Paulette

My flight to Greece leaves in a few hours.  The strike seems to not have impacted the actual flights.

The catering staff is on strike so I may not get any food on the flight.  I’ll bring a little something just in case.  The first part of the trip is Air Canada/Lufthansa so I’m hoping that means it will be fine.

I fly into Frankfurt, Germany and take a connection to Athens, Greece.  The connecting flight is Lufthansa.  I’m concerned about my luggage since it’s the ground crew that is on strike. I have had my luggage late or lost and that’s at the best of times.  Hoping it makes it on 2 flights is a little stressful.

I’ve decided to pack everything for the 11 days into 1 small pack sack and a carry on so I don’t have to worry about a checked bag.  It’s hot in Greece so everything is light and short.  I’m wearing my only cool weather clothes on the plane - long pants, shirt, light fleece.  I’ll just have to shop if I am missing something.

Carla is already in Germany.  She is worried about the strike as well.  So far all the flights seem to be going.  Here’s hoping by the time I land in Germany tomorrow that my connecting flight is still OK.

I just want to be there already!

I’m flying to Greece on Monday.  The carrier is Lufthansa.  I fly into Frankfurt, Germany and take a connecting flight to Athens, Greece.

I’m reading in the paper today that Lufthansa pilots are going on strike on Monday.  I don’t know if my flights will be affected yet or not.

Nothing seems to be easy these days.  I was looking forward to the trip to de-stress.  Maybe once I’m there?

Carla and her friend Shelley were supposed to be going to Rescue 2008 in Germany to compete and then on to Greece for a vacation.

Shelley broke her foot while training and is no longer able to compete or do a strenuous Greek vacation. Although Carla can still compete she had lost her travelling companion.

That’s where I come in.  I decided to fill in the gap.  I’ve always wanted to go to Greece and this seemed like a chance I just couldn’t let slip by.

I leave on July 28th and arrive in Athens Greece the morning of the 29th only 5 minutes behind Carla.  How is that for planning!

We come back on August 7th.  It sounds like an action packed vacation.

I really need to read up on Greece now.

I went to New York city this weekend with Melody. We left on Thursday afternoon from Ottawa airport and arrived at La Guardia a short while later. The flight was fine. The taxi ride was reasonable. We stayed at The Washington Jefferson Hotel which was within walking distance of Times Square and the theaters.

What did we do? We shopped, ate and went to see some musicals.

Here we are on Thursday night eating our first meal.

Shopping!

After dinner Thursday we headed to Times Square and shopped at stores nearby. Melody bought a beautiful watch. We both picked up some chocolate at the Hershey store.

We spent the day Friday shopping. We took a bus down to Canal Street and walked back up Broadway. We stopped at so many shops and boutiques along the way. Melody bought a few things and I picked up a dress at Macy’s department store.

Saturday we headed out to Century 21. No not the real estate place. This is a huge department store with designer items at reduced prices. We both bought a purse & shoes. The prices were excellent.

We dropped into the M&M shop. Can’t play favourites so we picked up more chocolate.

Here’s some of our take - my purse on the left, Melody’s on the right.

My shoes are the brown sandals and the black sling backs. Melody bought the white & gold sandals, the red & white pumps and the black pointy pumps. Her feet are so tiny. I was always looking for wide shoes so my selection was much more limited.

Musicals!

We didn’t spend all our time shopping. On Friday night we went to see Chicago. I have seen the movie and I really enjoyed the musical.

Our Chicago Playbill included a special on Curtains (a musical with David Hyde Pierce) . We picked up matinee tickets for that and went to see it Saturday afternoon. It’s a murder mystery and Pierce plays the detective. It was a lot of fun.

Saturday night we went to see Wicked. I had seen it in Toronto and was happy to see it again. I always wondered how well the Toronto productions compared to the Broadway ones. The Toronto show was just as good as the NY one.

We decided to finish off our last day with another matinee. We picked up tickets to The Lion King. It was a really good show.

I am asked which musical was my favourite. Chicago has powerful songs and great dancing. Curtains was completely new to me and fun. Wicked is a story I enjoy immensely and the musical didn’t disappoint. The Lion King is a great production with innovative ways of portraying the animals and of course a musical track that is memorable. So there you go, all were my favourites.

