Ah - I told you so!

Day one, we just drove to the cabin.  The highway was open, and I cannot tell you the devastation of Canmore and Banff, but I am even more impressed how they got the road in shape for travel so soon.  As I drove by, at the speed limit, I yelled thanks, and good work to all the workers!  It is truly an unbelievable feat what they have accomplished.

With a minor slow down at Canmore and Banff, we continued on our way.  I guess that this point I should mention that Tim and I had a conversation about approx speeds for different legs of the trip.  We decided that 145 km/h would be on Highway 1 and 105 km/h would be our speed for the 93/95 to Radium.  For those of you who don’t know, if you are caught going 30 over the posted speed limit in BC, they impound your car on the spot for 7 days.  They also do not provided transportation to the nearest town either.

During our glorious drive down Highway 1, we had a few new BFF’s that just tucked in behind Tim and I and followed us the whole way to Castle Junction.  It was quite funny actually.  There were small tears in their eyes when we merged onto the Castle Junction turn off.

Tim had settled into a speed of about 115 km/h, and I just let him go.  I just chilled at 105 top down listening to music, on the other side of the highway was a Porsche Driving Club, must have passed 50 Porsche’s going the other way.  Just gave them a quick wave, and continued on.  This just proves that Porsche’s are better than Corvette’s.

Finally caught up to Tim, and just cruised up to the top of Radium hill at which point I knew I would lose Tim once again.  This is one of Tim’s favorite roads to drive Mach 300 on.  He managed to pass all of the big trucks, and had a clear road in front of him.  A couple of RCMP passed us going the other way up the hill. Apparently, Tim took this as a sign from god that he could go really fast.  With that, he activated the GOPRO camera, so he could relive each curve in the road.  Good thing he did, cause he caught the flashing lights on the other side of the road coming after him.  The RCMP spun around, and pull him over.  Just then, I came upon the flashing lights.  I knew it was Tim.  I pulled over in front of him, thinking for sure that his car was going to be impounded.  The RCMP asked Tim why I pulled in front of them.  He replied……….oh, that’s my wife!  Bless the RCMP, he did not impound Tim’s car, and only gave him a warning and $130 speeding ticket.  I think that the RCMP felt a little sorry for him, as Tim had to deal with me at the bottom of the hill.  I TOLD YOU SO!!!!  We are 2 hours and 22 mins into our trip and you have a @#$%#@@ speeding ticket!!!  And that is just another reason why separate cars are good.  Allows you time to cool down.  (ps – mum and dad, we really did not go that fast J)

The night before CHRISTMAS!!!!

Yes, we are off tomorrow morning.

The weather has cooperated, and highway 1 is open. I was going to call Nenshi to say chop chop on the highway as we are leaving tomorrow, but in his awesomeness, it was not necessary.

Packing will be interesting as our combined truck space is about the size of a bread box,  I guess full body bedazzling will have to do for vegas as not much will fit in the trunks.  Play list for me is intact.  Of course Boston's More than a feeling will be on a continuous loop for the first 30 mins, then Pink Floyd, The Wall will follow.  After that it will just be SIRIUS radio.  Tim has the radar/jammer, but his comment to me is "How fast do you plan on following me"  which means I will lose him in the first 3 minutes as he will be going 160 and my max is 130.  Good thing our walkie talkies have a 40 km range....... Wish us luck!!!

Travel Day

Phew we made it.  It was a nice surprise when we got to the Calgary Airport, and my mum had upgraded us to business class, yup the pods with the full beds!  Not too spoiled!  We all had a brown cow, yes Vhari passed for 18, cheers to the trip, light dinner and slept until on hour before we touched down at LHR.  We breezed through security, as we all have EU passports, and onto Paris.  The question was…..will all our luggage make this trip???  The answer was yes, so we jumped in a cab and headed to our apartment.  I can’t tell you how frightening that was!  Just to let you know that no one pays attention to lanes, or traffic lights. (do they have traffic lights in Paris?)  At one point we where sitting in a intersection with a huge bus on one side of us, cars all over, traffic lights were red and an ambulance with full sirens coming behind us – oh lord help us!!  We managed to get to our apartment safely, and after lugging our luggage up 4 flights of stairs that are the same as at the leaning tower of Pisa, home sweet home.  After a quick dinner we all crashed into bed, resting up for the next 5 days in Paris.

