Andiamo in Italia, to YVR and Beyond!

Aliana, Gioia, Antonio, Viola, Matteo and Gemma
standing in front of aquarium in International departure lounge.

YVR,  Vancouver’s airport, has one of the most beautiful, comfortable and clean International departure lounges that I've ever been in. It has gorgeous First Nations artwork displays, an interesting aquarium with local sea life, and an atrium with wishing pond full of  international coins where many before you have tossed in a coin to become the keeper of an untold secret wish for all time to come. You'll have to go yourself to see the gorgeous tile work in the bathrooms as it was just a little too weird to take photos in there, even for me. They may have taken me in for a security check for being a strange pervert and I may have missed my flight. We were still on the Puritanical side of the Atlantic after all.

Atrium with wishing well pond full of coins, each holding the secret wish of an unknown traveller. 

This was us taking for granted the functional, fast WiFi and electrical outlet access. Little did we know how precious WiFi was to become in the weeks ahead! Terrible internet when it wasn't non-existant, and only 2 computers for 7 people are my combined excuses for writing this post about our departure day over 3 weeks after departing!

Free, functional  WiFi. Are you listening, Italy?????

In retrospect I consider this gorgeous "Leaving Vancouver" departure day to be an omen of the good weather yet to come. We could see West Van, North Van, Stanley Park, UBC, English Bay, etc. Gorgeous views! Leaving one gorgeous place and heading to another! Life IS good!

Leaving Vancouver, you could see West Van, North Van, Stanley Park, UBC, English Bay, etc.

Thank goodness it wasn't July 24th (ignore that date reference if you don't know what it means) because we learned something important! If you can’t tell if the airplane food being offered is an omelette, a crepe, a piece of bread, or maybe a piece of cardboard, EVEN AFTER TASTING IT, it might just be best to skip that meal. They called this "Salmon Pasta" but they should have clarified the choice by calling it mushy salmon mush with mushy noodles. At least we would have been able to make an informed choice. Never did other people's lentils look so good!

 "Salmon Pasta" Alla KLM. Yuckity yuck.

Check out the look of the Boss, after discovering that leaving the Puritanical shores found west of the Atlantic Ocean, the drinking age on KLM flights was sixteen for beer and wine! Didn't take long to get used to it, getting off at Schipol airport in Amsterdam Matteo found a stool at the bar and ordered himself a Heineken and a yummy panino. And guess what, the devil didn't appear, and no confessions were to be made!

Drinking age for beer and wine on KLM flight....SIXTEEN! Matteo is BOSS!

Matteo at Schipol Airport bar ordering beer and a panino!

One last exciting (to me) fact about our flight. I was preparing for having Sheldon Cooper and Dr. Spencer Reed withdrawal upon departure, however it was delayed as I got to watch two unseen episodes during the flight over! 

Sheldon on a trans-Atlantic flight with ne!

And Criminal Minds kept me happy for 40 mins, too!

View of Dutch countryside while landing at Schipol, Amsterdam's International Airport.

The Road to LiG 2012

1. Nexus is AWESOME. Get NEXUS, people. We drove past hundreds of cars up to the kiosk, border guard  looks at us, says "That's the  face" to Gemma sitting in the front, and then "Have a good day", waving us through. Easy peasy.

2. Frank and Ronnie's is a pretty good mail order delivery house. The service is good. We picked up 3 ebay/Amazon deliveries there on our way down to LiG, and were lucky enough to get a prelude of a weekend with Frank, I got to offload some of my cynicism to a partner in crime! Matteo now has a Decepticon belt buckle, I have Life is Good "business" cards, and we have a  32gb Compact Flash Card that needs its own backpack. Man those old memory cards are huge! Matteo made sure to tell me that my the grammar on my "business" cards was incorrect and that his name is now Matteo Gemma Gioia Aliana  and Viola, because I didn't use any commas. I needed it all to fit on one line!!!! Geesh.

3. Matteo is no longer an I-5 virgin. He successfully maneuvered the van with 6 people and loads of stuff from Bellingham to Everett and for the last hour into Vancouver, Washington. We'll have to work on getting through the Seattle portions. Shall I say "I" will have to work on letting go....and letting him get to it!

 Driving behind a giant truck being pulled by a tow truck is rather disturbing.

 

4. Left Matteo and Aliana at Jimmy John's at the Everett Mall so the rest of us could go get some Trader Joe's items. Came back and Aliana was wearing Matteo's big sweater, as he gave it to her when she got cold. They looked so adorable together that we made them stand in front of the door to Jimmy John's so we could take a picture. While getting the camera ready the staff behind the sandwich counter were wildly laughing and flailing their arms trying to get in the picture. We consider this an omen that this weekend will be FUN!

If you look closely you can see behind the glass the staff trying to get in the picture. If you can't see, that's okay,  I know it's true!

5. I observed that Eminem on the iPod through the car speakers can co-exist beautifully with 9 year old twins singing 99 bottles of beer on the wall. Oh, and it didn't end at 0 bottles of beer on the wall, they delved into "negative one bottles of beer on the wall, negative one bottles of beer"! Take that, math!

6. They call them Sour Keys, but I'd say I ate my first sour tire. Gioia bought a bag full of these wretched candies and I decided to be brave. I sucked off the sour bits, made some apparently hilarious faces, chewed for a while and then decided I'd like my fillings to stay IN my teeth for now, and spat the leftover tire bit out.

I'd say this was a FANTASTIC first day of our trip!

Life is Good, Take 6

Life is Good, Take 6!

Here we are again, ready to set out on our next Life is Good Unschooling Conference  adventure! New hotel at the Vancouver, WA Hilton, lots of new people with over 700 people registered to attend, lots of anticipation! Am amazing list of presenters and funshops and circle chats and so many friends we can't wait to see are just around the corner!
This year has been a little different as our family is also planning to return to "la bell'italia" on the heels of Life is Good. So the anticipation is divided, I'm so unsure of where to direct my attention that it's kind of just all really cloudy and unfocussed.
Speaking of clouds, some things never change, like the weather man on Memorial Day Weekend, rain and clouds predictably predicted. But nothing will dim the brightness and sunshine of the personalities we are about the share the next week with. This has truly been one of my favorite weeks of the entire year for the last 6 years!  I shall make a concerted effort to write about it as the days pass, but seeing that my first post ever "Give Me a Break" was written nearly 2 years ago...don't be holding your breath. I haven't quite gotten the hang of blogging....I hesitate with a tug-of-war between my private self and my public self. Private has been winning, but let's see if that can change  as I really hope to write a travel blog as we move from Life is Good to our Italian adventure! Stay tuned, but don't hold your breath!