Drinking the Whiskey

I had bad news and then more bad news.

First, I realized when I called Delta about my flights that my return flights were no longer in existence. That was very bad news. I was not going to receive compensation for the 200 dollar discrepancy since they were already giving me a full refund and that's all they could do. I am lucky my flight back was also a return package (it was cheaper than a one way for some reason) so I had different flights booked on Feb 9th. Whew.

I was pretty messed up about it though, so I decided to insure my car and get out of Langley. I went to the insurance place and they said I had to pay 600 up front or 510 depending on if I got plates or permit... I wasn't expecting that! Apparently you can't just insure your car for a month (I found a loophole later though).

So now my home freedom was gone as well. I was so eager to get my car out again and see everyone! Hearing this AND finding out I would have to wait an ten extra days for Berlin AND finding out the cat was sick put me in a foul mood :(

I was sitting on the computer talking to Dean moping away, when he suggested I take the bus out East Van! I hadn't done that in AGES. I was driving out while I had my car for the year, so the two-bus-then-Skytrain trip would be nostalgic for sure. I thought about it and decided yes. It was time to go to East Van.

I brought the Whiskey and some Ginger Ale. I made it in good time and got to meet some new kitties! Dean's hair was blue!



They had two cats, so we tried to make the big one Santa




The whiskey looked cute but made it hard to tell how much was gone...



The cats were so friendly :)



Dean lives with a Ninja. An actual ninja. It was fascinating. He told us stories about scaring people in parks while doing ninja training hide-and-seek stuff. It was most excellent! I tried to watch Oh Brother Where Art Thou, one of my favourite movies, but I was too drunk and had to go throw up then I passed out.

Boxing Day

I normally never shop on Boxing Day, but I wanted this external hard drive to save my tiny computer and store all my travel photos etc. They were on sale, so I got up early and took on the crowds. I got it! I was walking around town after when I walked right into Kenra, Mike, Bryce, and his brother :)

I joined them for some more shopping, then we absorbed more people and had a seven person loud lunch at White Spot! I had some Winter Ale (ohhh how I missed it!) and ended up getting a ride back to the house! I was in such a good mood!

I think I fell asleep by seven thirty pm though...

Christmas Day...

The weather was totally different than last year, if you look at my last year's Christmas post!

My sleep was all messed up so I got up at 7:30am for some reason. Luckily the parents were up already so I wasn't bored.

Picasso was being a model as I adjusted to using all my camera settings again. I still am adjusting.



I woke Erin up and the gift opening began! That bunny has been around since forever... I crocheted that sweater that is now keeping her together :)



Here are some gifts I got - "Bananagrams" (a game), the apron, and the Whiskey with it's own cute hat!



Dad's reading chair, trying to get things non blurry but I am too shaky still



My friend Andrew was also home for the holidays from University in New Brunswick. We went out for coffee that night and amazingly Tim Hortons was open Christmas night. Unbelievable. We hoped it was all staff that didn't celebrate Christmas and got my first Timmy Ho's French Vanilla and Donut in a year. Ohhhhhh yeah :)

Christmas Eve

I had my old SLR back, so I took some photos of the house and such. The photos on Flickr are bigger for these - give me time I am still figuring out how to use Zoombrowser again...



the upstairs bathroom has mirrors on either side, so when you look into it you can see infinity and where it starts to curve...



Monkey the Cat:



Picasso Cat (poor guy is sick)



The house:



My car!!!



Hard to see what is going on... I'll take another where you can see all the leopard glory!!


I love my car


I made this out of garbage bags in grade 4:



You can see my Grandma and Dad in the background:



village setup




Monkey and the three sided gas fireplace:



Mom painted this years ago!



The backyard



MY PLANTS! They grew so much!!



The tree:



Yep. I will take more later... gotta keep the suspense up mwahahahaa

Some Photos From Home!

I came home to Christmas! My family put my sign up:



We went to my cousin Kim's place to pick up my Grandmother and have some snacks and wine:





Here is our house lit up, and my sister:


I was bagged so I decorated the tree with my bits (they saved my ornaments for me) and I went to bed...

The Journey Home

I arrived at the airport to find my new flight was delayed past my connection. Fortunately there was another flight also to London Heathrow at the same time that was scheduled to arrive at the correct time. Only problem was, now I was arriving in Terminal 3 instead of 5... I would have to run to Terminal 5 within an hour or so.

