Like all good adventures it began in a Tavern…ok, not so much a Tavern as our local café, where we had arranged to meet my sister-in-law and her husband, and reward them with breakfast. You may wonder what it was they were being rewarded for, but she was driving us to the airport, which saved us from the trains with suitcases, never a good prospect.
As it turned out they needed the reward as Mindy (the car) decided not to behave and agitated everyone with really squeaky brakes. In truth, they had started a couple of weeks before, but in the rammed schedule of clearing desks and getting ready to leave work for a couple of weeks, I had not gotten around to getting it checked out. I think its an age thing, as when I was a kid I used to drive cars with no brakes all of the time, therefore I automatically drove around any deceleration issue.
My sister-in-law is not of my age and I think was more used to the instant response you get from a modern car and the loud squeaking and less than satisfactory stopping power that Mindy was providing did very little good for her nerves.
As it was a morning flight we were dropped at the Leonardo Hotel, which we had stayed at previously. A few glasses of wine, a nice burger and an early night saw us ready for the taxi we had booked for the morning.
As I know you will be worried, my sister-in-law made it home safe although the brakes only just lasted out. I think she is talking to me again….not sure.
Our early morning taxi ride demonstrated where all the taxis wait before they go to pickup people at Heathrow. Now I would understand if people where wary about living near to an airport due to the noise of the aircraft, but I was just shocked at the amount of cars there were stacked up in the streets around the hotel. It was wall to wall minicabs, mini-vans and black cabs in all of the side streets on both sides of the road, making them all single carriage way.
We arrived at the airport though and within an hour were checked in and through Security with such speed that the Air Canada Lounge was not yet open. This ability to use the lounge was actually a first for us.
When we flew this route in 2019 it was in the Economy Seats, which as lovely as the lady was who shared the 3 people seat with myself and Nic, was not a very comfortable experience for me. The journey home we were able to get upgraded to Premium Economy, which was much more palatable in that there was more than three inches legroom for me and I only had to share the space with my own wife. So we had booked Premium Economy but for a ridiculously cheap price were able to upgrade our booking to Business Class.
Anyway, as the lounge was yet to open, we amused ourselves by raiding the duty free for over priced consumer names and the goods they represented. That amused me for not very long, Nic however can do that kind of shit all day so I left her to it and went in search of coffee.
Armed with two latte’s and some pastries I took a seat overlooking the workings of the airfield and within earshot of three American Airline staff, who were obviously the flight crew of a plane that was about to depart. Two of the gentlemen were older and brought to mind the crew of the Airplane movie, whereas their younger companion was straight out of Top Gun, yet their demeanour and conversation was that of three salesmen about to go to a conference, most odd.
What was happening outside the window was way more interesting than my erstwhile airborne convention goers though, as various bits of heavy machinery moved around and caterpillars of luggage carts rattled by. Of particular interest to me was a green plane over by the Virgin hanger, which my imagination had painted as some kind of space shuttle, however in reality I think it existed just to allow them to practice putting out fires.
Enough time had passed and we were now able to enter the Air Canada lounge, which was very comfortable, but to me the view was not as good as the one I had moved away from. Instead we now overlooked a building site and although I was able to amuse myself by trying to work out what some of the fixtures and fittings could be used for, I soon retreated into my book.
As well as comfortable seating, we were also able to get a free breakfast and as many drinks as we could managed. We did not jump on this straight away and we had not long consumed some pastries with our coffee, but when we did I was very surprised at just how good the food was.
Eventually we were called to our flight (although I think we had missed one call in our luxurious stupor in the lounge) and another great bonus of flying Business Class became apparent as we ‘Priority Checked In’ and jumped the heavying and agitated queue of people sweltering in face masks.
On the plane, we were shown to our seats, which is by far the most comfortable I have ever been on a plane. Not only did you not have anyone beside you (Nic was in the seat in front) but you could lay it our flat and it would become a bed!! Technically, you were sat an angle, which was a little odd but you got a great view out of the window.
you were sat an angle, which was a little odd but you got a great view out of the window
In flight, we received Canadian hospitality from the Air Canada staff that rivalled what we had experienced on the Rocky Mountaineer. If I had doubted the choice to fly Business class before it was now all gone. It is the best way to fly.
About 9 Hours later we touched down in Vancouver at around about midday, which appeared to be a popular time from arrivals, as it was rammed. The last time I had been at Vancouver airport, it had been practically deserted, not like it it was now, a sheer mass of wall to wall people.
