VANCOUVER Day 2, Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, part 1

We got up at 6:30 this morning, how late :-)

We left the house at about 8:30 and drove maybe 10 minutes to the Capolino Suspension Bridge State Park. Although we were early, we were not the first ones there. The entry fee is pretty high (less for me at the senior rate, ha ha) but in the end we decided it was well worth every penny.

Beautiful landscape work and totem poles.

The main attraction, of course is the suspension bridge across the Capolino River. It is 140 meters long and 70 meters above the river. Yes, it moves and sways, but not excessively.

Do you recognize that guy in the black jacket in the photo above?

The views from the bridge are fantastic.

Once on the other side, we took the Nature's Edge Boardwalk, through the rainforest.

There's not a lot to say, except that it was stunning. The trees are unbelievable, truly towering. The air was clear, crisp, clean, so fresh. I could have found a place to sit and just stayed there for hours, absorbing the whole atmosphere and being in awe of the natural beauty.

Vancouver, Day one

Our first full day is a transition and decompression day. In this instance, it is also a day to recover from jet lag and try to adjust to the nine-hour time difference.

I slept well until 3.30 or so, then dozed until 6, when we got up.

Our apartment. We are in the basement of this house.

Our morning outing was to a Safeway grocery store. Once again, we were struck by the high prices and the relatively limited selection of items.

The meat in particular was terribly expensive. Chicken breasts were 20$Canadian/kilo, which works out to about 13 Euro (and I never pay above 7 Euro).

A large selection of fish, including this large bag of salmon, without heads.

But never fear, you could buy the heads too!

We then walked around the little shopping center and stopped in a bakery, where we bought a little something for later on.

Norbert chose a lemon square, I didn't get a photo of it.

Our last stop was a liquor store, which had a surprisingly small selection of German beer.

Interestingly enough, all the Canadian beer was in cans. Nothing in bottles!

We lunched at home. I tried to nap and couldn't. Norbert, on the other hand, was out like a log for half an hour.

We decided we needed to do something, so we went to a large shopping center. Walked around, looked at lots of things, got soaking wet as it started raining again, and had an early dinner at the food court.

Not an exciting day, but we need that sort of "rest" day. To bed shortly after 9 again.

Düsseldorf to Vancouver

Monday, 20 May

Up shortly after 6 and we were both ready long before the Reisebaron shuttle arrived at 9. Nice to have a relaxed time getting ready, but we both admitted it felt very odd to sit around for half an hour or so with nothing to do!

The shuttle arrived a few minutes late, but we made excellent time getting to the airport. Check-in took about 2 minutes. The line at security was quite long but moved along nicely. We stopped at the usual cafe for coffee and a snack.

Our flight to Amsterdam was delayed for nearly an hour. Once we landed, we really felt as if we had to go from end of the airport to the other. We should have had a three-hour layover, but because of the delay it was much shorter. We did stop for a bathroom break and to buy a bottle of water, and then were able to sit and wait about 10 minutes before boarding.

When I checked in online on Sunday, they said the flight to Vancouver was very full and that they would be glad to check in any hand luggage, for free. I decided to take advantage of that and took my little trolley as a carry on. And indeed, I was able to check it in from Düsseldorf on, which was quite nice.

Once again, the flight from Amsterdam was delayed nearly 45 minutes, but after boarding. Not what you want when you have a 9 hour flight ahead of you. The odd thing was that the flight was not overly full at all. Norbert and I had a row of three to ourselves, which was nice. 

 And seeing as how it was KLM, we were not surprised to see bikes on the plastic cups!

The flight went relatively quickly, either that or we are just getting used to it. I found it odd that the flight to Vancouver took the same amount of time as the flight to Atlanta. Despite the delay, we arrived at the scheduled time.

