“Airplane travel is nature’s way of making you look like your passport photo.” – Al Gore

After 31 hours of non-stop travel we arrived in Vancouver, effectively about an hour and a half after we had departed Melbourne the day before – confused, so were we? I felt like I was on a Monty Python skit, and the majority of our young intrepid travellers weren’t 100% sure where they were let alone what time it was.

And I’m sure it comes as to no surprise to you all when I say our trip to date has not been dull. After a 6-hour bus ride through the middle of the night, a 14 hour flight over the Pacific, a 2 hour highly intense and somewhat stressful effort to make a connecting flight and some customs treasured moments we eventually arrived in Vancouver at 12.00pm on Saturday 30 November.

We had yet to even leave the Aussie shores when the first clues of our ensuing travel forays surfaced. Imagine our surprise at check-in when one of our little travellers had excess baggage. That’s right, at check in. 26kg, 3kg over. I’m not going to mention any names, but I will say that Emma didn’t win the lightest baggage award. Luckily for her, good friend Gabby packed a little lighter so a quick exchange of items was made. Get the cargo container ready for the trip home. From there we moved on to customs, where we had confiscated tubes of vegemite and toothpaste and a rap on the knuckles for filming the customs process from our own budding Steven Spielberg alias Matt Black. And who could forget the young lad who put his passport in to be scanned and then walked off, assuming it would follow him through the process of its own accord. Seasoned travellers on board here folks.

We always knew the connecting flight from Los Angeles to Vancouver was going to be tight but we didn’t realise just how tight and how much running would be involved. Our Principal, Mr Mezinec would have been impressed – we sweated and we shined…..

Our plane to LA arrived at 5.25am but as arrivals aren’t allowed to enter the terminal before 6.00am we had to remain seated on the tarmac. At 6.00am, knowing we had 2½ hours til departure and 1 hour 50 minutes til boarding, we joined the intense throng of arrivals and headed to customs. So many lines, so much waiting, so little time. At 7.55am we left customs, ran and collected our bags and ran through two terminals to check in to our next flight. We got there at 8.05am and were told too late. Bucks hit the phone. Twenty minutes later, after some smooth talking and a couple more phone calls, they conceded and we were checked in and given a priority escort to the plane. What priority escort turned out to be was that someone from the airline ran to the gate with us, and run we did. We ran to security, we ran from security and then 32 of us (that’s right 32, I’ll get to that later) ran to the gate with crowds of onlookers watching on and our names getting called out over the speaker. We were hot, we were bothered but we made the plane. Not sure if the other passengers were as jubilant with our arrival and our consequent 30 minute delay in departure.

What we saw of LA was fleeting, we noticed that cars were on the wrong side of the road, and that the cars were big, real big. We’re looking forward to seeing more when we come back at a bit more leisurely pace.

We used our 2½ hour flight to Vancouver to regroup (well nap actually). Vancouver was a welcome sight, beautiful city and friendly people. After another bout of customs, we finally left the airport, hopped on to the bus and headed into Vancouver.  Our bus driver, Keith pointed out the sights as he drove us to downtown. There was plenty of excited comments as we saw the snow capped mountains and gorgeous scenery. We hit the downtown for a stroll through Gastown and the Vancouver CBD. Our matching trackies and our accents were certainly creating interest. The temperature was very cool (yes, even cooler than the South East) and was sitting at a balmy 1 degree. The jackets and beanies made their debut. We headed off in groups for a couple of hours of wandering and grabbing some lunch. Beautiful spot with lots of obligatory touristy photos. We hopped back on the bus at 4.30pm and headed over to North Vancouver where we checked in to our accommodation and had a bit of a rest before heading out to tea at Denny’s, an American institution. Cole walk and a good meal but to be honest most were just looking forward to getting back to their rooms and sleep in an actual bed. Early night indeed.

Tomorrow we head to Grouse Mountain where we are looking forward to getting out and about in the snow.

Vancouver Fun Facts:

• The population of Vancouver is approximately 2.1 million;
• Vancouver as a city is quite young, having been incorporated the same year as Coca-Cola (1886).
• Vancouver is Canada’s third largest city; Toronto and Montreal are bigger
• Greenpeace started in Vancouver.
• Vancouver is the third largest TV and movie production city in North America, too. We’re right behind LA and New York.
• Vancouver has not won a Stanley Cup in over a century, when the Vancouver Millionaires beat the Ottawa Senators
• Vancouver is apparently the friendliest city in the world and ranks third in the world as the best city to live in.
• BC Place, the soccer stadium, has the largest retractable roof in the world with 7500 square meters of sky! Kitsilano Pool is Canada’s longest saltwater pool. It’s 137.5 metres long, the equivalent of almost 3 Olympic Pools!
• Despite its name the California Roll was invented in Vancouver by Chef Hiedkazu Tojo

The Flag!

The flag is back for the 2019 tour and for those not familiar with this concept, it is a very prestigious award.  The flag recognises an individual’s moment of madness during the day while on tour.

Some of the more common flag incidents include lost passports and lost uniforms to strange toileting experiences and missed alarms. Rest assured, anyone’s misfortune while on tour will be the blog’s gain and reported with glee. Over the years, we have had many family dynasties stake a claim on the award (I won’t mention names), and it looks like this year will be no exception. In fact if this family receives too many more flags we may have to look at renaming it in their honour.

Which brings me to the first flag announcement for the trip. Come on down, Allan Withers. While the rest of us were sweating and shining racing to make our connecting flight we noticed we had misplaced Allan. The team had collected his bag that was sadly doing the rounds of the carousel, so we figured he’d either gone to check in, hadn’t grabbed his bag or was still coming. However, when there was still no Allan at check in, we had to resort to modern technology for help, so phone calls were made. Details were given, Terminal 2, Westjet, upstairs, and he said he was on his way, he’d just been held up by a bag check. We weren’t sure what bag check as we had his bag, but we were happy and content that he was at least on his way. Twenty minutes later still no Allan. By this stage Bucks had worked his magic and we were madly (and I mean madly) checking in. All except for Allan. Students were sent to flag him down, but unfortunately no flagging could be done as there was no Allan. More calls made. In desperation we checked in his luggage and worst case scenario we figured he could catch a later flight. Where was Allan, poor Allan all alone and lost. While running with our priority escort another call was made, and it was then we worked out where Allan was – he was already sitting on the plane. We’re not sure how, but Allan had avoided group check in and gone straight to the gate (minus his bag). As we sweated and shined onto the plane, Allan greeted us with a “where’ve you been, I’ve been here for 20 minutes.” Well played Allan, well played.

Editor’s Note: The judging panel has deliberated and due to the frequent and excessive flag nominations received by the Withers family over the past three trips it has been decreed that there will be a one week ban on any Withers being eligible for flag nominations – we’ve got to give everyone a go 😊