One small step for Gav

So... Here I am in Canada...

I'm gonna start with a narrative, 'coz despite about 10 hours sleep, I'm too knackered to think about any of this properly...

So, the adventure began in Dublin Airport as these things do... Ulster bank had screwed me so I needed to buy lots of Canadian dollars at Ulster Banks expense (they offered). So I bought every Canadian Dollar in the airport.. :) Aer Lingus flight to heathrow was late (On the ball those who predicted they would be). What was fascinating was that they just kept getting later. Finally arrived in Heathrow at about 14:45 where I was given a pile of free Baileys with Coffee, which is pretty tasty and is apparently exclusive to Heathrow for the next 9 months...

Nearly forgot about the flight, was enjoying my book so much, new Ian Banks non scifi book. Got to the gate just as they were calling passengers. The gate was off to the side and the first thing you saw as you came around the corner was the plane... Oh my god, the plane. It was the first time the excitement of the trip totally overwhelmed the stress of the travel. It was like seeing the Titanic. Awesome. I am not sure if I was on a Boeing 747 when I went to the US in 2000, but I don't remember the plane like I will remember this one.

The trip itself was long, really long and almost totally uneventful. The food was pretty crap, as expected, and the drink selection was bad too.... (I just wanted more Baileys...  They didn't have any :( ) The entertainment selection was good though... Got to see No Country For Old Men (very good), an episode of The Office (US) (good), Michael Clayton (good, Tilda Swinton was great, oscar deserved), Torchwood (awful), Heroes, a newer episode of the simpsons (the one with Alan Moore), Family Guy and American Dad. Yep, the trip was that long... And I slept too...

An interesting observation: There were way more Irish on the plane than their should have been based on demographics of the British Isles. Here is me looking forward to sitting beside some hot Canadian girl and having the 9hrs 35mins fly by, landing fresh and enthusiatic. Instead I was sitting beside some monosyllabic Cork man from Mal Low who drained the life out of any attempt at conversation. The Irish girl next to him was not perturbed though. She just talked and he grunted. Nope they had not met each other before either. There were loads more Irish about too. I'd say about 10% of the flight was Irish. I think that's a sign of just how wealthy we really are these days. We may not feel it relative to our peers, but when you go abroad you really get the sense of how our expectations are way higher. (This is not the first time I've made this observation either, I remember noting this in London about 5 or 6 years ago)

Arrived in Vancouver at about 19:30 local time. The plane banked on its way down and my first view of land was the rockies protruding above the cloud layer. Awesome! Left the airport nearly 2 and a half hours after landing sans baggage (That was french btw, its everywhere here, though I haven't heard anyone speaking it yet. Reminds me of home. :) Yep, the baggage was in London still. Twats. Luckily there is nothing major in the bag except clothes (and anyone who knows me will know how distant from my heart clothes truely are. (Which makes me sound like a naturist, which I am not :) )). The bag is due to follow me to my hostel hopefully, today or tomorrow. I have spare clothes in my carry on, and it was no biggie to go get some cosmetics in a local shop.

The hostel is a bit dodgy. I think only the hungarian old man is older than me... They do have jagerbombs as a special here though and they are proud to display that pretty much everywhere.. Can$5 for a jagerbomb Dave, I think you could save money in this country :) They also have weird locks which you have to lock from the inside before you go out... That threw me for the first while... Still, a weeks accomodation in a private room across the hall from the womens shower room for €320 I can live with :)

This mornings high light from the shower room involved a loud Australian girl from Western Australia telling an equally loud American girl from Manhattan that she couldn't ski, much to the american girls puzzlement. She had in fact understandibly never seen snow before :). However she could surf apparently. This was at 5:22am Vancouver time... :) Luckily I am easily amused...

Now to go get breakfast...

More as it happens...

Gav