Kind of a Big Deal

T minus 12 hours before we board the plane for our trip of a lifetime.  Just by sheer chance we ended up being interviewed by CTV about our trip.

http://calgary.ctvnews.ca/calgary-family-prepares-for-london-trip-1.893175

We have all of our passports - Canada-EU, and our new best friend Nexus, in order to hopefully jump some airport lines.  My only hope is that my baggage makes it this time!  Mind you, we land at LHR first, so at least we can speak the language!    Fingers crossed that it will be in Paris when we get off the plane.  Good news is my dad is at home to troubleshoot any problems we may encounter, and my husband sell insurance for lost baggage!!!!

Hold on tight - this is going to be quite the ride!

In the beginning......

Wow - reading from last year, it may be hard to beat that last trip, but Vhari, my mum and I will give it our best.  Just leaving the cabin to prepare for the big trip.  Empty suit case, in order to refill in Paris and London, credit card, and a tooth brush.  Seriously, what else would we need?

Oh - It's not over...Travelling back to Rome

Travelling Back to Rome

One would think that our adventure would have ended yesterday as we were just heading to the hotel today to leave in the morning.  Well not so much.  The day started like this.  I get up look in our mail box for our final bill.  Glanced across to see that the kids had mail too.  Kinda wierd, both rooms are billed to our room.  There was an envelope with Vhari’s name on it.  Instead of waiting for her to open it – I just ripped it open to see what it could be on the last morning.  Well, don’t you know that it was a thank-you from the Signature Shops for her $867.00 purchase of jewellery from last night.  I ran into her room, woke her up and said “WHAT THE F#$%!!!!” She had lost her card for about 45 minutes yesterday, and well you can figure it out.  I remember rumbling something at Tim and bolted downstairs.  I think that I skipped the first two floors of steps before my feet hit the ground the first time.  Upon arriving at the front desk it was all I could do not to lose all my marbles, and explained in a somewhat non-confrontational voice that this was an error.  After a great debate, the Shop Manager, and a couple of front desk people they removed the charge. (I think that they started to believe me when I asked them to review the security camera from that time, and I was happy to wait) .  I did a quick review of our bill to make sure that everything else was okay, and noticed that we were not charged for our disembarkation to the airport.  Now I have lost all my marbles and snapped all the happy colours of crayons.  She found our forms and apologized, but could do nothing at this point because they were unsigned, but it is okay for a 15 year old to purchase close to 900 worth of jewellery. Really?? Are you kidding?  OMG we were on our own.  We had a sense of what is would be like as we witnessed it from the first leg of the cruise. (that is why I purchased the disembarkation)  Let me put this picture in your head.  You see a big ant hill and you poke it.  That is what it looks like when you disembark on your own.  After 30 minutes we finally managed to get our bags on the bus that takes you to the port terminal.  At this point we looked for a cab – none to be found (we knew this from before)  Tim and I decided that we would take the PUBLIC train into Rome, and get a cab from there.  Remember the ant hill poking – well the train station was about times 20 worse as 3 cruise ships docked that morning.  Tim asked for the express train, and first class. (yup still a princess on public transit)  Well we got the milk run ticket in cattle class.  Can you imagine the population of Calgary trying to squeeze on the C-Train with full on luggage?  Oh yeah – did I mention that it was 36 degrees today.  The kids felt sick from the heat, and have never ridden public transit like that before.  We sent them into a stinky somewhat air conditioned car.  Travis was able to get a seat (well – vhari’s seat) as he thought that he was going to pass out. Vhari had to stand for an hour with some guy who has not bathed for 1000 years, and two women who chewed gun like a camel.  I think Vhari actually puked in her mouth a little in utter disgust. The stink eye was out in full force from them both.   Tim and I stood at the door with the luggage and about 20 people in a 5 by 5 space.  I swear to god that we were on a train from Deli, India.  After an hour on this train, and more people getting on I had to get off the train.  The first stop that looked like it was close to Rome I made everyone get off.  Grabbed the wrong suitcase, had to jump back on to switch them before the train left.  The silence was deafening between the four of us.  We walked out of the terminal (god knows where we were and how far we had to go) found a cab.  Watch him put our huge luggage in what appeared to be a smart car, we all piled in and he took us to the hotel.  I did not care if it was 200 Euros, (it was only 40) I was not getting back on a train.  Phew we made it.  I took us a while to start talking to each other again..........  I can only hope that it will be totally uneventful to the airport tomorrow morning.  We have a free shuttle that picks us up at the door, loads the luggage and the airport is only 5 minutes away.  Wish us luck.