The weather was chilly but at least it was dry and there was no snow. It was a nice break.

Melody and I traveled well together. We both enjoy musicals, shopping and good food. Maybe we’ll do it again sometime.

I arranged my pictures from Big White. I didn’t have a lot of really good pictures due to the weather being cloudy a lot of the time and the fact that skiing and picture taking just don’t go well together.

The group didn’t want to do a group photo so there are few people pictures. I just got lazy with the camera. Next trip I have to be pushy and take better pictures.

Anyway check them out here: Big White 2008

Dave drove Ronnie & Pauline to the airport just before 7:00 AM this morning. Our hotel room comes with a free breakfast. I’m never impressed but food is food. We head down to the main floor and enter the dining area.

It’s a self-serve setup. They have cheese omelets ready to pop in the microwave to warm up. Wow they are creamy and taste great. Next they have waffle makers. The mix is pre-measured into cups. You pour the batter in, close the lid and flip it. A timer counts down and beeps when your waffle is done. Again they taste amazing. Coffee, juice everything you need is readily available. What a nice surprise.

Our trip home doesn’t start until 1:00 PM. We decide to drive along the lakeshore. Our first stop is in Peachland. It is a small community by the lake. We walk around a bit and everyone is very friendly and says hello. I get the impression we’d need to own 2 dogs to live here as people are out in couples each walking a dog.

We stop for a coffee & hot chocolate (the wind is chilly off the lake) at a little bakery. It seems to be the destination of choice on a sunny Sunday morning. A running group is meeting there. We manage to get seats before the whole group arrives.

We look at real estate brochures and are wowed by the prices. Living in or near Kelowna is not cheap especially if you want to be near the lake.

We continue along the highway and reach Summerland. Again it’s a nice little community near the lake. We only stop briefly to turn around and head back to Kelowna. It was a nice drive on a sunny morning.

We arrive at the first of 4 airports we will visit today. Our first leg is to Vancouver and our plane leaves on time. We have a tight connection to make there but luckily we arrive as expected and the gate is close to where we get off the first plane.

Our second leg is to Calgary. We wait in airport #2 and realize that we are going to be late. Our plane is not ready, we board late, leave late and with only a 45 minute gap between flights we are thinking we aren’t going to make it.

Our next flight is at 3:45 with boarding at 3:10 and we are only now arriving at the gate at 3:25. We still have to wait for the plane to stop, unload everyone and as we are almost at the end of the plane that takes more time. We finally run off the plane to our next gate at 3:35. I’m sure I’ve heard that they don’t allow you on in the last 10 minutes. We may be too late. Airport #3 might be our downfall.

We run up to the gate and notice a lot of people still hanging around. We are informed that the plane is late as they are repairing a seat. They haven’t even started boarding yet. It’s our lucky day. Maybe our luggage will make it on the plane too?

We finally board and lift off. We are on our last leg to Ottawa. I’m ready to go home. The pilot makes up the time and we arrive at exactly the scheduled time. Funny how that happens. Will our luggage have arrived? We had a couple of quick connections.

Brian comes to pick us up. It is now midnight in airport #4. We wait for our bags and they all show up. We can’t believe our luck. Lessons learned on this trip - no 3 hop flights, leave more time between connections and come home a little earlier especially when you have a 3 hour time difference!

We packed up and left the condo sometime after 8:30 AM. We got to Kelowna and did some errands. Around 10:00 we drove Alison & Steve off at a friend’s place up the hill.

So far this part of Kelowna is not very appealing. All we see is shopping mall after shopping mall. The home where we drop them off is lovely but the view is down the mountain at the shopping district. In the distance we can see the lake.

We drive down to the lakeshore and walk around. There is a park that is probably very nice in the summer. There are lots of shops and restaurants. We stop at a small food place called “The Grateful Fed” for lunch. It was a really cool little restaurant with interesting decor. The food was really good.

We head to our hotel to check-in. Our rooms are quite nice. They aren’t too far from the airport so the drive tomorrow will be quick.

We head out to visit some wineries. We head south of our current location along the lakeshore. The town is much nicer in this area. There are a lot of vineyards. The view is of the lake and of beautiful homes.

