Angelika In July, we decided to fly to Vancouver Island for ten days because many people had already raved about this island in the Pacific Ocean, just a short ferry ride away from the Canadian metropolis of Vancouver. It belongs to the Canadian province of British Columbia, is 460 km long and 100 km wide, and anyone who has vacationed in Scandinavia will feel right at home on Vancouver Island. There are archipelagos, forests, mountains, and lakes, and as a bonus, a fantastic rainforest. You will find long--often fog-shrouded--sandy beaches and an interesting wildlife, including various whales that are either resident ("resident whales") or passing through ("transient whales"). Additionally, the tasty and world-famous oysters from Fanny Bay come from there.

Angelika The northern part of Vancouver Island is considered remote, rugged, and wet, and a paradise for every hiker and nature lover. We landed in the south, in Victoria, the largest city on the island, with a propeller plane from Canadian Vancouver and drove with a rental car to the northern end, to Port Hardy.

Before we set off for Vancouver Island, we could read in every travel guide that more bears than people live on Vancouver Island. Interestingly, only black bears roam the island, while both black and grizzly bears are found on the Canadian mainland. Despite extensive research, I couldn't find a satisfactory answer as to why this is the case. In any case, on the second day on the island, we saw a total of three bears, all leisurely nibbling on grass by the roadside.

Michael On Vancouver Island, we noticed a surprising number of German tourist families wandering around. It's not quite as bad as in "Man spricht Deutsch" , and the behavior of our compatriots there is not bad; they seem to be relatively well-educated couples in our somewhat more advanced age group, who speak English quite passably.

Michael There are some peculiarities to report from the Canadian gastronomy scene. Apparently, when the guest wants to pay his bill, the server no longer takes the guest's credit card and disappears to authorize the payment behind the scenes, as is customary in the USA ( Rundbrief 08/2000 ). Insteat, the guest gets up from their table and approaches the counter on foot to pay. In fine establishments, the server sometimes brings what I call a 'tip machine' to the table, where the guest swipes their card and enters the tip amount in a dialogue that requires pressing an absurd number of buttons. The small device then noisily prints out a receipt, which the guest signs with a pen. Fortunately, I have a high school diploma and only needed about two minutes to give a tip, with a brief interruption when the server had to reset the machine because I pressed the wrong button.

Michael The more uninhabited areas of Vancouver Island are work areas for lumberjacks -- rough types who, still in their work gear, head to the village pub in the evenings and, as it seemed to me, havn't seen the inside of a dentist's office in a long time. In a dive bar on the edge of nowhere, we once had a very good dinner, and when I went to the counter to settle the bill, as is customary in Canada, a lumberjack was paying his tab before me. The visibly tipsy man also received two pallets of Budweiser beer cans and two large bags of ice cubes, paid about $150, and even asked the waitress if he could take her out to dinner, which she briefly considered but then politely declined. Let's hope he only had a short drive home!

Michael To explore wildlife and plant life of the so-called "Broken Islands" in the bay south of Tofino, we booked a guided full-day kayak tour. Early in the morning at eight, we took a small shuttle boat with kayaks strapped on to the group of islands, where we packed provisions into the kayaks on a sandy beach, put on our gear, and started paddling.

Michael We are back in San Francisco! One of the most absurd laws in the USA prohibits young adults under the age of 21 from consuming alcohol. Just imagine: a twenty-year-old adult can buy a house, join the army, or purchase a weapon, but cannot buy a beer at the supermarket. However, like all absurd laws, it is constantly circumvented.

Angelika After members of Congress just managed to save the USA from bankruptcy and raised the debt ceiling following an embarrassing mudslinging battle, the next piece of bad news came from the American Postal Service: If Congress won't intervene, the Postal Service faces insolvency in a few months.