The plane was late (but not nearly as late as the one I was supposed to get on) so I had to RUN. I ran to the bus, took the bus, ran into the terminal, found out I had to take another train thing to get to a certain part of the terminal, ran to that... I was covered in sweat with no antiperspirant. I made it to the gate wanting to throw up from running. I made it about 8 minutes before the gate was supposed to close.

The relief walking onto that plane was immense! Waiting for a day to get on that flight then almost missing the connection was nerve wracking... but once I was sitting down I felt so good :) I was sitting on an aisle seat, with two young Londoners beside me going to Vancouver for snowboarding. They were good company on the flight. I watched How I Met Your Mother until my battery died, and a movie or two... somehow I stayed awake the whole flight!

I didn't have any time to tell my parents that I had made the flight, so I hoped they were there. They were! My sister had made a big sign for me! I was home!!

I had been gone 11 months and 8 days.

I visited 23 countries!

Airline Anger

I woke up the next morning to see that my flight was cancelled online. I called my mom to see what to do about this, and she said there was a flight with Turkish Airlines I could take that could connect in Chicago and get me to Vancouver instead. Either way Delta should get me on another flight if theirs is canceled, so I went to the airport.

The airline had nothing to offer. They were swamped with people. It seems they could not get enough staff to handle the situation because they all looked flustered. I waited in one line, then another. Finally I was at a desk and I was told that there were no alternative flights I could take that they knew of. Delta doesn't really have affiliates in Istanbul, so all they could do was try to look up a different option I could take and give me a phone number to get a refund.

I had to get home though! I was very angry that the woman barely even looked at her computer before telling me there was nothing they could do. They just wanted to give out sticky notes with a delta 1 800 number, say sorry, and get the next in line. Everyone was agitated! It was not being handled well... there were loads of angry new yorkers trying to get home for Christmas yelling at people, staff yelling back; it was ugly. I'm surprised it didn't turn into a mob.

I told my retarded staff member "helping" me that my mom had looked up a possible connection through Chicago that would get me to my home. She looked it up and went all "Oh! I might have something here!" So my mom was better at finding flights online then the staff. *ugh*

I was told to go to the Turkish Airlines kiosk thing, and just get a refund for the Delta flights later. I went over with this older guy that had talked to me in the line up. He just needed to get to the east coast of the States, but the Delta staff were unable to comprehend this. He was in front of me in line and it was painful to watch because he kept explaining and they just didn't get it.

The Turkish Airlines thing were able to find a flight for me next day for 200 more than what I paid 2 months in advance on Expedia, and this was going to Vancouver which normally costs about 200 more to get to compared to Seattle (where my Delta flights were going). Same day would cost me 5000 or so, the Chicago flight only had first class available which was 2500 plus a connecting flight to Vancouver... this looked like my only choice.

I sucked it up and used the Visa card. I was livid about how I was treated, and so was the American guy. I tried to go online to call my parents at the airport to let them know what was happening, but the internet wasn't free. I got even more mad. The guy and me had anger cigarettes outside, then took the bus back together to Taksim and ate McDonalds. This calmed me down a little. There was an internet cafe across the street so I used it to call my parents, Delta, people at the house, etc.

There was a Brazilian staying over that night at the house, but they said I could stay on the other couch as long as he wasn't creepy haha. Soooo I came back very mad and decided to do the best thing for my nerves: go shopping.

I bought a lamp, a skirt, and I can't remember what else. Sheri came with me shopping and showed me all the little mall plaza things I had missed :) We had a latte and I was feeling better about the situation. I would be going to Vancouver, which was way better than Seattle. It could have been worse!

The Brazilian showed up, and we went to get some food before we went to sleep on our respective couches. At least I would be fresh for the plane this time.

Ferry to the Asian Side

My last day in Istanbul snuck up on me. I had been there over a week and I still had not made it to the Asian side! I had never set foot onto any of Asia before, so it was something to do before leaving the continent.

Sheri, Timur and I took a ferry across :) It was way warmer than the day before, so it made for a way better boat ride!















Ok I should add that during most of this ferry ride we were singing THIS song and waving to crew and passengers freaking them out. It was fantastic :D








The Asian side was quite nice! I liked it :) There were some amazing looking vegetables on display at the markets, and we climbed that bull which was pretty sweet. There was a football game on when we got back to the European side, so we found a bar that was playing it and started watching. Paolos came and met us there, and we all had a few drinks! I had to try Raki, which I didn't like, so here I am pretending to drink it:


we are being super cool

apparently I am in love with this team:



and this is my last picture from my 11+ month trip around the USA, Canada, and Europe:



It was raining like crazy when we left, so we hurried home to bed. I had a flight to catch tomorrow. Or so I thought.