Landed in light rain in Vancouver. Immigration took about 3 minutes, as they have the automats and we were apparently the only flight. Didn't even have to wait that long for the luggage! Walked over to Alamo, and continued the trend of not having to wait at all. Our car is a Ford Escape – which is the same model as my Kuga! There are some minor differences but it is really 98% the same car as I drive every day.

As always we managed to make a wrong turn on our way to the apartment but we were able to save ourselves with relatively little trouble. It is a holiday in Canada, so there was fortunately no rush hour traffic.

Found the house quite easily. Our landlords live in the house, and we have the basement apartment. The stairs aren't that great but that is the only drawback. Very light, modern and obviously newly done. We are very happy with this apartment.

There is of course also a full bathroom and a lovely washer and dryer set.

We were much less happy with the Walmart. TINY! Even the parking lot was tiny! Argh! We really only looked at groceries and were surprised at the very narrow selection of items they had. We ended up eating potato chips for dinner because that is all we wanted. The flight times and changes meant that we ended up eating next to nothing all day.

Stayed awake until 9, then hit the bed.

St. Augustine Beach, Day 3 --a day to chill

Jet lag being what it is, we woke up at 5 a.m. Charming!

We did get to see a lovely sunrise, though, with lots of clouds. (The day remained dry, though.)

And there was this cloud formation, which looks like a cat reaching out with its paw!

After the stress of the last two days, we decided to take this day off and relax. Perfect for Norbert! 

We made a visit to Wal-Mart in the morning, and one to Publix in the afternoon. We may have napped once or twice, too :-)

Dinner was two little steaks done on the electric grill on the deck, along with yellow rice and a tossed salad. We topped it off with coffee and cognac on the deck. A lovely way to end the day!

St. Augustine Beach, Day 2 Part 2: Much anxiety but at least a happy ending!

After our nice relaxing picnic lunch in nature's wonders, we continued north on A1A along the beach. We found the place where we stayed in the St. Augustine Beach area last time, and even went on to find the Publix grocery store right where we remembered it!

Fortunately, there was also a Starbucks in the same shopping center and we hit it first. Not just for coffee but, yes, Wifi. No contact from the rental. At this point I was very angry and upset, having not at all the relaxed feeling I was hoping for on this vacation. We even started discussing what to do if the situation continued.

A quick trip through Publix, but we bought very little, as we had no idea if we would be in a hotel without a kitchen or our apartment that evening. I checked the Wifi there, and had only the sorry news that my brother had decided that circumstances were such that it better he stay home than fly down to visit us as planned.

At last we decided to at least go to the apartment. First though, I called the rental company from the Publix parking lot and I assume I came across much nicer and politer than I actually felt, especially since no one answered and I had to speak to the answering machine. We were able to sit on the apartment deck. Finally my phone rang and the guy was like "But I sent you messages and emails!" Which never arrived!!!!

He gave me the code to get in (after apologizing a zillion times). We also talked with him later and explained a lot of things, which he appreciated, as apparently he has similar problems with other cases.

At any rate, we finally got in and -- LOVE THIS PLACE!! It is in a six-apartment condo building right on the beach. Our place is on the first floor (no stairs!!!!), has a full kitchen, dining/living room, a bedroom separated by only a half-wall, a walk-in closet, full bathroom with lovely huge shower and a washer-dryer. Nicely furnished and many little extras.

The view wasn't so bad either....

We had planned to cook dinner but were still wiped out by our very long travel day and lack of sleep, so we bought a rotisserie chicken at Publix, as well as a few other groceries :-) and ate that.

Watched the beautiful moonrise before collapsing into bed at 9:30.

Another long day made difficult by the anxiety and frustrations, but as soon as we walked into the apartment we knew that everything would be all right.

St. Augustine Beach Day 2: Much anxiety and some pleasures

The difficulties didn't stop on Day 2, Sunday, September 23. We managed to sleep until about 7 a.m., for a grand total of some five hours. Not really enough.....

We took our time getting ready and after some much-needed showers, we went next door to the IHOP (International House of Pancakes) for breakfast.

