was exhilarating. I flew over them in a helicopter but couldn't make sense of the sights my eyes were seeing. From a distance I thought I was looking at smoke from a fire, but as we flew closer I realised it was the spray rising from the centre of the falls. Once back on solid ground, I took a trip on the Maid of the Mist, a boat which has been taking tourists to the bottom of the falls since 1846. The view, and sound, and feel of the spray on your face needs to be experienced.

Having seen Niagara Falls, I was done with Ontario and jumped on a train to Montreal, Quebec. I'm in love with that city. It is beautiful.

Greenery, water, art, french language, I could definitely live here. Goddamn immigration legislation. I met some fabulous people at my hostel and spent a glorious few days wandering around, reading, absorbing, debating, recuperating. This was a wonderful holiday, and seemed longer than the nine days I was actually away. Oh to live an idle life!

SAILING IN CROATIA

Another year, another squillion brain cells killed by spending a week sailing with thirteen alcoholic lunatics. I've been delaying writing this post until I can consult with the other witnesses and develop a consistent record of who, what, where, when, why and how, but that's not going to happen. I'm afraid I haven't had the time to launch the level of investigation that would be needed to piece together 14 different snippets of memory to emerge with a consistent record of even one drunken evening, let alone the nine nights we spent in Croatia. I think the majority of hijinks on this trip are to be forever consigned to the collective unconscious, a vague tugging feeling in the back of our memories whenever we walk past a docked cruise ship with a dinner bell on the bow located enticingly close to a swinging mooring line.

This much I know: we started in Dubrovnik. I have a 'thing' for walled cities. York, Chiang Mai, Derry, Buda(pest), I love them all. Walking the Dubrovnik wall was especially rewarding. Towering above the city, you see the orange rooftops bunched below on the one side, and the shimmering expanse of the Adriatic Sea on the other. It was simply gorgeous.

Unable to collect the yachts until Sunday, we had three whole days in Dubrovnik. While my usual modus operandi is to wander around looking at pretty things with no knowledge of what they are, this time I was armed with a Croatia guide book (courtesy of Westminster Libraries) so I marched off to see what I could see. I saw a lot. It was interesting at the time, but since then has completely flown out of my memory attic.

By the third evening everyone had arrived, and the adventures were about to begin. This year we had four Australian girls, two Australian guys, three Kiwi guys, one Kiwi girl, one Austrian girl, one Polish girl, one American guy, one English guy. We had two yachts again (I think they were both 42-foot) and were christened Brokeback and Four Wenches (or 'Four Inches' if it was said in a Kiwi accent). I think the consensus was that the former name was due to BGB's choice of headwear on our first day and the latter because that boat had four women on board. But that could have been a cover story. Four Wenches was the designated Party Boat.

The start of a sailing trip is always exciting. We pooled our money and went off to buy groceries. For most of us on Brokeback, it was our second year sailing so we drew on our knowledge of what did and didn't work when trying to prepare food in the galley of a violently-heeling yacht. I think the other boat just bought alcohol and crisps. Back to the marina, the boats were loaded up and we were off at last. It felt so good to be back out to sea - the last few days staring dreamily at the islands off Dubrovnik had me craving the feeling of salt in my hair and sand in my toes.

After lunch and a swim in a little bay, our first overnight stop was in Ston. We moored parallel to each other, which means the boat closest to land has people climbing all over it at all times of the night. Hence the requirement to designate a Party Boat. There were salt flats opposite and a pretty town down the road, however I remember virtually none of it. Our first night was very, very messy. F demonstrated his ninja moves by trying to walk off the boat onto the land (forgetting the wire 'railing' around the edge), tripping over and saving himself from a face-plant into the concrete by turning it into a pushup. Add to that some gate-crashing Austrians from a boat further along, a visit from the police with a noise warning, 17 giggling drunkards crammed into the galley of one boat trying to be quiet and trick the police into thinking we'd gone to bed (while one of us was upstairs by the police car asking 'the cute one' out) and you'll get a sense of the general level of mayhem in store for the next week.

I can't really distinguish many of the other days from each other. I know we went to the beautiful national park island of Mljet. Our first night at Polace involved us arguing with a restaurant owner over the price of the bill and the cost of filling our water tanks. In the end we refused to pay, left the next morning to Pomena on the other side of Mljet, and bumped into the waiter from the offending restaurant who was moonlighting as a ferry operator. While we spent a gorgeous day cycling around the national park and swimming in crystal-clear water, the evening saw three of our boys run through a bar in their underwear and another warning by the police. After the second police visit of the evening we were threatened with confiscation of our passports. Our next night was in Korcula, a renowned party-town, however everyone was unsurprisingly a bit knackered. A small group of us still managed to stay out for some nightclubbing and dancing-on-a-stage action so the whole team wasn't let down.

On our way to Sipan the next day, we stopped as usual for lunch and a swim in a bay. Disturbingly, a police boat pulled in about half an hour later and started coming toward us. Our fears of being stalked were allayed, as it was a standard paperwork check. After a quiet night moored out in the harbour in Sipan we sailed back to Dubrovnik and spent our last night on the yachts there.

Croatia was pretty, but it really didn't compare to last year's sailing trip in Greece. Croatia was much more expensive, both the food prices and mooring fees were at times exorbitant. My first meal in Dubrovnik cost £60, however that was probably more down to the naive ordering of BGO (fish platter vs fish of the day) than a concerted Croatian con job. I have a feeling that the combination of people that came this year were more raucous than last year, however the constant attention by the police was really uncalled for on most occasions. And Greece was breath-takingly gorgeous. At the end of this trip I was utterly, completely, physically and mentally exhausted. I arrived back home in London around midnight on Sunday, and had four days back at work before flying out to Canada for another week. I was broke and broken.