After tossing and turning in our beds due to the heat and stuffiness of the room we were both wide awake at just shy of midnight. What to do? We regrouped on our queen sized beds and talked through the options. We could a) start and finish the blog b) sort out the days photos c) play cards d) repack or e) watch TV. We plumped for e, watch TV and scoured the TV channels to see what delights were on at this time of night. We plumped for the film The Bone Collector. Ah yes, nothing can set you off to sleep better that a bit of Denzel Washington and some gory blood and gore…..NOT! Probably give us nightmares, particularly the bit with the rats, but hey, let’s not go there!
Lights went out at 2am and were back on again at 5.30am when we were woken by the alarm. We didn’t quite wake with a spring in our step however after taking our daily Berrocca (for energy), partaking in our 7 min-7 day flat stomach routine (for exercise), taking a shower (to revitalise us) and repacking our bags (because that’s what we do) we were all ready to embrace Day 2 of our Canadian adventure.
Having read the most awful reviews about Air Canada, we were expecting the worst; long queues at check-in, unhelpful staff, long queues at the boarding gate, you name it, we were anticipating it, so it was with some trepidation that we crossed from the hotel into the T2 Queens Terminal. Well, imagine our surprise when we a) printed off our own luggage labels at the check-in kiosk b) dropped our bags off at the desk (our cases weighed in at; Maice - 9kilos, mine -11.7kilos even though I was carrying the Dorset Knobs) and c) passed through security without the need to remove items from our bags or about our personage and place them separately in the ‘trays’. Apparently they have two new scanners and it certainly speeded up the process. They still do the random spot check on luggage and of course Maice’s backpack a prime suspect. They were most interested in the jumbo pack of cards therein which were swabbed and frisked to within an inch of their lives until they realised that they were in fact just a pack of normal cards, albeit on the large side and nothing more sinister. Funnily enough it’s not the first time they’ve been swabbed! Within twenty minutes of arriving at the terminal building to sitting down for breakfast at the rather aptly named Perfectionist’s Cafe it was a total of twenty minutes. Another record and let’s put it out there…..Well done Air Canada and Well done Heathrow T2 👏👏.
For breakfast we both ordered a cappuccino and smashed avocado with a poached egg sat on the top, served on the most ginormous doorstopper of a slice of bread…..then we went shopping! To be honest other than the usual unaffordable shops like Gucci, Burberry, Dior, Bulgari etc the only purchases we made were Channel No.5 for me and 2 bottles of champagne for Maice’s mum. After casually sauntering around the terminal we noticed our gate was showing, 80 mins before departure so we headed off to gate B37, and before we knew it we were sat on the plane both donning our sexy flight socks. Hey, what’s going on? This is all going far too smoothly! Fingers crossed then that our luggage is also on the plane with us!
Without further ado we were taxing along the runway and up the air and on time, I might add. As flights go, it was a rather uneventful nine hour flight. We wondered what culinary delight we’d be served for lunch. Chicken or pasta was what Maice forecast and she was right, however due to the fact that we were sat at the back of the plane, by the time they’d got to us they’d run out of pasta so we were offered the chicken instead! We declined this and so our offering for lunch was a cold rice ‘salad’, a cold cucumber salad (cucumber cut into small cubes), a cold dry roll with butter and for pudding a cold chocolate orange mousse, which was very chocolaty, very orangey and very sweet. All served in very small pots. Ah well, you can’t have everything. Bet they didn’t run out of pasta in first class! Thankfully the wine was included with our meal so we consumed two (small) bottles of white wine which tasted much better after each sip!
By the time we’d finished writing the blog, watched a few films, ate, drunk our wine and dozed a bit we had touched down at Vancouver airport. We walked for what seemed miles to get to Zone B, Gate 31 to connect to our onward flight to Kelowna but when we got there they’d changed the gate to Zone C, Gate 37 so we had to about turn and retraced our steps until we found Gate 37. At least we were stretching our legs and getting our steps in! It transpired when Maice checked her phone that Air Canada had sent a text advising of this gate change!
Before we boarded our twin-propellor aircraft we were asked if we could put our cabin baggage in the hold of the plane as it was a full flight. We obliged and then once boarded we sat on the tarmac for 35 minutes whilst waiting for everyone’s luggage to be loaded. We didn’t spot our luggage so our fingers are still crossed that all our luggage ends up on the carousel at Kelowna airport. We were sat next to the left propellor and became quite fixated with the revolutions particularly in the air. To the naked eye we couldn’t see the propellor as it whizzed around at goodness knows what RPM but when we looked at our photos taken from the window the propellor was visible. Why is that? We’re very confused! The flight to Kelowna is very scenic as we had some fabulous views over the Monashee mountain range with its snow-capped peaks. This area of Canada has seem some devastating fires over the years and today we witnessed a forest fire with its plumes of smoke rising high into the sky intermingling with the clouds above. We also saw large swathes of yellow parched grassland and distressed forests of trees for they too are suffering from serious drought conditions. Its all very sad to see how nature is being destroyed in this way.
We touched down and made our way into the arrival lounge, found Myrna, Maice’s mum who’d come to collect us and lo-and-behold, what should we spot making its way along the carousel but all our luggage. We breathed a sigh of relief that we had our full compliment of clothes and wouldn’t need to a) borrows Myrna’s or b) go out on a shopping trip and buy some more!
Back at Myrna’s we dumped our cases on the floor and we all enjoyed a lovely cold glass of Prosecco. In fact, it went down so well another bottle was opened! Well you’ll never guess what? Apparently the liquor store delivery drivers have been on strike for three weeks causing empty shelf syndrome! Shock horror! But not to worry, it transpires that Myrna has a lovely wooden trunk in her lounge which when opened revealed numerous bottles of various alcoholic beverages!!! I was quite taken aback that someone could have that much liquor in one’s house and not have drunk it all. It wouldn’t last a day in mine! To soak up the alcohol, Myrna cooked us all a lovely prawn pasta dish after which we were so weary and tired it was time to make our way to our beds and sofas. A good nights sleep is definitely what we need right now…….zzzzz
Before we head off to our respective beds we must give a Happy Birthday shout out to Mike, proprietor of Sir Winston’s holiday home in Wool. We hope you have a lovely day and that Sir Winston is behaving himself!
On that note its good night from me and its goodnight from her!
M&A xx
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