Vancouver

Here I am again. It seems like I really travel a lot this year. This time it was a business trip to Vancouver. Everything had to happen on short notice, everything is always urgent and so I tried to rearrange all the private London flights and get my business flight to Canada booked in that way that the whole trip covered my London flights as well. This is a very interesting thing: If I book the flight to Vancouver from London, I mean: London - Vancouver - London it will cost almost twice as much as a flight Duesseldorf - London - Vancouver - London - Duesseldorf. Even with a stop over in London for the weekends. I will never understand how these airfares are calculated. Anyhow, Nokia now paid for my England trips on two weekends plus the parking fee at the airport. All in all this saved me almost 400 Euros!!!! Well, not really that much. The British Airways flight they booked for me went to Heathrow. That meant I had to take the bus to Thetford. Heathrow is appr. 3 hours away from "home" and so Dave didn't pick me up there. Anyhow, what I wanted to tell you is that last week I spent some time in Vancouver.
And I tell you, the weather was nice, warm and sunny when I arrived. Yes, we had meetings during the day, but in the afternoon I drove to the mountains went for some short hikes with another colleague from Germany. It was very nice. We even saw a black bear next to the road. It almost felt like being in Alaska ;o)
The whole meeting was scheduled for three days, but I was done after two days. Wow, I thought, that gives me time to explore the town a little bit before going to the airport and fly out at 17:45. My hotel was located downtown (by the way, a very nice one which I probably will never be able to afford to stay on a private trip) and so I walked to Stanley park. I found a geocache on the way and decided to visit the Vancouver Aquarium. Around lunchtime I got a phone call from BA, telling me my flight will be late. Actually delayed until next day 1pm and I should call their hotline. I did it immediately and had to wait for 15 min before I got connected to a real person. And that all from a German cell phone (that means a 800 number is not free!). They didn't give me any reason for the canceled flight, but they tried to book me on the same day late evening flight. Even with this booking they asked me to show up at the airport early to make sure I can fly out on that night, because everybody wants to be rescheduled to that flight rather than to the next day one. So I decided to stop the sightseeing and take a taxi to the airport. I waited in line for maybe 2 hours, I don't know. It felt awefull long. But I was lucky, they booked me on the same day flight and after 4 more hours at the airport (which by the way is very nice) I was able to board. Of course I missed my bus in Heathrow, but that was no big deal neither. They go every two hours and I made it home to Thetford only a little bit late.
Let me also complain a little bit about the weather. It is cold! It is wet! It is definetly not summer, even if the calender tries to tell me so. My backyard is a mess with all the weeds and grass growing and I am not able to cut it or do anything against it. Yesteday I clipped the hedge, which was enough work, but I am not really satisfied with the way it looks. I wanted to do it fast before the next rain started. I really hope that England has some nicer weather during this weekend. I need some sun.
Dave subscribed for a Scuba diving class! So he will start going underwater in three weeks. Maybe I am even more excited about it than he is, but I can't wait to go diving with him. Hopefully he likes it.
So, I am ready to leave again. I am almost on my way to the airport for the usual England trip. Just wanted to let you know what was going on. Take care!