Jim & Leslie's Adventures

Feb 21st, 2009 Our Room

We are staying in the Missionary home. There is a room that is empty at the moment and, for three weeks, it is all ours! Yea! We had two gift packs waiting for us, one from M & P and the other from John & Mandy (a thank you for our bringing a few items for them). Wow! What a beautiful room! We have tons of closet space, our own bathroom, air-conditioning … what more could you ask?

Feb 21st, 2009 Hitting the Heat

Wooof! We hit the heat! Touch down in Abidjan! Yea! We were worried about the security here, Marvin & Penny had warned us so much. Not such a big deal. We filled out the forms and sailed on through. Then … to the luggage. Was there any small chance that it would come through? Or … days of claims and waiting? We watched the luggage going round and round … nothing for us. Wait for another round … same bunch. sigh. Its going to be a rough one. Then, I noticed another carousal labeled with our flight number! Yea! I headed off to that one, leaving Leslie with our carry on luggage and a cart at the first carousal. At this one there was an 8 year old collecting her families luggage and getting her younger sister to watch it. She was doing a good job too. I watched everything coming through. Nothing for us. Then a long line of new stuff. … sigh. Then the same old stuff again. …. give it up … I went back to Leslie … to find her with ALL of our luggage!!!! Yea!!!! Free at last, free at last!! Great …. ok, you get the idea! So we headed out to the parking lot to meet Marvin & Penny. It was a very, very happy reunion. The drive back was an (beginning of) an eye-opener. Beautiful palm trees and luxury houses, mixed with slums and dumps that shouldn’t be lived in. Women carry Continue Reading →

Feb 21st, 2009 The Last Lag (and our last legs)

On to Abidjan! This plane was not quite so nice as the last, but the hospitality and the food was the same. Our TVs were smaller and the selection was not ‘on demand’, but still plenty to do. I didn’t mention that the TVs also allow you to monitor the flight of the plane including cameras mounted on the front and underside of the plane. I actually enjoyed those. Especially on landing. We had a brief stop in Ghana and then 45 minutes to fly to Abidjan. It was funny because they still wanted to serve food during that time. By the time they had served it (we couldn’t eat anymore anyway), they were trying to pick up the trays because we had started initial descent. Crazy. This flight was fairly rough. Strong head winds. But we arrived safe, and almost sound. What would await us….?

Feb 21st, 2009 Dubai

Here we are on the other side of the world! This is a unique feeling for one who has never left his continent before (I was almost incontinent, so to speak)! The Dubai airport is stunning. Huge, spacious and very relaxing. The opposite of North American airports. Security seemed relaxed and you got the idea that they were organized and competent. Might be an illusion. We found an attendant at the baggage and explained our situation. He almost shrugged it off. He said “Your flight out isn’t until morning, and if your luggage wasn’t on the plane, we have another one coming in at midnight. We’ll get your bags to Abidjan.” We relaxed a bit. On to the Hotel. Wow again. We have a voucher for a free room, 2 buffet meals and 2 ‘light refreshments’. We bought a bottle of wine at the airport. So we are all set. Our room was very nice. Single beds, but still nice. We even had our very own room safe! Yea! We started by going for the buffet. They maintained the level of the food quality. Buffet of all kinds of Indian / Middle East foods. Fantastic! It surpassed the meal we had in a restaurant just before leaving Canada. We went back to our room and had our wine. We then had about 4 hours sleep before heading out. Very restful, very nice. After that we had cake & coffee before heading out again. At the airport we went through all Continue Reading →

Feb 21st, 2009 Air Emirates

So last we left this that we ran for the plane. We made it on and the panic eased off. Whew! Now we are on Air Emirates. It has been said that Economy on Air Emirates is like First Class on any other airline. I haven’t traveled much, but I would certainly agree. To start they come around with steaming hot cloths for all the passengers to refresh themselves. Surprisingly nice. You get a little gift pack to keep with a pair of socks, a travel toothbrush and eye shades (to help sleep). Actually the pack is the nicest part of that. We are going to keep our to use at home (maybe a first aid kit, or something). Each seat (as you can see in the photo) has its own entertainment unit. You have hundreds of movies, tv shows, and music channels. It is all “on demand” so you can play what you want when you want. Nice! They give you nice headphones to use too, better that the ones we had with us. The food! The constant food! It is gourmet deluxe. I haven’t eaten in many restaurants that are better. And it just keeps coming. They give you a menu when you get on so that you can anticipate the choices. Drinks too, of course. Water, juice, coffee, tea …. and *real* drinks. Which they mix for you and serve in a nice glass with a swizzle stick. Ah luxury! It turns out that, while I don’t Continue Reading →

Feb 20th, 2009 Montreal to New York …. Running

It was calling for ‘weather’ …. don’t we always have weather? … so we decided to boot to the airport early. Good thing. We arrived in PE Trudeau airport at about 3:00 pm. Our flight was supposed to leave at 7:30. They told us that it was already delayed about 1 1/2 hours. The earlier flight was also delayed and they would put us on it. We boarded at 5:15 to leave at 6:30 …. ha! We sat on the plane with one delay after another and the snow picking up. De-icing …. waiting …. de-icing … waiting. Finally, at about 8:30 we took off. Most of the other passengers had decided to vacate by this time so we were about 15 on the plane. JFK …. … we knew we didn’t have much time, but this was crazy. We arrived with one hour before take off. We ran … almost literally for 30 minutes to get to our gate. They said “Too late”. Then they found out we had no checked baggage and decided that if we ran we could still make it. We ran. They explained on the way that our luggage would not make it with us. Not enough time. More on this later. We sneaked on to the Dubai flight just before take off. All went well from there, but that’s another story.

Feb 18th, 2009 And we catch up slowly …

Yesterday was a killer.  We were up almost 22 hours.  Today we got up late … sorta.  It was 7:00 am, but that is our 8:30. We spent the day running around getting all the last things that were on our list before the last trip.  We ate good food and Lisa took us to the shopping spots.  We had a nice Indian meal with Jason & Lisa.  Now we are going to chill with a little merlot and rest up..  Tomorrow is repacking day.  Leslie's parents are coming in and we will send all our "winter" stuff back with them.  Then we head on to the airport.  I don't know if I will get a connection in Dubai, so I may not blog much before the weekend.  Hang in there!

Feb 17th, 2009 The day ends well

So Air Canada did us proud!  Within a couple of hours they had a plan.  The Gilbey family were off by 9, but we had to wait until afternoon. We also had to add one flight.  Now we had to fly to Halifax, then Montreal.  No big deal.  Sadly we missed breakfast with the Hopkins. (see menu sign above) So we got the flight to Halifax.  I took 2 Ativan.  No big deal.  We started watching movies and the flight was so short that we couldn't see the end.  I wasn't near as bothered as I thought I might be. We met Jon & Tina in Halifax and had beer, nachos and calmari!   Yum! Then onto  the second flight.  This time I skipped the pills.  Still no problem.  I was able to finish my movie, but Leslie couldn't get hers to work. We were met by Hopkins after all.  They took us home and forced us to eat Indian food and drink beer and wine.  We were naturally quite distraught.  A good day was had after all. We have some shopping to do over the next day and some repacking.  Fun, fun fun. night all!

Feb 17th, 2009 more pix of the day

Feb 16th, 2009 New flights, new hope!

Air Canada scrambled to work and got us new flights!  Yea!  Not as nice and easy as before, but still …. it goes today. Now we fly from here to Halifax this afternoon and then to Montreal on another flight at 6:15.  We should get into Montreal about 7:00pm.  Not too bad. Now as long as our family doesn't just abandon us there …..  stay tuned!