Last Port

Palermo, Sisley

I was sick today and stayed in the cabin the whole day.  Here is what happened in Palermo from Tim.

Vhari and I decided to go into town.  There was a bunch of horse drawn carriages at the end of the pier, but we decided to walk. We were aiming for the big church built by John the Great in 2 billion BC.  Shopping was quite spectacular.  You could get a custom suit made for 60 Euros, BOOS and Blueberry cologne for super cheap.  My label whore daughter with have nothing to do with the I love the Cabana knock offs.  We found a big mall, and went into it because it had air conditioning.  She found a shirt that was 55 Euros, but would not buy it.  We walked over to the big church, which was spectacular from the outside, asked Vhari is she wanted to see the inside.  She gave me the stink eye.   I took her through the ghetto part of the city, and Vhari was soooooo not impressed.  We went back to the department store that she saw the shirt.  One the top floor there was a restaurant called the Mozzarella Bar.  We had the world famous mozzarella salad and prosciutto ham.  It was the best mozzerlla we have ever had.  I ended up buying the shirt for Vhari for coming with me for the adventure.

Naples, Italy

I’m back – feeling way better.  Travis tended to my every need yesterday.  It was nice to have a man slave.

Today is our last port, Naples.  We have heard so many bad things.  There has been a garbage strike for 7 years, 1 out of 3 people are unemployed and people in other parts in Italy will not travel to Naples as they feel unsafe.  Woo Hoo we were so excited to dock here, could hardly wait to see the slums/garbage.  This was also the birth place of pizza.  After a family discussion the kids did not want to get off the boat.  Vhari wanted to hang with her friends and Travis was ready to go home last week, so we let them stay on board.  Tim and I off on an adventure!  We decided that we would take the ferry over to the island of Capri.  Simple one would think.  That is what we thought.  We bought our tickets for the 10:00a ferry to take us over.  You have to understand the size of this port.  There are 5 different companies that ferry and your ticket give you no clue on which boat you go on.  We lined up at one, nope wrong line.  We were moved over to another line.  (It is now 10:00a)  Nope that was not the line either.  Thinking that this was a little complicated we checked a sign on when ferries return from Capri to Naples to make sure that we could get back on the ship on time.  The signs made it look like we would not make it back....... We asked at the info desk, they point at a boat that was just loading (it is now 10:20a) said that was it and through us a schedule for return trips.  We were the last to get on the ferry as they lifted the gangway behind us.........no turning back now.  Thoughts went through our heads how the kids would manage when we don’t return.  We just hoped that Holland America would help them a little.....no money......no parents......no clue what was going on. 

We made it to the Island of Capri.  It reminded us of Santorini.  A village nestled in the mountains.  Quite beautiful.  It turns out that there was three ways up.  Taxi, gondola, walk.   (we did not know this at the beginning)  I found some stairs and started walking up.  Thinking that is would take us up a block off the busy pier street. Nope not the case.  (I need to say at this point that is was 36 C) These stairs took us to the top of the town.  Imagine you are in a hot yoga studio, without dry weave clothing on.  Tim and I were dripping by the time we made it to the top.  (I usually wear some sort of lululemon short if I know that we will be walking – not today I had the Old Navy shorts on and sweat so much I looked like I peed my pants)  Anyway – we made it to the top, and it was so worth it.  The town and the view were spectacular.  We were in the company of my old friends. Chanel, Louis, Jimmy Choo etc – Tim was in full cardiac arrest when he saw the shops.  We looked for a place to eat.  I could smell wood burning from the oven, I followed the smell.  I know that I have said that each meal was better than the next – this was really great.  The balsamic vinegar was like a reduction.  I could have just drunk that.  The pizza was great, and my salad was amazing.  The beer was icy cold.  Tim also really peed his pants when found out that the Edge from U2 and Mariah Carey had eaten there as well.  He took a picture of the pictures that were posted all over the restaurant.

After lunch we headed back down, hoping there was a chance that we would make it back.  We hit the ferry with 5 minutes to spare before departure to Naples.  Made it back to the ship on time.  We will go back to Capri and stay at least a week.

It is hard to believe that we have been away for 26 days.  We are all still talking to each other. Have awesome memories, and looking forward to our next adventure.   We sat around trying to remember all the places we have been and in what order, like they do on the amazing race.  Well, we could not do it.  Thankfully we have this blog to look back on and the itinerary to remind us where we have been.