July 24, 2006

Posted by Rie On 8:06 AM
July 19, 2006

Off to Canada! Yups, I am taking a super long awesome summer vacation this year and am visiting my parents and friends back in good ol' Victoria BC. Mia drove me to the airport and after our goodbyes - and a couple tears - I go through the security check and my journey begins. I spent a little too much money in tax free but hey, what do you expect? I so desperately needed that perfume!

Flight to Amsterdam was uneventful. Amsterdam airport was actually kinda boring and way too expensive to poke around tax free so I just sat around drinking coffee and looking at people for around 3 hours. Three freaking hours is actually a long time when you have absolutely NOTHING to do! A lot of tourists and a lot of unknown languages which all sounded different. But I did see quite a few Americans - man, do they ever stick out in a crowd. There is always something that just screams American! Now, I personally have nothing against Americans - hell, my aunt and her family live in the States but I'm not kidding you, the Americans I saw at the airport in Amsterdam where just.... Nevermind, I'll be good. I'm sure you get the picture anyways.

So, I get on the flight from Amsterdam to Vancouver only to find that the idiots who assigned seating split up a small family, leaving the dad to sit in a completely different area than his wife and daughter and since I was the one sitting with the wife and daughter, and me being the very nice person I am, I switched seats with the dad. BIG MISTAKE! I ended up sitting way in the back, next to the toilets and cabin crew area. The toilets didn't smell but I could hear every little bowel movement that went on in there and people were constantly lined up, always standing right next to me. Kinda made me a little paranoid and I was not able to relax one bit. To make matters worse, there were some shitface bratty kids sitting behind me who made the 10 hour flight a living nightmare. I mean, it's hard enough as it is to try and sleep on the plane, but having some fucking brat constantly kicking my seat, crawling up my seat and "accidently" pulling at my hair, sticking a finger in my eye while I was trying to watch the in-flight movie (Ice Age 2) and basically doing whatever he could to make me misreable. At first I was polite and "informed" the mom how unpleasant this entire situation was but I don't think she understood a word of English because that did not help AT ALL! I guess the older man sitting next to me also tried to talk to her earlier on in the flight because after 5 hours of HELL, he flipped out and gave her shit for not teaching her kids any respect for others. I felt kinda bad because she looked extremely guilty and almost starting crying... But then again, I was ready to die and at that point was feeling very bitchy and very grumpy.

The rest of the flight was LONG and uneventful. When I was asked what I wanted to drink with my dinner, I asked for red wine. The stewardess looked at me funny and asked me if my father (pointing to the man next to me) approved of my drinking red wine where I kinda laughed and said that he wasn't my father. So she said that she wasn't allowed to serve alcohol to minors. I must have looked at her with a funny face because then she asked for my age and when I said 26, she was really embarrassed and admitted to me that she thought I was only 16 years old or so. Hmmm, not the first time I've heard something like that!

I get to Vancouver on time, get my luggage and clear customs without any problems whatsoever. I guess I don't look like an evil terrorist or drug smuggler - just like a 16 year old kid travelling without her parents... I make the bus to the ferry on to the island and everything goes without any hitches.


The weather was gorgeous so I sat outside on the deck the entire 1 1/2 it takes to get to Victoria where my parents where waiting to pick me up.


On the way, there was a bunch of killer whales swimming alongside the ferry so that was cool. Unfortunately, I didn't get any decent pictures because when they came up for air, it just happened so fast.





My parents were waiting for me on the island side and there were lots of hugs. HUGS ALL AROUND!

We drive home, picking up some burgers at the local A&W and then munch on those the second we got home. Good burgers - they beat the Double Bacon Cheese from Chicken and Burger anyday! After finding all the candy for my parents, I dragged my shit downstairs into my old bedroom and almost fell asleep on the spot. It was a LONG trip and the bed was so COMFY.




It's nice being home again.




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