JUN 13, 2012 VANCOUVER TO ATHENS (VIA LONDON)

Wednesday Jun 13, 2012  VANCOUVER TO LONDON GBR

BRITISH AIRWAYS JUMBO AT VANCOUVER AIRPORT

We are off to Europe!  Athens to Venice on the beautiful WINDSTAR cruiseline aboard the Windsurf - 300 passengers under the  soaring white sails as we leave Athens on Saturday Jun 16 (just one day before Greece’s major election as they decide whether to stay in the European Union - or not! )  We head to Monemvasia Greece, then a day at sea as we head over to the island of Corfu, Greece.  After tasting the olives and the hospitality of the Greeks in Corfu we head North to Kotor, Montenegro, then on to  Dubrovnik (the walled city) Croatia. We continue to glide along the Dalmation Coast of  Croatia of the Adriatic Sea, visiting Split and Pula before we arrive in Venice 8 days later.  We will stay in Venice for 2 nights before we fly back to Vancouver via London with British Airways.  The only city that we have visited before on this itinerary is Dubrovnik in 2009 and we loved walking along the top of the wall around the city, so we are delighted to have the opportunity to explore some more!  Come along with us and let us share this beautiful part of the world together.  

SNOW ON THE CANADIAN ROCKY MOUNTAINS

Our day started this morning with the myriad of tasks that need completing before we could leave Sechelt and head for the 12:35pm ferry to Horseshoe Bay on the lower mainland B.C. Canada.  We made it with at least 5 minutes to spare, even though the construction going on in the small town of Sechelt, Sunshine Coast BC at the moment  is an amazingly complicated and large disaster for a small town of 8,000 folks!  We have a new condominium property, Watermark,  being developed on the waterfront and the whole downtown area is impacted.

The BC ferry Queen of Surrey arrived on time 40 minutes later in Horseshoe Bay and we stopped in Vancouver for a couple of errands before arriving at the long stay Park ‘N Fly parking lot just outside the Vancouver International Airport to drop off our vehicle for safe storage while we are away.  The shuttle was there in minutes to take us the mile or so to Vancouver International Airport and we were quickly checked in by friendly and effective British Airways personnel for our 8 1/2 hour fight over the top of the globe with the jet stream pushing us from behind.  Our plane was a Boeing jumbo 747 - quite awhile since we flew on one of these and you forget just how big they are!

SUN SETS IN THE WEST

We departed on time at 8:45pm and enjoyed watching the sunset over the Western horizon of the Pacific Ocean as we headed East to London U.K. over the Canadian Rocky Mountains - quite a bit of cloud around but lots of the snow capped Rockies were peaking through and glistening pink as the sun set.  It is just 8 days to Summer Solstice and the longest day of the year so we are expecting daylight outside of the plane windows just about for the whole flight.  We soon settled in and decided on what we would eat for dinner (Salmon with dill, followed by lamb - a special meal in honour of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee which was just one week ago).  We toasted our trip with a glass of champagne and checked out the movies.  We had actually checked the week before and I had already selected what I would watch before trying to get some sleep - The Most Exotic Marigold Hotel with Judy Dench and Maggie Smith - I think it will be awesome.

SUNSET THROUGH WINDOW

About 1 1/4 hours later the entertainment still hadn’t started - yup - they were having problems and couldn’t get anything started.  The pilot (or someone!!) was on the phone to London trying to get assistance to get that working!  Good job I have a couple of books with me.  I am halfway through “A Deniable Death” by Gerald Seymour -all about undercover operations in Iraq and Iran which Her Majesty’s Government authorised but will deny if anything goes wrong.  I also picked up “The Voluntourist” today by Ken Budd, a true story  about when he is 39 and his father dies unexpectedly after a game of golf - Ken is distraught and reflects on his own life.  He reads about help required in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina devastates the City and goes down to volunteer to help.  Then he spends the next several years touring and volunteering around the world in China, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Kenya and the West Bank.  My last purchase is “Lost in Shangri La” about a plane crash in 1945 in New Guinea during WWII - where only 3 of the 24 USA Army Servicemen and WAC’s survive and had to get out of the jungles of New Guinea.

THURSDAY JUN 14, 2012  LONDON TO ATHENS, GREECE

Well after just spending an hour updating this blog I lost my update - grrrr!!!  I guess I am not quite on the ball after too little sleep last night!  Well sure enough, the BA entertainment system on the Boeing jumbo 747 never did start working last night on the BA flight so I read some more and managed to get about 3 hours sleep on and off which is pretty good for me.  BA were very apologetic and gave everyone a voucher to fill out so that we would either be sent miles to add to our BA mileage plan, or a cash voucher to order goods online from BA’s shopping system.

We landed this afternoon at Heathrow airport under cloudy skies at 1:40 pm after a 9 hour flight which truly was daylight for the entire flight -we went from sunset to sunrise and never skipped a mile!  We landed in a temperature of 19C.  The in transit and security checking lines were reasonable (I didn’t say fast!), much better than they are going to be shortly when everyone arrives in London for the Summer Olympics!  London  is hopping as is the advertising and stores with Olympic merchandise for sale!  

We have spent the last couple of hours catching up on emails and updating our blog, as well as catching up on current events taking place in Kenya with the Ndandini Kyaithani school and water projects that we have been working with for the last 5 years.

Tonight we leave at 9pm on our BA  3 1/2 hour flight to Athens.  Greece’s time zone is 2 hours ahead of London UK so we will arrive into Athens at 2:30 am and crash into bed at the hotel that we have reserved right at the Athens Airport.  Tomorrow will be a busy day as we tour Athens - I suspect we will be very tired tomorrow night but satisfied after learning about another city and its’ culture and history!

So check again in a day or so and we hope to have lots of interesting stories to tell you!