Canada Part 7

We left Banff on the morning of the 30th. We were on a connecting bus to the airport - the bus broke down - but another was sent along in quick time. Funny thing with the bus change- we let everyone get off ahead of us (why hold everyone up with our kids) - when we got on the next bus - our seats had been taken and we ended up spread out throughout the bus (yes - even the 5 year old).

As we passed things backwards and forwards and had the obvious conversations you tend to have on a 1 1/2 hour trip - we did note that it was strange our rude people are in this "developed country". I was going to ask the nationality of the people who took our seats - I didn't want to stereotype anyone, my guess though was that they weren't canadian. Next time we have to do something, we will just hold everyone up because everyone is just out for themselves. Sorry - we just operate under a different code of ethics.

The flight from Calgary to Vancouver was great - quick and efficient. We couldn't get a van taxi to take us to our hotel - so we ended up with a stretch limo, which is a pretty cool way to rock up to the Sheraton.

The hotel room was great, service was better, location was excellent. One block from the resturants that the taxi had dropped us off for between bus and train trip. We had an EXCELLENT dinner at a cruisy little Italian resturant. Each booth was surrounded by books on art, history, war, travel etc. No DS's were needed for this dinner.

We had an excellent dinner (with a tonne of leftovers) and then went to watch the Calgary Giants play the redskins (ice hockey). It was a slaughter. Everytime the home team got a goal some men/boys would strip off their shirts and wave them around. We had to stop the two youngest from joining in.....it was a close call.

It was fun and the kids loved it. There is no way I am EVER letting my kids play - it was a fight fest - which was fun to watch, but I wouldn't want any of my babies being in it.The next day we got a rental car and drove out to the suburbs (BOO to Hertz too - as we picked up the car 1/2 hour early - so they charged us for a FULL extra day and didn't tell us - we could have dropped it at the airport 1/2 hour earlier if they had bothered to ask/tell etc - anyway - vote with your feet - don't go with Hertz).........ANYWAY, back to the story.

We had a friend who really wanted to know what Wallmart was like. So we went and saw. Double the size of Kmart, half the price. We lasted 20 minutes and were out of there - it's just a really big shop - and....... Hubs checked out a model train shop - we were back in the city in record time. We checked out the planetarium - it was 4 hours of excellent entertainment and education.

That night was New Years Eve - but in Aus it was our 15th wedding anniversary. So we celebrated that night in a Greek Restuarant. The kids have come a long way in a year in reference to sitting in restuarants - so it was actually pretty nice.

We didn't wake the kids up for midnight - we didn't even wake ourselves - there was no Eiffel Tower - it just didn't seem worth it.

We left the next day and had an excellent 17 hours of flying, arriving in Singapore on the 3rd (we lost a day). I got my new iphone (birthday present) the next day before happily getting home on the Sat. Very happy to be home - but so thrilled that we got to go on a truly fantastic holiday with the most amazing people in the world.