28/12/2013 - We've arrived - Hello Canada!

Alright, so after a little bit of a shaky start due to the fact that my alarm didn't go off this morning - we made it out to the airport with plenty of time to spare.  We were super smiley and excited at check in - The Qantas staff member told us that Air Canada had us sitting apart on our direct flight so we'd have to talk to them in Sydney -  Next was we had to pay excess luggage - but when it came time to check our snowboard, and Craig went over to pay - turns out, we didn't have to! YES! Even if we have to pay coming home, we've had something finally go our way.

So next, we get down to Sydney and the Qantas staff member at the gate who was manning the Air Canada desk was possibly the rudest little man that we've ever had to deal with in an airport. If you're going to work in an airport, in customer service, you are going to be dealing with things like this - don't pretend to shoot yourself in the head - it's not very professional (yes, Craig saw you do it!). Anyhoo, we managed to get our seats together - hung up my wedding dress in First Class (sob - full flight meant no chance of an upgrade) and then we settled ourselves in for our 14+ hour flight from Sydney to Vancouver.

Craig is excited about Canadian beer

I requested a special meal through our 'delightful' travel agent - also making them extremely aware that I was allergic to seafood. Guess who got a fish meal for the first meal on the plane. Could have been bad if I hadn't worked out really quickly that it was fish. The cabin crew on Air Canada are always amazing, and one of the guys quickly whisked away my meal and promised that if there was a spare meal at the end - he'd bring one back for me. He did. I even got a choice of the two. :-)

Somewhere along the way - we must have had a pretty amazing tail wind, because when the announcement came in at our arrival time, we were approximately 45 minutes early getting into Vancouver. So early! We landed in the dark!

We came through customs without issue, receiving well wishes from the guy that checked us through - grabbed our bags and got in a cab to the city. Who knew that a Prius Station wagon could hold all our luggage?!

We made it to our home for the next three days (Century Plaza) and in another amazing stroke of luck - they had a room ready to go for us - so we were able to check in straight away! So good. We put our bags in, freshened up and headed out into town. Grabbed a bite to eat at A&W (burger joint) in the Pacific Centre, grabbed some groceries and headed back to the hotel. I'm still suffering a little bit from my sleeping pill.

View from our Vancouver Hotel

Which brings us to right now - we're both completely wiped out. Craig is asleep, I've had a quick nap and have washed our travel laundry. So productive, haha! So, when Craig wakes up later we'll head down the road to grab some dinner... we're thinking of grabbing a "Japadog"  which is a very famous food truck here in Vancouver. We've been here three times before, and never had one - so it's time! (http://www.japadog.com/)

We start our wedding meetings tomorrow!