#anniigoesglobal

Today Grandpa finally came home ❤ It was such a surreal experience to stand where he would have stood and see the place where he grew up. I am so grateful for this experience and will never forget it #anniigoesglobal #estonianadventures #grandpacamehometoday (at Vintri, Saaremaa, Estonia)

In addition to my normal travel blogs and insta posts, I have been inspired to start a photo series featuring this photo of the two people who are the reason why I am able to go on this amazing trip. My Grandpa and Grandma passed away when I was 14/15 so I was never able to appreciate the stories or wisdom they could have shared with me (oh the naivety of youth) and now I'm about to embark on a journey to the country they were born in. As I photograph them in the places that I visit I can imagine what stories they might have told me, advice they could have given, and what thoughts I would have shared with them. I may not have had as much time with them as I would have liked but they have given me an opportunity that not many people get and I will be forever grateful for that ❤❤ #anniigoesglobal #grandparents #vanaisa #vanaema

I bought a Growler!

Today was one of the best we've had in Vancouver! We started off with stand up paddle boarding, although mine was more knee and bum boarding because for the first hour or so I was too afraid to stand up. There was a huge log section in the middle of the lake which was full of harbour seals and there were heaps of babies too! Once again I felt like a Disney Princess because a mummy seal and her baby swam right up to my board plus a few other adults swam really close to me. We also saw herons, golden eagles and bald eagles. In the last half hour of our session most of the group decided to be silly and start doing tricks like handstands and stuff on the boards. Most of them failed and everyone except me ended up in the water (I chose not to do any tricks hence why I stayed dry). I did however participate in paddle board yoga which was hilarious. Across from the park there were 4 local breweries, so we ended the day with a huge pub crawl and tried all the beers from every brewery. Tomorrow is my last day and I fly home at 9.30pm. I'm very sad but I hope it's a good one! Annelii xx

Aquabus!

Granville Island Public Market

Today Tom and I went exploring around Granville Island. We took the Auquabus which is a cute little put-put boat that is actually really fast and super quiet. Our first stop was the Public Market, which is just like our Queen Vic Market. We took a look around at everything with our cups of coffee, taking note of the things we wanted to buy, ate some breakfast and then came back to those stores and bought the things we liked. I ended up buying 2 really nice photo prints of places in Canada, one we've been to and the other was just really picturesque. We wandered around the Island looking at all the shops, there was a really kitschy store that had some amusing things in there so I bought some presents for people. My absolute favourite store was a place called Paper-Ya, I bought sooooo many things in there. I ended up buying a dip pen, a medium pot of violet ink, 3 sticks of coloured sealing wax, a mini fountain pen and 2 ink refills for said pen. That should have cost me well over a hundred dollars right? Wrong! It only cost me $60! (Goddammit Australia why do you have to be so expensive). Tom and I also decided to go to the Granville Island Brewery and we ended up trying all 10 beers and getting quite drunk. Here's how it happened: we went in because we saw that you could get 4 taster beers for $7 (so cheap I know!), so we each got 4 beers which covered 8 of the 10 beers available. We also got a decent serving of poutine because hey, something has to help soak up the alcohol. All in all that was $26 (everything is so cheap here I may never leave!). Then we saw that you could do a brewery tour for $10 so we thought why the hell not? Turns out that the tour included a tasting of 3 different beers, 2 of which were the ones we didn't try at lunch and that's how we ended up trying all 10 beers. Which I do not regret at all because they were fantastic! Stumbling out of the brewery 3 or so hours after we went in to the brewery, we explored a bit more, bought a few more things and then jumped back on the Aquabus to head to the hotel. Which we only stayed at for 2 seconds to drop off bags because I realized that I still had souvenirs to buy for people. We walked down Robson St because that seemed the most likely place to find souvenirs. I felt like I was on Bourke St with all the shops and the buskers as well. I successfully got all my stereotypical souvenirs and almost bought a really nice pair of shoes but they didn't have my size (why o why are my feet so tiny?). To end the day we met up with the rest of the family and had dinner at a nice Italian Restaurant only 6 minutes walk from our hotel. Tomorrow we go paddle boarding! Annelii xx