The Adventure Begins

After a few late nights, Jeff and I managed to have pretty much everything packed and ready to go. Fortunately we did most of it on Sunday which left tying up loose ends for work the late night part. Then there is the getting out of the house that in process reminds one of the 100 things we have not yet done around the house, moved from the luggage to carry on and packed in the first place. Leaving the house was pleasure as we stepped into a shiny limo, thanks to Jeff's friend Tom (see photo)that effortlessly took us to YYC with our bags and ready to take off. What an amazing and fun way to begin a dream trip!

We step inside the airport and check what gate we are leaving from. These flights have been booked for 8 months, and planned for about 16, so we have been excited and feeling prepared for our 12:40pm departure to LA for a long time. Only problem is, the travel documents we picked up from our agent show a 11:20am departure!! And it is now 11am......yes, we missed our flight. Apparently the daylight savings and season change moves the flight times earlier, but a lot. Lesson learned for us, don't rely on anything paper and check the flight number only on the internet. Bring on severe nausea and some minor panic to start our vacation. Thanks to Gototravel, Air Canada and our travel agent Kim, we were seamlessly rebooked on a Calgary-Vancouver-LAX connection that got us here in time and ate up the 8 hr lay over we were initially supposed to have. Not to mention we were not charged the $2000 for the new tickets or a change fee. Serious gratitude, thank you God.  We boarded our flight from LAX after some long lines to check in and dinner. Another 11 hours to go and we will be there.

Why Australia and Fiji? Jeff went to University for a term in Australia on exchange, after meeting someone (Mark) at UBC from Australia doing the same thing. After that, he was hooked. Jeff has maintained some long time friendships from that time that we have seen in various places in world since. We spent our honeymoon traveling the west coast of Australia but have not been back in 14 years. Jeff really wanted to be in Australia for his 40th birthday but it was not in the cards last year. He will be closer this year, on a beach in Fiji.

I did a country report in grade 4 and chose Fiji. I was fascinated by Fiji and have had an intention to go ever since. Flying all the way to Australia without making a 3 hour side route to Fiji seemed ridiculous to me :) please forgive the lack of formatting on this. I am using my iPad and I can't seem to get carriage returns to stick. I also can not select an image to upload so no pictures unless someone can hlep me out with that too. I have them on my iPad, Blogger won't let me hit the "choose file from my computer button".