 
Click on the map above to see an overview of our route.
Thanks to the amazing internet, you can now check in, choose your seat, print your boarding pass at home, then print your luggage tags yourself when you get to the airport, then jump on your plane. And who says service is dead. The service is great as long as you can serve yourself.
Neither of us slept very well. I guess we were excited about the trip. Andrew fell asleep around 2:00am and it was about the same for Steve. Nonetheless, we were up at 5:00, putting the finishing touches on the packing, etc.
We started our day with the help of Shawna, the greatest person on earth, who picked us up at our house at 6:30 in the morning to take us to the airport. Isn’t that a good friend?
We’ll be leaving Vancouver in one of these:
We boarded our first flight – YVR to Montreal – without incident, aboard a Boeing 737-300 and were delighted to discover we each had our own private mini-TV screen on which we could watch a very nice selection of movies, tv programs, documentaries, foreign films, or listen to your own custom designed song playlists from a very eclectic collection. Andrew listened to 58 songs, ranging from Jann Arden (her latest album), to Elton John’s greatest hits, and some Vivaldi. For those hard rock fans, there was no Seether available (u kno who u r…). They even had a selection of short films produced by the alumni of several Vancouver film schools (SFU, VFS, and others). This jet also had 110 AC power at every row of seats, which all the laptop freaks were very impressed with. Yeah, that would be us.
The flight out of Vancouver was very pleasant and smooth, although Andrew did notice there seemed to be a lot of haze over the city. It also seemed to be concentrated in certain areas as well, though he couldn’t determine a cause or corollary for such a phenomenon. We experienced a small amount of turbulence somewhere over the prairies, where we were skimming over the tops of the cumulostratus clouds at 36,000 ft. We both had the worst roast beef sandwich ever created by the amazing kitchens at Air Canada. It was a very dry onion bun with about 20 grams of roast beef on it, served cold at a cost of 6 cold hard dollars each. And we got attitude from the very good looking male steward because we didn’t have correct change. Poor dear, didn’t quite know how to make change from a $20, but at least he was cute.
We arrived in Montreal and the connecting flight was timed perfectly. We had an opportunity to have a quick snack, a little walk and a rest, then boarded our short flight to Halifax. This was aboard an Embraer E190 – a small sleek jet which had the same small TV screens, however the selection of programming was much more slim. And no, there was no 110 power. This again was a fairly smooth flight, although any time the airplane make any clunk or thud in the normal operation of its many mechanical parts, Steven would say, “I think we hit a duck!” Maybe you had to be there, but it made me laugh more than once.
We arrived in Halifax (the peninsula on the right, Dartmouth on the left) as the sun was setting. Once down on the ground we arranged for our car, headed into Halifax, and as directed by Elayne from Andrew’s work, we took the scenic route over the MacDonald bridge. Elayne failed to tell us this was a toll bridge, however; I bet she tells that to all the visitors so she can help subsidize the bridge. Halifax looks a lot like Vancouver, with the exception that the water is on the wrong side of the land.
We found our hotel, checked in, went and had a “Halifax donair,” then Andrew discovered he left the very important file folder with all the airplane tickets, hotel reservations and maps back at the airport at the rental car counter. So away we went over that damn toll bridge again and recovered the file.
All in all we had a fairly pleasant trip out here, and with little drama. So, so far, we are having a good time. But it’s 2:00am in Halifax (10:00pm Vancouver time), so I guess its time to go to bed. And we didn’t even tell you about dropping the brand new camera on the ground and shattering the lens filtre. Read more tomorrow!
Andrew & Steve