Nothing like a good fat-filled US breakfast to get you going for the day!

We then checked out and headed to our first destination, the big flea market in Daytona Beach. We had been there several years ago and loved it. It was fun to see the Daytona Speedway again and remember our visit there.

You can find all kind of things at the flea market: rude but funny signs, turtles carved from coconut shells, alligator skins, swords and flamingos! 

Sadly, the flea market did not meet our expectations and we didn't sepend much time there.

I was starting to get a bit anxious, as I had still not heard from the management company about our rental beach apartment. I literally had no idea how we would get in!

Our next stop was the Tanger Outlet in Daytona. 

The outlets are known for free Wifi so I started bombarding the rental with mails and messages. Meanwhile, a visit to our dear friend Tommy Hilfiger made us feel better. 

The mall is relatively new and quite beautiful. They went all out in decorating and providing various seating possibilities. 

We then headed north briefly on I-95 before cutting over to AIA, to drive up along the beach. As we exited, I said we should look for a Wal-Mart and just buy a loaf of bread and some lunch meat for a picnic. Norbert said as soon as we could pull over, we could put Wal-Mart in our GPS to find one -- so just then we saw one right at the exit!

Wal-Mart also having Wifi, I continued my campaign to find out how to get into the apartment, but without success.

Purchases made, we continued on to Washington Oaks State Park -- where we picnicked when we were here last time with Lucas (4 years ago??) Still a lovely place to rest and relax and eat. 

We were not alone: this little guy was quite interested in us -- or perhaps in our food. We were hard-hearted and did not share with him, though.

More to come.....

St. Augustine Beach, Day one: a hard beginning

Our second vacation of the year was also our second time to Florida this year. Unfortunately, the first two days gave us some unexpected problems.

On Saturday, 22 September, we traveled to Düsseldorf airport together with our niece Kerstin and her husband Peter. This time they were not traveling with us to Florida, as they did in May, but to New York, coincidentally on the same day. We all checked in and sat together for an hour or two.

We got to our boarding gate, and the KLM flight to Amsterdam was delayed. Once we boarded, it was even further delayed. It soon became evident to us that we would not make our flight to Orlando, and that was indeed the case.

Upon arrival in Amsterdam, we were told to proceed to T2 to find out about our new flight plans. After waiting there 20 minutes, we were told T2 was only for inter-European flights and we must go to T4 (or whatever, I forget the actual number). This was, of course, a good 10-15 minute walk away.

AT this point I was pretty sure there would be no more flights that afternoon, and that we would have to fly tomorrow. I was very busy making alternate plans for our arrival.

However, after a not-too-long wait at T4, we were indeed rebooked, to fly to Atlanta and then transfer to a flight to Orlando -- putting us in at midnight. Not at all ideal, but better than waiting to fly Sunday.

At that point -- about 4 p.m., we finally had lunch. About time! We didn't have to wait long until we boarded, and we were finally on our way across the Big Pond.

The only thing of note about the flight was the meal: chicken in sauce, rice and "broken green beans". Oh, and about halfway through we got an ice cream cone!

The flight passed and eventually, we landed in Atlanta. For some reason, the automats at immigration were not in use and we were strictly divided between US and Other, so we had to split up. There were many many people there and I was surprised to get through in only 30 minutes. Even more surprisingly, Norbert got through first and was waiting for me with the suitcases.

The good surprises continued as we got through Security in about 5 minutes, far and away the quickest we have ever had there. We took the train to our terminal, waited about 10 minutes and then boarded our third flight of the day.

I slept much of the way there. By the time we arrived, got our bags and into our rental car, it was nearly 1 a.m. We then drove for about half an hour to our hotel, the Budget Inn in Sanford. It was perfectly fine for one night but was most definitely showing a lot of wear and tear.

We hit the bed about 5 minutes after we arrived. A very, very long day!