2007-08-26 09:24 - Leaving Comox
15:34 - I'm currently sitting in the airport lounge of Vancouver Airport. This is definitely one of the nicest waiting rooms I have ever seen! Luxury couches everywhere, a lot of shops, and a big oasis like stream with fishes through the middle of the room, accompanied by a 3.0 surround sound birds-near-waterfall audio system. Quite relaxing really, and thats good because I have to wait until 1745...
Strange thing though: why do they have more lighting devices on the ceiling than the average rock concert??!?
The flight from Comox was easy and pleasant. I was mostly busy making pictures, which you can see below. Eventually I got onto the Air Canada intercontinental flight. Let's continue from there:
21:29 - Still flying. Just passed Rankin Inlet. Again. 5118km to go. First on board movie was total rubbish. Called blades of glory, just the type of comedy I do not like. The toilet in front of me is clogged and huge queues have arisen at the only available toilet. I'm glad that I'm not sitting next to that one :)
The good news is that I brought my Sennheisers on board this time, and that the converter to patch into the airplane audio system I fashioned from the earphones they gave me last time seem to work perfectly.
22:12 - And movie number two is.. Batman returns. Haven't seen that one in a while.. and who doesn't like catwoman? ;)
00:08 - Movie ended. Still couldn't figure out how you can make an entire catsuit by sewing up an old dress with some wire... If I sneak a look outside I see that we've already flown through dusk to dawn and back to daylight again. Should try and get used to our timezone again. 2783 km to go.
01:27 - .. and that concludes the sleeping period of this flight. Turning all cabin lights on at once does tend to do that. Not that I have slept, I cannot sleep in airplanes.
They're showing re-runs of Frasier.. quite boring. Oh but here comes Breakfast(TM)
02:08 - Breakfast came and went, but without coffee. :( The stated reason for this was that they forgot to fill their water tanks at Vancouver airport, but my debugging-sense told me that wasn't correct. It ought to have to do something with the toilet thats been flushing ever since it broke down. That water must come from somewhere. I asked an attendant and he went to investigate. He came back telling me that I was correct. This means that... hmm I'd estimate given the fact that there is not enough water for coffee.. and the fact that the broken toilet is depressurizing every 8 seconds... that the toilets will all be closing down in about 20 minutes. This could become interesting >:-)
02:31 - Yup. Completely out of water now.. Gheheh
05:46 - or 13:46 GMT or 14:46 where I should be. I'm now in London, which is a huge traffic jam from start to end. The airplane got delayed, then got stuck in ground traffic - we got stuck for such a long time that even the lawnmowers mowing the field next to the airplane were done with their entire field before we started moving again. The security checkpoint was clogged as usual and even the wireless networks are clogged beyond functionality.
I am currently sitting under a sign that says: please wait. I do so.
06:28 - or 15:28 CEST. I'm in the BMI airplane.
These BMI jets are quite modern, and extremely cramped, and very expensive in the sense that you even have to pay for a glass of water. But modern nonetheless: everything is controlled by touch screen. I have one just in front of me (I'm sitting in row 2) and it monitors things like temperature, pressue, door locks etc.
The audio system reminds me of an average mp3 jukebox app. You can queue messages there which you want to play through the cabin. Interesting: they also have prerecorded messages for depressurization, ditch landings, and of course the "WEREGONNACRASH" message (aka emergency landing)
And that's all I wrote. During the BMI flight I actually had an interesting conversation with someone, so that flight went by pretty quickly!
When I arrived in Holland I smelled the air, completely damp and humid, yes: good old Holland. I got my suitcase and went to the exit.. but got stopped by a very nice man from customs who asked if I might have anything to declare... uh oh.. why does that have to happen to me?!??
So I told him, "no", and he asked "did I buy anything overseas?". Since he had that look on his face which told me that my suitcase was going to be scanned anyway, and I just had bought a sh*tload of lenzes, flashlights and other stuff for my camera I'd better play it safe and say yes......
So there we went, looking through all those nicely and cheaply bought items from Canada.. now I've paid taxes twice, both Canadian and Dutch taxes, on everything! Well... not quite everything, I just so happened to be very helpful in directing the attention of the customs officer to not everything, but still a lot.
So there it is, my travels documented in full. I'm probably going to add just one more update to this section and then I think I'm done!
And now for some pictures:
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