... I think I'm in love!
Ok, so again, sorry about the lack of posts! Between breakfasts, sightseeing, shopping, assignments and getting sunburnt, we've hardly had any time to just sit and write. But it's Monday morning and I'm up early to update ya'll on our new life and adventures so far. Since I've left it so long between posts, I'm going to try to do some catch up blogs starting with this one, and hopefully by the end of the week I'll actually be back to blogging about the day that just happened!
We left Australia last Sunday morning with our entourage to see us off. There were tears and smiles and lots of photos and it really was a case of mixed emotions. We were so sad to leave everyone but just so excited about finally getting to Vancouver and doing all the things we'd talked about for so long.
After saying our goodbyes and going through immigration we finally boarded our plane at about 11am. We were stoked to hear that our flight to LA was only 12 hours, not the 16 hours we had thought (I don't know why we thought that...) and as soon as we sat down we started going through the inflight entertainment, which was totally awesome! They had full seasons of a bunch of tv shows (Family Guy, CSI etc), documentaries and about 40 movies to choose from - we were loving it. The whole V Australia experience was fantastic. The staff were really nice and happy and the food was great. The only complaint we can make is that we called the day before our flight to see if we could book in online and the girl said no, that all people on flights to the US had to have their visas checked so you had to wait until you got to the airport. I even said "So there's nothing we can do before we get to the airport?" and she said no. So we got to the airport early and ended up being about 6th in line and when we asked for a window seat, we were told they were all taken and we had to sit in the middle row of the plane. So I don't know what happened there or if there's some other way to reserve seats before the flight but we were pretty annoyed that we didn't get to sit by a window. On the upside, the seat next to us was free so we were able to stretch out a bit.
We didn't really get any sleep on the plane and arrived in LA at 7am local time, 11pm for us. We stood in line at immigration and just as we were getting to the front of the line, the drug-sniffing beagle came by, sniffed around my bag and then sat down next to it. I almost died! Not because I was worried about them finding 4 kilos of marijuana in my duffle, but because we had a piece of Aunty Robyn's banana bread in my bag and I was stressing that it was about to cost us an extra 2 hours as they took us into one of those smalls rooms to check all our bags and possibly a conduct a full body cavity search. I quickly told the lady attached to the dog that we just had a piece of cake in the bag and she said it was ok, that he was still learning and really just wanted to eat whatever we had. And they continued on their way.. PHEW! The rest of customs and immgration was fine, except we were asked by every US customs/immigration person we encountered why we had the tourist visa that we had... seriously?! Shouldn't they be aware of why we needed that visa? We had to explain it at every step of the way.
We arrived at the LA domestic airport and found we were too early to put our bags through so we went back to the main airport terminal and had some McDonald's hashbrowns for breaky. We headed back to the other terminal and stood in line to check in for our next flight to Vancouver on Alaskan Air. As we got towards the front, a lady from the customer service desk said she could check us in so we moved over to her area. She was super friendly and said the flight was really empty so she moved us up the plane and put one of us in the window seat and one in the aisle so there was a seat between us so we could have the extra space. We were really happy with that as we were super tired and were both looking forward to sleeping on the 3 hour flight. We made our way to the departure lounge and and spent the next 3 hours trying to nap (me), sending quick emails to family and drinking coffee (shan).
So we finally board the plane around 1pm local time (5am for us) and as we walk to our seat we find a young guy sitting in the seat between ours. Awesome. He kindly offered to change seats so shan and I had the window and middle seats. When we'd booked the flight we'd selected seats towards the back of the plane so we could have a clear view. But the lady had moved us so we could have extra space and now we were right over the wing, and with no extra space at all. We were too tired to care too much and promptly tried to get some sleep. About 15 minutes into the flight the big, unhealthy-looking guy behind us started feeling crook. He stood in the aisle, doubled over, and the flight attendants asked if there was a doctor on the flight. There was, and he came to see the guy, asked him how he was feeling etc. The guy told the doctor he was a diabetic and so the nurse got him some juice and the doctor gave him a lolly and that seemed to calm things down. The flight attendant put him on oxygen and he sat there for about 30 minutes on that. So after like an hour of drama things calmed down and everyone went back to their seats. Then, when everyone was feeling sorry for him and hoping he'd be alright, he started joking around with his buddies about how he shouldnt have drunk all those beers before the flight. Sympathy evaporated in 0.5 seconds.
We arrived in Vancouver at about 4pm local time and were prepared for the 2 hour customs and immgration process, which was how long it had taken Shan to get through last time she'd come through Vancouver airport. We went through customs and and the lady told us to go to immigration so I could get my visa. So we went to immigration expecting a long wait and when we went into the room, it was completely empty except for one other guy and we went straight to a booth and were out of there in about 10 minutes. It was awesome! Oh and the other guy who was in there was denied entry to Canada because of a drink driving charge in the US and was being sent back immediately. He was gutted as he had to start a class the next morning. It was just like an episode of Border Control.
Fannie met us at the airport and took us to her house to see Trav and Weston and they made us some really delicious nachos! She then drove us to our new house, our new home, and we absolutely loved it, right from the beginning. The views are amazing and Chris and Lisa left us instructions for everything. We enjoyed being in our new home for abour 30 minutes before the sleep deprivation finally took over and we went to bed, totally crashing for about 10 hours.
So that was our trip over! I'll post more later today about what we've been up to this week :)
Zanne
August 27: In the afternoon we caught the skytrain, seabus, bus and gondola up to Grouse Mountain (which is the mountain we enjoy photographing from our apartment). We had such a great time! And, oh man, what views!
August 27: We had an action-packed day today, thus a two part daily pic.
August 26: We had a lazy day today - coffee, brunch, a visit to the dollar store, cheese and crackers on our balcony and some Myers-Briggs to boot.
Shan 
