All posts by ~j

Update

We Have Lift Off! Two Miracles!

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Let’s just give you some background story here for a sec…Jon did not sleep on his entire flight to Thailand last year. He watched approx 8 movies. Prior to this UK flight, he checked that the flight would have onboard movies, and even went as far to check what movies were going to be playing. (Yes, he’s crazy, and who knew you could find that on-line?!?)

Miracle 1–We get to fly a day late, but a day early at the same time, and our seats are together!

Miracle 2: The movie screens for our 2 seats weren’t working. Everyone else had stuff on their screen–we had BLACK screen. I could tell Jon was super dissapointed. But, about 20 minutes later, they magically started working! Hallelujah!

Update

Day 0–Take 2 aka Jane Rocks!

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The ticket agent at Air Canada (after the whole passport fiasco) happily charged us $300 to switch our flight to Monday, when we were originally supposed to fly on Saturday. SUCK MUCH?!?!

Anyway, she told us 2 things–the earlist flight we could get was Monday at 10:00am, and with a connecting flight in Montreal, and that there was no such thing as stand-by. She also said that we could come back at 2:30 on Sunday and see if there were any seats for the Sunday flight.

PS: She’s a liar! We flew Stand-by direct from Vancouver to Heathrow on Sunday. Thanks to Cherryl and Jane! Jane rocked! So did Cherryl, Gord and Narinder. They all helped us. Jane was the one to tell me my passport didn’t work, and she remembered us the next day (well how many idiots does she deal with, on such an extreme level?) They ended up getting us the earlier direct flight. Cherryl even phoned to tell me not to worry when she kenw our stand-by seats were finally confirmed. Thank-you for double booking 6 people Air Canada!

AND, Jane was at the boarding gate to see us off. She was so happy when we walked onto the jet way. She was awesome.

 

Europe, Update

Day 0–Part 2

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We were pretty much stranded in Vancouver for the night, so we ended up staying with our friends Adam and Kelly. Totally unexpected drop in on them, but it was a good visit, and nice to see their “new” house that they’ve been in for 3 years already. New to us, not so much to them. Obviously it would have been better to have not missed our flight at all, but we met their sweet pets, Cosmo, Newton and Gilligan and saw their latest vacation photos.

The virtual safari and safari guide Kelly were absolutely amazing. Thanks Adam and Kelly for making a horrendous situation better!

Europe, Update

Day 0–No touching down in London Town

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We had a couple of options as to when to go to Vancouver to be ready for the airport. I REALLY wanted to leave Friday night for Saturday night’s flight. Jon wanted to leave Saturday with Coquihalla prone to closures, poor conditions and accidents, I thought we could use some buffer time. And I was right–we missed our first flight even though we got to the airport with TONS of time to spare. We were the first people to “check-in” for flight AC854 on Saturday.I passed Jane (you’ll see why I know her name later) my passport–no go. I brought my OLD one that expired in 2006. New one was at home 3 hours away in my dresser.

Needless to say, breaking all land speed records wouldn’t have even helped to get my passport to me in time to check in.

My brother had already left us at the airport. I’m pretty sure you can’t even guess how panic stricken I was. After about 100 phone calls home to my parents and making my brother turn around and come back to the airport–we confirmed that my current passport exists (THANKS MA!) and had my fazh drive to meet us in Chilliwack to do the hand off. (THANKS FAZH!)

Passport crisis over, but day 1 in London gone. Sadder.

Europe, Update

I see London, I see France…

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And then I see Venice! Bet you though I was gonna say something about underpants! Tricked you.

As if anyone wants to hear about the economy right now, but it actually helped us out! Hotel prices in Venice went WAY down, so we switched our accommodation to something nicer for the same as we were already paying. (Note: We’re not going deluxe apartment in the sky, but it is still a cooler hotel and a SWEET location.) We’re staying at the Hotel Caneva which is about 2 minutes from the Rialto Bridge, and about 3 minutes from Piazza San Marco. Check out the photos of the hotel it looks pretty cute.  It should be a fine place to stay for the few days we have in Venice.
Europe, Italy

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Only 7 more days to go, and it is a good thing too, because we’ve changed some of our travel plans within the last week. If we had more time to look at other interesting stops, we’d be in trouble! So now instead of London, Paris, Venice, Rome. We’re doing London, Paris, Milan (train station only–because that’s where it goes!), Venice, Orvieto, Civita di Bagnoregio, Rome.  Both new stops look super interesting. They’ll be a nice change after busy cities and tons of museums.

