We planned on visiting the Japanese Gardens but it was a grey old day and my legs weren’t up to revisiting that hill so we just had a quiet one, letting ourselves be still for a while. So after a visit to a bike shop and securing some fishing licenses for the next day’s adventure we just spent the day planning the cycling adventure across Europe that had begun hatching in our minds since facing the wide expanses of America, where you are tied to your car as if it was an umbilical cord.

Our Airbnb host’s name is SaraHope and for those who now us, you’ll be glad to hear we are being looked after in our travels by people like her. Perpetually scatterbrained we had neglected to book more than two nights and of course when our plans to go camping fell through due to Dylan still being on the tail end if his cold and our surprise invitation, of course someone else booked it up. SaraHope went out of her way, organising her housemate Minka to stay over at her boyfriends so we could use her room and then two days later moving us back into our old one. The only shame in this whole scenario is that Minka’s hilarious little gentleman mutt called Giovanni also had to leave. Can anyone resist saying that name with an OT Italian accent? If so, you are far stronger willed than these two simple souls.

Our room came adorned with giant faux leaves and flowers above the bed, and because SaraHope couldn’t be there to welcome us when we arrived she left us a handwritten card! Her boyfriend Sapphire was there to greet us on our first morning, ah poor Sapphire, who left after ecstatic dance to run dance/martial arts workshops in Australia, neglecting for the secondtime to get a working VISA and travelling with a one-way ticket. Alarm bells sounded as he emerged off his flight and after a lightening quick interview where they looked sat his website banned him from the country for 3 years and frog marched him within 24 hours back onto a flight to Portland. Yikes isn’t that your far whenever you arrive in a country for the first time? But in most cases it’s irrational.

Now to prepare for our fishing expedition, of course it’s midnight and we have to rise at 5! It is so exciting to take a break from the city!