Andrew writes:
Work tried to Get in the way of us leaving, but it ultimately failed. We woke up today, eager to pack a few things and to hit the road. Amanda had said that she wanted to leave at Noon, so naturally when I informed her at 1155am that somehow I had neglected to load any maps or tracks onto our garmin, there were heightened tensions around the house. Nevertheless we were out the door and riding by 1230pm. Rather than riding to the airport we elected to take public transit. We rode 4km to the sea bus terminal and took the ferry from North Vancouver to downtown Vancouver. From there it was a 30min ride on the Canadaline light rail to the airport.
Once at the airport, I quickly stripped the bikes down (removed pedals and air from tires) while Amanda got into the super-long queue. Turns out we were in the wrong line, and an Air Transat employee was quite helpful in directing us to a smaller lineup for people like us who had checked in online. All of the AT staff were super friendly and treated us like royalty. The bikes were all wrapped up and on the plane in no time, and then Amanda and I each had time to catch our breath.
The plane! Remember when planes only had a few televisions randomly spread out in the cabin? That was the plane we were on. The movies they showed even came on tape. Good thing I had my trusty iPad. Actually, I tried, with little success, to sleep on the 10th flight. I slept for maybe 3 hrs, just enough so that when we arrived in Amsterdam I was able to put the bikes back together and ride the short distance to our hotel.
Flight was good as was the day. As Andrew suggested I was annoyed by the last minute map loading but we needed the maps so we were a bit delayed. As a result we didn’t eat lunch until late which is not a good idea but we managed.
I thought it was bizarre that the sun did not set at all. We left when it was sunny, it was sunny all ten hours on the plane and we arrived and it was the next day around Noon in Amsterdam.
On the plane a guy smoked a cigarette! I couldn’t believe it. The crew chatted with him at length, ended up giving him some pills to relax him and we kept flying. As Andrew pointed out he must have a real addiction to it as it’s made pretty clear these days that smoking on a plane is a federal offense. What amazed me the most was that he wasn’t arrested when we landed. Oh well, no one died I suppose.
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