Starts with choosing to take the Malahat after much last minute cleaning, garbage in the bin and waaay too early for the Mill Bay Brentwood ferry… meant to be a relaxed exit. Instead I get a speeding ticket. He gives me a break, I don’t do this frequently.
I’m unsurprised but disappointed with my anxiety, I hate to be late, 2 hours early at YYJ is the result. Relatively mellow now that we’ve checked our bags finished my yogurt and visited the toilet.
15 minutes in the air through the clouds, nothing to see, I was doing my morning meditation when we ‘touched’ down jerking me right out of it.
Walking with my sticks from one end of the terminal to the other, then a bus ride out to the plane standing alone, a temporary metal and covered three level ramp to board. The terminal expansion in full swing adjacent.
Back in the air the turbulence gave me pause, then I settled into my book and Elke began a series of movies. I watched other peoples’ movies; 5 different screens visible. We had champagne!
a meal , an extremely frozen ice cream bar in the dark and a continental style breakfast once we were close to arriving.
Then a long hike, lineups and waiting in a generic airport atmosphere, in spite of the welcoming signs to Paris, I experience little of its ’charm’. Elke has a 15 minute massage then falls asleep. We board another plane and land smoothly in Hamburg.
Where we wait an interminably long time for our luggage, Elke chases after someone taking a similar bag, but ours arrives. With nothing to declare we exit to where sister Sabine is waiting. She leads us to the train.
At Hamburg Bahnhof the train security arrives with us on the platform; must be a shift change. Six of them, looking somewhat menacing and official. A school group parades by greeting them with friendly comments disarming their gruff demeanour. We take the regional train and Elke falls asleep again so I chat with Sabine as we roll through ripe fields of barley, oats and wheat, woodlots, allotment gardens, (schreber gartens) and small towns where all the houses are steeply roofed in tiles.
That evening we have dinner out to celebrate at a converted, renovated windmill restaurant, after I manage a 45 min nap. Not bad considering I hadn’t slept for 26 hours.
I’m unsurprised but disappointed with my anxiety, I hate to be late, 2 hours early at YYJ is the result. Relatively mellow now that we’ve checked our bags finished my yogurt and visited the toilet.
15 minutes in the air through the clouds, nothing to see, I was doing my morning meditation when we ‘touched’ down jerking me right out of it.
Walking with my sticks from one end of the terminal to the other, then a bus ride out to the plane standing alone, a temporary metal and covered three level ramp to board. The terminal expansion in full swing adjacent.
Back in the air the turbulence gave me pause, then I settled into my book and Elke began a series of movies. I watched other peoples’ movies; 5 different screens visible. We had champagne!
a meal , an extremely frozen ice cream bar in the dark and a continental style breakfast once we were close to arriving.
Then a long hike, lineups and waiting in a generic airport atmosphere, in spite of the welcoming signs to Paris, I experience little of its ’charm’. Elke has a 15 minute massage then falls asleep. We board another plane and land smoothly in Hamburg.
Where we wait an interminably long time for our luggage, Elke chases after someone taking a similar bag, but ours arrives. With nothing to declare we exit to where sister Sabine is waiting. She leads us to the train.
At Hamburg Bahnhof the train security arrives with us on the platform; must be a shift change. Six of them, looking somewhat menacing and official. A school group parades by greeting them with friendly comments disarming their gruff demeanour. We take the regional train and Elke falls asleep again so I chat with Sabine as we roll through ripe fields of barley, oats and wheat, woodlots, allotment gardens, (schreber gartens) and small towns where all the houses are steeply roofed in tiles.
That evening we have dinner out to celebrate at a converted, renovated windmill restaurant, after I manage a 45 min nap. Not bad considering I hadn’t slept for 26 hours.