The first winery we stop at is called Summerhill. We try 3 wines there. Next we head to St Hubertus. It suffered a lot of damage with the wildfires of 2003. They have rebuilt and seem to be doing well. We try a few nice wines there as well. Our last stop is at Cedar Creek winery. They avoided the wildfires by buldozing a fire break. Both places had amazing photographs of the fire. Again we enjoy some nice wines. Everyone was so pleasant too.

Tonight we are heading to a Blues/Ribs restaurant for supper. We found it on our walk this morning and went in to make reservations. It smelled really good. I’m getting hungry…

We head back to Ottawa tomorrow. I’m ready for it.

Our last day of skiing and finally the skies are clear.  The sun is shinning and we still have leftover snow from the dump we got yesterday.

We spent the day going from one lift to another.  I managed to get pictures of all the areas.

The fun part was taking the t-bar up to the top.  What a view!  I got to see the Cliff chair area where they had an avalanche earlier this year.  Unfortunately one person died.  It’s not going to re-open this season.

Again we had no lift lineups.  It’s been a good week of skiing.  Each day seemed to be better than the day before.

We take in our last hot tub session of the vacation then eat a yummy (I made it but concensus agreed it was tasty) coconut shrimp pasta dish.

We headed to the Crystal Inn to play pool.  Pauline and I really took it to the guys.  I think we agreed that we tied the guys but I’m not so sure about that!  At one point we noticed the staff cleaning & sweeping around us.  The “Open” sign had been extinguished.  We closed the place.  Time to go back to the condo for our final sleep.

I’m ready to go home.

We woke up to 15cm of fresh snow.  That was totally unexpected.  The forecast was for flurries followed by sunny skies.  Of course not one forecast has been accurate yet!

We headed to Gem Lake again since the grooming report had the most un-groomed runs there.  As we approach the summit we see that it is fogged in.  There is a bit of a side wind.  The 15cm has drifted in places making the top quite a slog to get through.  There are no tracks so we take turns plowing along.  It is not easy breaking a trail in deep drifted snow, poor visibility and with wind blowing at us.  Follow the yellow poles.  Stay to the left of the poles.  You don’t want to fall off the edge!  Is this what it is like to climb Everest?  It sure feels like it to me.

Once we get through that and make our way down the first pitch we are amazed by the snow.  We have some laughs as a few in the group visit the snow up close and personal.  The first run takes a little longer than the previous day.  There’s nothing like un-tracked fresh snow.

There are no lift lineups.  It is strange to us to have fresh tracks and 1st tracks after the lifts have been opened more than an hour. There are a few people out there with us.  We stopped along the runs to wait for others in our group, catch our breath and give our legs a break.  Sometimes a stranger might be doing the same.  We always spoke to one another.  We never do that back home.  Here you don’t run into other people on the run that often.  Usually we are skiing down alone.  It’s like we have our own private ski area.

Runs undergo a transformation on a day like today.  Those we skied yesterday feel like new runs today.  It is exhausting but exhilarating.  As the day progresses the conditions change.  The snow accumulates in bunches but has not yet turned to moguls.  It is challenging as the piles get thick.

It  starts to warm up and the sun starts to peak out from the clouds.  By lunch it is getting warmer.  The summit stays socked in but the sun is shinning down on us everywhere else.  It is melting and turning the once powdery snow into mushier wet stuff.  In just a few hours we’ve gone from a blizzard at the top to spring skiing.

You can hear the water dripping everywhere as the snow melts on rooftops.  It certainly has not been cold.  Even the Everest like conditions this morning were mild.  No worries of frostbite.

We have one more day at Big White.  What will tomorrow bring?

There was 5-8 cm of fresh snow this morning.  Ronnie is feeling a little better.  The four of us head to Gem Lake to ski that area today. The Gem chair is over 8,000 feet long. There are many glade runs. Where to start?

The first few runs we take are the groomed ones. They are exactly what you expect of groomed runs. They aren’t all that exciting. We decide to take some black diamond non-groomed runs that start off in the glades. Now we’re talking! We had so much fun with those. They are very long and continuous.

It starts to warm up and the old snow softens up and mixes well with the new snow.

We had a fun day ending with a session in the hot tub. Dinner is a nice leg of lamb prepared by Alison.

Life is good!