To London I Go Part Two

I left you hanging somewhere over the North Atlantic, lets fix that.

So, we are going along, I have put away my computer from doing the last post because it is almost out of batteries. I am looking out the window and at the screen with the map on it. 

After another hour as passed, we are getting mighty close to landfall in Ireland. I see us approaching on the map, but with all the cloud, I cant actually see. 

Then, there was this little gap in the clouds and I saw waves and rocks, and I had officially seen Europe for the first time. A picture was impossible as the gap went by too fast to get my camera out. My first opportunity to do so came just a few minutes later.

I was pretty exited. The flight attendants were serving drinks at the time, so everyone else was looking at that, but I was peering out the window, my face pressed to the glass the whole time we were over Ireland. 

Looking down at all the farms I could already tell that it was so different than what I am used too. The towns had no apparent layout, and just had streets going every where. It was pretty cool I have to say.

We then passed the shore again to get over the Irish Sea. From there all the way to London it was totally cloudy so I couldn't see much. The clouds sure looked nice though.

We had to hold for a few minutes, and we mad several circles over the south of England before turning to head towards Heathrow.

The descent into the clouds was quite dramatic, and instantly what had been a very smooth flight became bumpy. There was also the fact that you could not see the wingtips sometimes.

Bye the time we hit the clouds, we had descended to about 8 thousand feet, so we were not in them for too long. Pretty soon, I could see England out the window.

Just seconds later, we touched down, and we were in Europe. Pretty cool feeling I must say.

We taxied off the runway and had to hold for a few minutes as a string of departures prevented us from crossing the other runway to get to terminal four.

We had arrived on time despite leaving an hour late, holding in the air, and holding on the ground, and we disembarked fairly fast. I snapped this picture of the machine that took all the passengers 6600km across the Atlantic Ocean.

The airport was fairly deserted, so there was hardly any lineups at all. I went through customs and border control, got my pack, and went out of security. I was officially on English soil.

Feeling thirsty, and needing change for the tube, I bought some water at the store, then headed down many stairs to the Underground.

I am going to leave off this post now, and start another with pictures from walking around London.

To London I Go

It is finally happening. Even now, writing this on the plane it feels surreal. After dreaming up this idea last fall, and deciding for sure to do it last Christmas, I am actually on my way to another continent. I am thousands of kilomiters away from home, thousands of feet in the air, looking out at the great plains of the USA, and still it doesnt quite feel real yet. I am sure it will soon.

As I write, I am probably somewhere over North Dakota, although by the time I post this I will be in Minneapolis waiting for my next flight. As this morning progressed, I became more and more focused all the time, until by the time we left my grandparents I was actually quite calm.

My grandma made her famous mini pancakes for breakfast, and I scarfed down about a dozen. My family posed in all the possible permutations of the four of us and my grandparents for pictures, and we said our goodbyes to them.

Leaving Point Roberts at 11, we got to the airport at just a few minutes before 12. When I got up to the check-in counter, the lady (very nice lady) said there was an issue with my return ticket. It had been changed by the airline so that I arrived in MSP from London at 5.35, and left five minutes earlier at 5.30 to Vancouver.

As time machines are not allowed through customs, she spent some time on the phone sorting out my issues.

I said goodbye to my family at the first security point, and they headed homewards to the ferry. I dropped my bag, then went through first security, then US pre-customs without a hitch. That is a great service at YVR that lets you fly "domestic" into the states.

Having an hour and a half to wait, I wandered for a while, then settled down to wait in the secluded wing that my gate was located in.

One panini later, my plane arrived.

It was an Embreaer 175 in Northwest Airlink colors operated by Compass Airlines for Delta. It arrived pretty much on time, and our pushback was just about five minutes late.

We taxied out to the end of runway 08R and took off with no delay.

Climbing out to the south-east, we passed over the Alex Fraser Bridge, followed shortly by Abbotsford and the border.

Once cruise was attained, the lovely flight attendant came around with drinks and snacks. I chose Sprite, and cookies.

We passed over much cloud shortly, and I think I missed the Rockies entirely. We passed over one section of particularily dull clouds for nearly half an hour

Soon after, through the breaks in the clouds, I could see flat land, field after field, and I knew we had passed over the mountains.

After a little bit of uneventful smooth cruising, the crew came round again, this time with water and pretzels. I was taking pictures at the time, and in the 30 seconds I was looking away from the window, the sun set. These two pictures were taken less than a minute apart.

