Canada

Sooo, I finally arrived in Canada!
It's just a beautiful country, really amazing!

I don't believe I could be any happier - my host family is the best and nicest in the world, their house is really wonderful (the same goes for my room) and the dog is just cute!

Well, my flight was really alright.

The worst part was Munich - London, 'cause I was flying all alone, the two others of my organisation sitting at the other end of the airplane, and I was really nervous - every time there was the slightest tremor in the wings, my palms started sweating and I panicked.

I did see a lot of great stuff, though, although we were flying mostly over the clouds.
What I saw was the Olympia stadium, the typical London doubledecker, the Thames, people driving on the wrong side of the road, the curious picture of the sky scrapers cluttered together in a sea of single storey houses and, of course, London itself, England!

Well, when we landed, we had seventy minutes to board our next flight - and of course, we were caught in the security checks. My bags were okay, but I was wearing bandages (because of sitting for such a long time), and while they had been okay in Munich, here I had to pull them off, pull my gaiters (Stulpen) off and my shoes and they searched everything VERY thoroughly. It was a bit scary.

We caught our flight, luckily, and were delayed for 12 minutes, before we could start.

That flight was really, really relaxed, thanks to Doro, who was sitting next to me. Every five minutes (everytime they wanted to give out food) we hit slight turbulences, but that was no problem at all for me.
I spent my time reading my Farewell book (neither Doro nor I cried, we were far to elated), watching Marvel's The Avengers [in Englisch, of course], watching Sherlock with Doro together, in the end watching Charlie and the chocolate factory, writing Romy's book (which I have to update, too) and making Photos. Watch out, below there will be a gazillion of photos (well, I think it are a bit more than a dozen) below the cut! And I ripped my headphones apart.
They had been damaged for like a year, but my foot caught in them and literally tore them apart, where the plug in meets the cabel.

So, the ride was slightly bumpy, but all in all nothing compared to our flight to Kelowna.
I was sitting all alone (again) in the last row (Doro was sitting backwards in the first, facing the rear, which must have been a very funny experience.)
But first, we arrived at Vancouver International Airport with half an hour delay, so we had no more than sixty minutes for immigration. The person in support here always said: "You'll have at least four hours." ... Well, we didn't. And Doro, Babette and I would have caught the flight, because we had been in the queue before a group of Japanese students, but the other three had been behind. (One student had to catch a later flight anyway, so we were only six instead of seven, because the flight apparently had been booked out by the time she wanted to get on it!)

They needed like half the documents we had with us at the immigration, and checking in our luggage was very easy, too. Most likely because we only had to put it (with a great lot of laughter, 'cause we were sure that we would now catch our flight) on a conveyor. Then we hurried to our gate, I bought something to drink (cause Doro and I were really thirsty) and when we reached our gate, what did it read?
AC1814 13.55
Delayed to 14.10.

A few minutes later it changed to
Delayed to 14.20

So of course, we all caught the flight. Flight AC1816 to Kelowna, scheduled for 14.35, actually left and arrived before us!

We finally started with an hour's worth of delay (so: we started when we were supposed to land), and the ride was very bumpy, and we didn't see anything of Kelowna.
The ride was FUN! :D Like rollercoaster, and I was even a bit sad that it ended so soon!

The landscape was very, very brown, only broken by really big forests... Amazing!

And there are so many lakes! :o

I was shown around the house, which is beautiful, as I mentioned, then I accompanied Steven and Coco on a walk at the lake side, then there was dinner and then I already went to bed, which resulted in me being wide awake at 3.45 AM. Jet lag. Because I would be awake at home right now...

What is really strange, I think, is my lack of home sickness. I think it will still come, but I had anticipated tonight being the worst night - not at all!

Well, I have to write another diary, too, and I want to get back to bed, so I say good night to you!
... Or rather: enjoy your meal!

Best regards,
Julia

P.S.: I will post again this evening after the rodeo, if I am still awake enough.
But don't think the posts will stay this frequent!

Our route

Until here, it's all Greenland! :D