I had been wearing a face mask since we had gotten on the plane, which had not been as bad as I thought it might be. Now though, in the compress of people and heat of the arrivals longue, it was fraying more on mine and Nic’s nerves, making us both a little irritable. So bear that in mind as I cover the following events.
It took about 45 minutes to get through passport control doing the arrivals conga, fighting with the automatic checking machine before re-joining the sweltering conga line in the best way we could before being directed into another conga line depending where you travelled from. It was at this check point that we found the couple in front of us (who had already been a bit slow in keeping up with the conga line, raising Nic’s ire) had not been so fortunate with the automatic machine and for one of them it had not worked. In there wisdom that had thought that as they were travelling as a couple that this would be acceptable to the Canadian authorities, but alas this was not the case.
The husband was sent off to try the machine again but would be let back in the queue to re-join his spouse who could stay in the queue, fighting with both sets of their carry on luggage.
By now, steam was starting to be visible from Nic’s ears, who was bored of the heat and the conga line, and so being a gentleman, I helped the lady with her extra baggage to hopefully reduce the dawdling in front of my beloved and prevent an eruption. The looks I received as I made small talk with the lady and fought with the conga line, my own carry on bags and those of her husbands were…sharp to say the very least.
Eventually, we hit a point where the lady could not continue without her spouse, who was still obviously fighting with the computer in arrivals and we continued without them, upon which I was chastised for helping stupid people with no dress sense…personally, I liked her leopard print leggings and I can’t help the way my parents dragged me up.
But we had reached passport control, where it was now going to get better and our stress levels would subside and we could once again get excited about our holiday……umm No.
The very nice man at the passport control let me through without any issue, Nic however, not so much. You see it was policy that they select random people from the crowd for a COVID test, which if you failed, would see you isolated in your hotel for 10 days. You can guess who got selected can’t you.
To be honest, although the irony of all this was quite amusing to me, this was not the case for Nic who had done all of the organisation of the holiday and filed all the bits and bobs that allowed us to enter Canada in the aftermath of an international pandemic. Including the statement that you had to sign to say you understood that you would have to quarantine if you had COVID. We had been very careful, neither of us mixing with people at all for a long while, not wishing to jeopardise our planned holiday.
Nic did not want to make light of this latest twist, despite me pointing out that everything was bound to be ok. Instead that little bit of doubt had taken hold and she was terrified of the random test, or rather the results of it.
Retrieving our luggage did not help as this was also quite stressful as we watched the a full carousel go around at least a half dozen times with no sign of our bags. Fortunately I found that due to the hold ups in Arrivals, a number of bags had been removed from the carousel as it had filled up and there I found our bags. After pointing this out to the other gathered holiday goers who obviously had been in the same position as ourselves from the various looks of relief I saw, we continued on our way.
No clear signage was in sight to identify the place where this random test would be and so we asked a nice policeman, who pointed us in the right direction.
By now, Nic just wanted to get on with it and get it over with and so we parted company and I made a break for any outside door, some cool air and a break from the mask that had been on my face or the best part of 11 hours.
Nic was through her test quite quickly and informed me that they would be texting the results in the next 24 hours, she was now a woman on mission though and I could tell that it niggled.
Taxi from the airport, where I quizzed our driver as to what all the road signs mean, how stop junctions worked and basically bugged him for as much information as I could about driving in urban areas in Canada. I have never driven abroad before and inside I was a little tentative about the whole prospect and was trying to gain as much knowledge as possible from a professional driver.
We were deposited at a hotel which did not appear to have had Hilton in he name but was otherwise similar to what I thought our destination was called. I queried it with the taxi driver and was assured it was the right one. It was his city, who am I to argue, so I paid him and sent him on his way with a generous tip for his motoring advice.
Entering the lobby we were greeted by a friendly receptionist who looked at her booking screen, looked back at us with the fake smile people put on in hospitality when they have found as issue and went back to her booking screen. Eventually she admits that she does not have us on her system and she has no booking for our stay. I could tell that Nic, running short on sleep and with results hanging over her head of an impromptu COVID test was thunderous, but she kept her calm.
Paper work was retrieved from flight bags and examined and the receptionists smile changed to that of ‘oh thank fuck for that, you’re not actually my problem’ as she pointed out her Hotel was once a Hilton, but was no longer and that the Hotel we wanted was a couple of blocks up the street.