It is now completly dark, and has been for a while, even though my computer clock says 4.40. We have been flying away from the sun, making it set faster, and also crossing a couple of time zones while we were at it. We are supposed to land at 5.30 Pacific time, or 7.30 Minneapolis time, so it should not be that much longer.

I might add some more when I get on the ground and have internet, so this might be a bit of a funny segway coming up.

So, it turns out that you need to pay to use the internet at Minneapolis, so this won't get posted until I find internet in London.

As I write this, I am sitting at 34935 feet going 1109 kilomiters an hour. The time is 10:16 am in London, and 2:17 am at my house.

Looking out the window, I see blue sky, white clouds, blue ocean, and white icebergs as far as the eye can see.

For the last hour, I have been watching the sky emerge from pitch black to daylight.

It started with a little glow on the horizon, and grew until the sun was striking the underside of the plane. The next thing was it hitting the tops of the clouds, leaving little golden pink tufts on top.

The light slowly descended until the whole cloud surface was lit, and just now, the water as well.

I really like how this flight has personal TVs that you can get a little moving map of the flight with all sorts of information on it.

Let me backtrack a litte to the Twin Cities.

The terminal at MSP is huge. It goes on for ever and ever. It seems like you could walk for an hour in it and never see the same place twice. I wandered around for a little while, then decided I needed a meal, so I went to McDonalds. It might have been the comfort food factor that drew me to the golden arches.

I waited at the gate for a while, then went on another walk. When I got back, I went on an internet kiosk for a little while, but the mouse and buttons were really frustrating.

At around nine, they announced that there would be a 45 minute delay on the flight. The reason for the delay was, get this, favourable weather. Since Heathrow is so crowded, there is a certain time that the flight has to arrive there to get in. We were going to beat that time by an hour and a half. As it is, we will still probably arrive about half an hour early.

Getting on board, I was surprised at how cramped the 767-400 is. The aisles are really narrow, especially through the litte galleys between cabins.

My seat, 33A had one seat beside it at the aisle, and that was free, so I have room to spread out which is quite nice.

We pushed back, the had a slow taxi to the far end of the runway. When we turned onto the runway and throttled up, the engines just roaring with power, I remembered how much I love planes.

After a while of trying to get into a couple movies, and watching a few episodes of TV shows, I decided to get some sleep. That was when we were over the Ontario - Quebec border. I woke to the sound of wailing children some time later, near the south tip of Greenland.

Sleeping was great. I took the two pillows I had, and the spare blanket, and used them as a pillow, then curled up on the two seats. It was quite comfortable, and I fell asleep quite quickly.I woke just before the sunrise.

I might add some more later once I get to the internet, so once again there might be another awkward bit right here.

I am in London!!!

This post is getting huge, so I am going to put the rest of the flight in another post, and walking London in another after that.

Awake at the Darkest Hour and Other Short Stories

That is what I saw when I looked outside just before starting this post. needless to say, it is quite early in the morning, made even earlier by the time change adding an extra hour to the night.

I was suddenly wide awake at 4:12, which was actually 3:12. After a valiant try at falling back asleep, I came downstairs and gave in to the pre trip wakefulness.

Since coming down to my grandparents is a bit of an adventure just on its own, let me rewind to yesterday morning when I left my house, and tell the story of the ride down.

Unlike this morning, last night I slept until just about 45 mins before I usually get up. Very good considering it was my last night in my bed before leaving for so long. I wrapped Christmas presents for my family, the first time I have done that more than about a week before, and tidied my room up a little.

After saying goodbye to the cat and the dog, we all piled into the car with a quick pause on the stairs for a picture(with my good friend Travis you will no doubt notice).

We actually managed to leave on time, pretty much to the minute pulling away just a minute past 8:30. We were delayed half way down the driveway when my mom's tea spilled, but after a quick shake of the rubber mat a crises was averted.

Onto the highway via a recently graded gravel road we went, Cruising only 30 kilometers, stopping for a record pit stop for gas and washer fluid, then 6 minutes later, back up on the highway.

Nothing eventful occurred on the drive to a very grey Nanaimo, and our arrival at the Departure Bay ferry terminal was nothing special either, although the white chocolate mocha I had in the terminal was nothing short of delicious.

The ferry arrived on-time, and shortly we drove up the ramp and onto the upper car deck. I went outside to take some pictures of our departure, and I ended up with these.

