So after months of planning, packing, organising, frustration, stress & sleepless nights we have finally made it to Vancouver!! Yay!!! :)

Wednesday morning (7am) we flew from Adelaide to Melbourne to catch our international connection. From Melbourne we flew on the Airbus A380 to Los Angeles - now that is one cool plane (double storey & holds roughly 450 passengers). We had pre-booked emergency exit row seats so Benny had plenty of leg room for the long flight, but as we were boarding we found out we'd been moved. The exit row seats we'd paid for were pretty good so in the beginning we were going 'oh geez I hope these seats are as good as what we've paid for'... So upstairs we go and wow, talk about great seats - we hadn't just been moved, we'd been upgraded to premium economy. We've flown premium before but it was nowhere near as good as this. As we sat down I hear "Good morning Miss Griffin, welcome aboard. My name's Bernie and I'll be your attendant today. Can I offer you some water, juice or sparkling wine?" Ahh yes please I'll take the wine thanks! :) So everyone else around us is looking bored, settling in & even going to sleep already. Not us, Ben & I are like little kids on christmas morning "oh wow look at the leg room, check out how wide the seats are, oh cool we have reclining leg rests, ooh look at the movies/TV/games, oh my gosh they have a camera on the plane's tail so we can see outside... Talk about playing it cool haha. That was honestly the best flight I've ever been on. It was soo good being able to stretch out and move in our seats instead of being squished in. We were in a row of 3 seats and the one next to Ben was also empty so we were on our own which was nice. The food was delicious (never thought I'd say that about plane food) and we got a few hours decent sleep. The 13.5hrs went so fast and we actually didn't want to get off haha. If you ever get the chance, fly on an A380!!! :)

We landed in LAX, changed planes and came crashing back to reality as we hopped on a very basic 737 airplane lol. The flight seemed so slow probably because it was the last leg of our journey & we had no tv or anything, but finally we were landing in Vancouver - the scenery was so pretty coming in. It was pretty quick for us to get through the first part of customs, then we collected our luggage & had to line up at immigration to get our work permits. Oh my goodness, talk about ridiculous. There would have been about 40 people in the line ahead of us which is fine, but they only had one immigration officer working, with each person in the line taking at least 10mins to process - you do the math.... We were ok for probably the 1st hour, but then the novelty & excitement of being there wore off, it'd been about 28 hours since we'd left home and we just wanted to get out of the airport. In the end they finally put more workers on & once we got served it only took 10mins for both of us to get our permits. Our flight landed at 12.30pm and we left the airport at 4pm... We walked straight out & into a taxi which was great till our driver got lost lol. Apparently there are a lot of one way streets around our apartment & he could see our place but couldn't work out how to get into the driveway.... So he dropped us round the block and we walked which actually was nice to get out and get some fresh air.

Our apartment is really cute with great views looking into downtown Vancouver. It's only a small one bedroom but its the perfect size for the two of us. Plus we're right next to BC Place which is a sports stadium so we'll have to suss out whats on soon to go see a game. Once we dumped our luggage we went for a walk to the local grocery store, picked up a few things for dinner, found a liquor store to grab some drinks and came home. It was about 7degrees but considering I only wore leggings & jumper and Benny had jeans & jumper it wasn't too bad. I could see that it would be freezing if the wind was blowing though! So a hot shower when we got home was probably the highlight of my day, then a really gourmet dinner of roast chicken sandwiches & a glass of wine (beer for Benny) and we were in bed by about 7.30pm.

So now it's Thursday 7th and we're having a lazy day in the apartment (hence the long blog). Today its 7 degrees (or 45 Fahrenheit as we have to get used to saying) and cloudy/drizzly outside. We had planned to do some grocery shopping and explore today but we'll see if that happens - we may just eat out tonight & shop tomorrow haha - Benny has been dying to try the 'all you can eat' $12 buffet at the casino. If the only thing I achieve today is unpacking my bag then I'll be happy :)

WORDS OF THE DAY:
Bottle shop = liquor store
Singlet = tank
Toilet/bathroom = washroom

Love to you all at home & talk again soon,
Loz
xxxx