So with our suitcase’s and carry on luggage we started the two blocks up the hill. Of course it began to rain as well as being bright sunshine at the same time, which of course helped our already good mood.
Arriving at our actual hotel, we left our bags with a porter and went to check in and lord knows what the nice young man that dealt with us made of us pair. Both us must have looked weary from having been up nearly 20 hours. I was probably a bright red from the manual labour of hauling suitcase’s up a hill and navigating Vancouver mountainous kerbs and was parched and just dived on a water fountain. Nic, I am guessing, would have have a look on her face which indicated she did not want to be trifled with.
Quick mention of the water fountain, they put sliced fruit in them to flavour the water, which is a little disconcerting when you first go to use one as your mind wonders how long the fruit has been in there. I never worked it out but it didn’t make me ill.
Fortunately, The nice young man did not say anything that would have brought about physical harm to himself and soon had us dispatched to a lift so we could get to our room. This aforementioned lift took us past our floor without stopping three times before we saw the ver poor signage that instructed you to ‘unlock’ your floor using your room key. This process of tapping the key and then selecting the floor you wanted required the same amount of coordination that you need to rub your belly in circles and tap your other hand on your head.
This little ‘dance’ that you had to do in the lift would cause us no end of amusement for the rest of our stay, especially when we could gloat at other residents having the same issue.
Consequently, we arrived to our room shortly after our bags, which the porter was unloading into the room for us. He nodded knowingly when we explained our issues with the lift and then proceeded to give us the tour of the room, which of course was very comfortable.
When he had gone, we set an alarm for later and planned to crash for a bit, when there was a knock at the door. It was the nice young man from reception and he was hunting for a picture that the previous resident had left in the room. We hunted high and low, but this unclaimed master piece went unfound and he left, allowing us to stop for a few hours and get our bearings.
Neither of us felt like walking the streets looking for a restaurant as we both felt very tired still, and we returned downstairs to eat at the hotel restaurant. This was excellent, we had a cool glass of wine, some excellent food and was treated to exemplary service. Afterwards, it was still early evening and as we felt a little rejuvenated but felt it was still too early to go to sleep because we wanted to try to get onto Canadian time, decided to go out for a walk.
In getting out bearings earlier we had looked at places for breakfast that were in the area, as on our previous visit there had been an excellent breakfast restaurant near the hotel and we hoped to find something similar. Breakfast as any Nan will tell you, is the most important meal of the day after all. One of the top rated was just down the hill, literally on the corner of our block, but being closed and lights out it did not look overly inviting. Continuing on took us down the hill, past the ‘wrong hotel’ from earlier where I had anticipated our route would take us down toward the Downtown district, but this was not the case.
Instead we had arrived at a football stadium that proudly displayed it was the home to the BC Lions. What also became apparent was that tonight was game night and large numbers of Canadians were flocking to the stadium to take on that evenings sport. Two things struck me straight away from this experience, the first being how well behaved everyone was being, it was nothing like the jeering a boisterous sports crowd I would have seen at home. People were respectful of each other and there was a genuine sense of excitement about what it was they were about to see.
The second thing that struck me was that all of the women (and some of the men) had been shopping for handbags in a shop that had stock dating back to the 1970’s. I had this impression as all of the bags I saw were made out of a clear transparent plastic and literally they were everywhere. Then I spy a notice that declared that these transparent bags are the only kind of hand bag or holdall that is allowed in the stadium for security reasons. Sensible but I had never seen the like.
Our intention had been to walk around the stadium, but we ran out of foot path and so turned around. In an effort to regain my bearings from our previous visit, we returned via another road and I realised where we actually were in relation to our last visits hotel. In terms of ‘block’ navigation, I had gone across when I thought I was going down.
Returning to our room, it was time to sleep, or at least attempt to. Both us us were so drained from the time we had been awake we would struggle.
There ends day one? Not quite.
About midnight, Nic’s phone goes and it is a text from COVID testers with a link to website where she can get her results. There follows a very stressed 15 minutes where she tries to get access to the website, trying desperately not to wake me up. The results were good though and she was clear.
The relief was palpable and the cloud that had hung over us since the airport was lifted. Finally we could relax and get on with our holiday.
End of one of the longest days I ever had, literally as well as emotionally.