Monday 24 January 2011

Planes, (no) trains and automobiles

Two for the price of one today...

Sun 23 Jan

Pretty much a travel day, up before dawn and took yellow cab to JFK. Seamless check-in and then security OK. Terminal 8 is huge and new and beautiful and then only has about 2 shops and 2 food places to choose from. Ok, more than 2 but not much.

Arrived in LA to glorious sunshine! Seriously, didn't even need jumper. Luggage checked through from NY so just walked from Terminal 4 to Terminal 3 (outside in the glorious sunshine!). Another boring security queue - La had the (mis)fortune of being scanned in one of the US airports' new X-Ray scanners. For some reason, straight after she was scanned they decided to take a break so I slipped by in the normal metal detector.

Terminal 3 at LAX is a bit of a dump, we're on another BYO food airline and the waiting area was littered with litter and sleeping backpackers (on the floor) and screaming kids and very few food options. Woe was us - I was ravenous (gaining 3 hours makes me hungry). At least La managed to think quickly and grab a space at an available re-charging point giving our netbook and my iPod much needed juice while we waited.

The guy sitting across from us in the waiting lounge was snoring loudly. I mean, this was a crowded, noisy terminal and we can hear him, like some sort of asthmatic cow. And then his head sagged to his chest and, yes, we have drool, people. Lovely.

Side bar, just remembered another quote from the other day: Lifelong swallowing of saliva causes death.

Anyway, flight to Vancouver was only 3 hours so had no inflight entertainment. Except playing 'get your knee and foot away from my space' with the Easter Island statue sitting next to me who was using his blackberry *during* taxiing and probably while we were in-flight, the bastard. Plus he had some BO issues, not ever-present but came through in occasional waves of pong. Never a good thing.

Temperature in Vancouver -> a positively barmy 7 Deg C
Time change -> GMT - 8 hours
Currency -> £1 = C$ 1.5 ish

It was great to clear customs (super-efficient, Canadian style) and bags were waiting and so was La's sister. Yay! Back to her place for chill, tea, supper and sleep. Bliss.

Bagel for breakfast and lunch but proper supper, Day 8.

Mon 24 Jan

Nice and relaxing day spent shopping, eating and schmoozing.

We met up with some of La's sister's friends for coffee and then hit the Sears sales hard. This was for clothes for *me* (gasp shock horror). My personal shopper (La's sister) was on home turf, seamlessly picking out items for my consideration. Deputy shopper and key veto holder (La) was right on hand for the 'aha' or 'na ah' decisions. In a record much-less-than-an-hour, we had decided by majority vote on 3 shirts and a sweater (seriously, that's about all the shopping I could handle). No more 'only fleece top' comments about me on this trip!

Took a pause from shopping for a quick food court adventure. Not a moment too soon as I was starving (trying on clothes makes me hungry). Greek meaty pitta stuff for me and La-Sis and a salad for La. Delish!

The morning rain persisted throughout the day so we pretty much confined ourselves indoors. Window shopping, shopping, food shopping and then some serious tea and homemade cookie consumption back at La-Sis's place.

La-Sis then slaved away in the kitchen preparing supper for us. We rewarded her by treating her to a private viewing of our wedding photos. Mazal Tov!

There was morning, noon and night, Day 9.

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