The ferry was a little bit crowded, and I had a lot of energy, most of it probably nervous energy, so my sister and I spent much of the crossing walking and running around outside with my camera taking many a picture some goofy, some a bit nicer.

I am awesome, and I can hover, as demonstrated in the picture to the right. It is kinda cool on the top deck at the front, because there are a few places where all the air that gets pushed aside by the ferry traveling at 20ish knots seems to go. If the ferry is running into the wind as well you get airspeeds getting high pretty fast.

There is one spot where you can lean forwards almost 45 degrees, and if you try to leap forward you just look silly. That is the one thing we neglected to take a photo of.

Here is my sister doing her "Bond" imitation.

Part of the reason to go on adventures, and travel the world is to be able to come back and truly appreciate the place you live. Part of you wants to see if there is a more beautiful, or vibrant place somewhere out there, and while they are all different and certainly wonderful, they are missing something, and that is the feeling of home that you only truly feel in one place. 

For myself, finding a nicer place is even harder. This is because where I come from, my home province, my slice of the true north strong and free, British Columbia, is truly the Best Place On Earth. 

This time of year, the colors of the water, the mountains, and the clouds all blend into a beautiful image of serene beauty.

Now that I got all the mushy, reflective stuff out, I am going to move on to a nice, and kinda different thing that happened near the end of the voyage. 

As my sister and I descended from the top deck back into the stern lounge, we could hear the sound of music coming from ahead. When we got into the lounge, we saw that in fact there were several musicians playing at the front of the lounge. They were totally amazing. 

The band was called Behind Sapphire, and they had CDs with them. My sister liked it so much that she bought one, and when they moved away to another part of the ferry, we followed them to hear more of their sweet melodies. 

My mom happened to be sitting right where they went next, and after a couple songs she bought a CD as well. She liked them so much that she stood up and told everyone in the side lounge that they should buy a CD. Many did. The band was so pleased. I got a picture with them, and I am going to take their CD to Europe with me, wow, later today. 

They were one of the most genuine groups I have ever heard, and the way they were playing was how all music should be played. As soon as we got in the car, we put their CD on, and it is an amazingly alive album that captures the spirit of their music without crushing it. http://www.myspace.com/behindsapphire That is their website if you want to check them out. 

I like funny signs, and on the ferry we saw a pretty funny one on the bathroom doors. One is from one door on the left side of the hall, and the other is from the door opposite.

We thought it was pretty funny.

Once off the ferry at Horse-Bay-Shoe, or as most of the rest of the world calls it, Horseshoe Bay, we headed straight to my Aunts for lunch. It was a wonderful affair with lots of yummy yummy food.

After a stop to pick up my sister's grad dress, we headed to my grandparent's house in Point Roberts for dinner. It was a tasty selection of salmon among other things. 

I had a lot of fun playing with my grandpa's new toy. He bought an iPad recently, and it is SO cool. They are very neat pieces of technology. 

I went to bed at around 11 on the most awesome mattress ever. My grandparents have had them since before I remember. We call them the happyface mattresses. 

As both my sister and I were kinda wired, we just lay in our beds and talked for an hour before finally going to sleep. I woke up at what the clock said was 4:12, which was actually 3:13 because of the time change, and that brings us up to right now.

It is still dark out, although the sky is showing signs of light. I leave for the airport in about four hours, and I am very exited, albeit somewhat tired. 

Looking forward to what today holds in store.

Running Around, Check

All that running around last minute stuff that I have had 8 months to do is now complete. A quick trip into town for just a few last minute purchases went off without a hitch.

Now I am back at home looking at all my stuff laid out on my bed with Elton John's Your So Static cranked up loud contemplating anything else I might be missing. I don't think there is anything! Wow, in 48 hours I am going to be getting on a plane in Vancouver to begin my adventure! only 18 hours or so left at home. I am vibrating from excitement!

One last dinner at home, a sleep, ferry ride, lunch, dinner at my grandparents, a sleep, breakfast and off to the airport! I have just entered that time before a trip where you cant really think straight. It is awesome.

Thats all for now, maybe one more post from North America, then it will be Europe!!

Counted in Hours

Wow. 60 hours until I leave my house. Over the course of today, and especially right now writing this, it has just hit me fully that in less than 3 days I am going to leave my house for nearly 6 months. Crazy stuff. I am all exited and jittery.

Just one more day of work, then a day of running around doing all the things I have had months to do, then I am off to Vancouver. to begin my adventure.

How exiting.