'A tiger never forgets.'

After lots of daytime drinking, followed by staying up with Ian to watch Goldmember the previous day, it's safe to say Wednesday's wake up was slightly groggy.

All was cured however by the wonderful breakfast that Jim whipped up for us in true B&B style. It consisted of fruit, scrambled eggs, bacon, grilled mushrooms and tomatoes, toast and real Heinz baked beans!!! Oh how we had misse those bad boys.

Once we were dressed, we went out with Ian as tour guide whilst Roger and Jim did some work. We walked down through Beacon Hill Park to the coast. Beacon Hill Park felt very English, with lots of flowers and trees and big ponds where you could feed the ducks. It also amused us that not only was there a Beacon Hill in Victoria, but the area Ian lived was called Fernwood. It was almost like being back in Newark!!

In between the park and the beach were small fields of tall grass which also felt very European. We walked through dragging our hands through the blades of grass, pretending to be Russell Crowe in Gladiator...

Once we reached the beach, we went right down to it. The beach was made of small stones and not sand and dotted with huge bits of wood that had washed up on the shore. The air was slightly clearer than the previous day and the mountains were more visible on the opposite shore. We walked along for a while and climbed on some rocks before realising we were I appropriately dressed for such activities (Kitty was wearing flip-flops and we were both wearing maxi dresses), so headed back up to walk along the top of the cliff.

We reached a cafe and decided to make an ice cream stop. The girls in the cafe thought it would be hilarious to give us a ridiculous amount of ice cream. The ice cream I had was nearly bigger than my face! Kitty and Ian of course found this hilarious.

After being defeated by the ice cream, we headed up to the main part of Victoria to see the Legislation Building and the Empress Hotel, two of the oldest buildings which were both on the harbour. Inside the Legislation Building, Ian got told to Shh by one of the guides who was talking to a tour because the three of us were taking our own tour in the background. We found this highly amusing as you can imagine!

The Empress Hotel was ridiculously huge. They serve a typical afternoon tea, which according to everyone is very nice but very over priced. After seeing the two buildings we headed up to a shopping centre via an amazing old chocolate shop. We met Roger at the shopping centre so we could go back to their's and pack.

After bidding farewell to Jim, we headed off with Roger to catch our clipper boat to Seattle, dropping Ian home on the way. It was a short and sweet stay in Victoria but we saw a lot of cool stuff, and it is certainly a beautiful place. Roger and Jim, and Ian, were the most wonderful hosts and this made the visit for us! Hopefully it won't be too long before we see them again!

I wasn't looking forward to this boat to Seattle, having had experiences of feeling seasick in my time, but as we boarded they were giving out anti-sickness tablets for twenty-five cents each "for those who experience motion sickness or don't want to find out if they do", so we both took advantage of this (just incase).

Luckily, it was quite a smooth ride with spectacular views for some of the way of the American coast and the mountains rising up behind it. There was hardly anyone on board either so we had two seats each and got to spread over them comfortably
for the two and a half hour ride.

At some point during this journey in our conversation, Kitty said the title line of 'a tiger never forgets.' I have no idea what this was in reference to or where it came from (maybe she was sea-high?!) but it was just too genius not to include!!!

Finally, we arrived in Seattle. Unusually, I had left Kitty in charge of getting us to our hostel (I'm not sure why). So we headed off in the way her map from earlier had told us we should be going. This included walking up hill, with our huge backpacks. Needless to say I was quickly bright red in the face and breathless. Nice. After a while we figured we were walking the wrong way, and this was confirmed when we asked someone. This resulted in us trekking back the way we had just come and beyond. Even Kitty stated that next time she would leave the directions to me! Added to this was the epic heat, we thought Seattle was meant to be rainy and cold?! Apparently not!!!

Eventually we arrived at the Green Tortoise Hostel to check in. It's in a really good location, right opposite the Pike Place Market and seems really chilled. There's a big common area with wifi and computers and tables. The dorms are compact but good, theres a huge locker for your stuff and each bed has curtains around it and it's own reading light and plugs. The bathrooms are also the nicest so far out of the hostels we've stayed in. Very good first impression!

After finding something to eat, we headed to bed. Although we've got an eight bed dorm, only two of the other beds are occupied so maybe more people will materialise tomorrow!