Orvieto’s Duomo and St Patrick’s Well look like they will be well worth the added stops on the itinerary.  The footbridge that connects Civita to the old city of  Civita di Bagnoregio is rather impressive considering there are only about a dozen people who actually live there year round!  That’s quite the infrastructure for a tiny population.  We have a couple more things to sort before we leave, but we’re pretty much ready to start packing up the back packs.  It is going to be an amazing trip.

Update

Yikes Bikes!

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Thanks Air Canada for turning me into a total stress ball! Last night we got an e-mail saying our flight home had changed. Originally we were leaving Rome at about 8:30am, flying Lufthansa to Munich, then Air Canada from Munich to Toronto and then to Vancouver, arriving at 8:20pm.So, the flight was switched to leaving Rome at 6:50am. That most certainly doesn’t work with having to be at the airport hours before check-in, and having no trains going to the airport until after 5am. Either we had to spend the night before in the airport (so, check out of our hotel a day early, carry all our crap with us for the day of sight-seeing, and then waste a ton of time at the airport) or take a taxi super early in the morning for like a billion Euros. Anxiety much?!?!

The flight was also rerouted through Frankfurt and the second leg from Frankfurt to Toronto was on Lufthansa instead of Air Canada. I don’t really care about the air line change, but the time change…not cool. Jon was on hold with Air Canada for 2 phone calls, so about 2 hours, but now we’re leaving Rome just after 10am. Hopefully they didn’t mess up the booking.

Update

Final Prep

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Ok, 46 more days to go! I’m a bit of an excessive planner–for those of you on the Vegas Vacation, y’all know that’s true! You got the pre-trip briefing.

Le Bistro Pet FeederYesterday we managed to get prepped for abandoning our pets for 22 days. We picked up an automatic food and water set up, 2 more litter boxes, and a lot of litter. Before you go crazy, we will have humans looking after them. They’re cats, they’re smart, but they don’t have opposable thumbs, so they’ll need some care. But, with the new set up we don’t have to worry about Matilda starving to death, or Cal dying of dehydration.

Today, I read through the Air Canada list of restrictions on liquids, gels and aerosols. Who knew that you could take compressed air cylinders on board to work mechanical limbs and/or to inflate your own self-inflating life jacket? Not I, that’s for sure. I already knew the whole 3oz limitation, but I wanted to know the zip lock baggy size restriction for said liquids and gels. One Quart. Come on Air Canada–a QUART?!? We live in CANADA, get with the program, it’s called METRIC. ps: It is 1.136 Litres. Thanks Google!

And, I also went to the Bank to see about the “new” Visa Chip & Pin cards. They couldn’t help me at the branch, so I had to call the number on the back of my card. Thank-you Michael from Visa for setting me up with a sweet new card that will arrive in 4 to 5 business days!

Europe, France, Update

Il dort dans les choux-fleurs

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When we were looking for accommodation in France, one of the places that made the short list was in Montmarte near the actual café that was in the movie Amélie. If you know me, you know that I LOVE that movie! Eventually, we decided not to stay in Montmarte after all, and choose a location closer to the sites that we’re going to see. After reading a ton of reviews, and looking for location and price, we ended up booking a hotel that has a few sketchy reviews about the area it is located in.  Let’s hope it doesn’t turn into a nightmare.

Tomorrow, I’m going to re-read the travel books and make a list of places that are a must see, places that are a hopefully see, and places to fill the time if we have any left over. I’m sure between the Eiffel Tower and Versailles we won’t have much spare time. After re-reading the travel books, will be movies–Amélie for sure, and Marie Antoinette. Even though Kirsten Dunst is moderately annoying, I’d like to see more of Versailles.