The Longest Day Ever

The day started at 3am - had been awake for ages, just in case I slept in.

We had to check in at 4am and my sister met us at the airport at 4.30am to have breakfast with us which was really nice.

We boarded the plane and flew to Sydney. The flight was good and Air New Zealand served us breakfast (not bad but a totally inedible gluten free roll!).

We arrived in Sydney and had what seemed like just enough time to check in and we were off boarding the plane again. Andy was stopped at security and we found that he had not one pair of scissors but a whole manicure set in his toilet bag. After they found it I remembered putting it there months ago and thinking that I must remember to remove it before we went on the plane - whoops!

The flight from Sydney to Vancouver was long and very bumpy. For a large portion of the flight the seatbelt sign was on. Every time I wanted to go to the bathroom it was on and when it went off everyone would rush to queue. Then the sign would go on again so we'd have to wait. At one point the flight attendants even had to sit down. Hot beverages were not served for most of the flight because it was so bumpy.

We arrived in Vancouver 14.5 hours later. It was really hot so went and got changed into my summer clothes. It seemed like we were there for a long time but by this time it was still only 8am Thursday (on the same day we left Auckland at 3am). The pilot did tell us that they were turning down the lights in the cabin so that we could get some sleep before we started our day all over again in Canada. It was our first introduction to Canada and we saw things like Root Beer and Dr Pepper in the shops. We were impressed with the price of Starbucks - $13 for drinks for us all.

The weirdest thing is the way the toilets flush - they fill up with water and you think they will overflow and then all the water disappears. It's just strange!

We boarded the plan at 11.30am Vancouver time and then flew for 4 hours and arrived in

Toronto at 7.30pm so we lost some of the time that we had gained. It's just funny that we were going backwards and forwards in time. When we got off the plane in Toronto it was 27 degrees and we found it stifling hot.

Cristina and Chris (our neighbour in NZ Radu's sister) met us at the airport and it was so nice to see a smiling face as we were very tired. We had to take 2 cars to get all of our belongings to their house. They are wonderful people and have two fantastic children, Sebastian and Diana. They have made us feel incredibly welcome.

We are sleeping in their basement which has 2 rooms and a bathroom so it works well. It was cool in the basement so we were happy.

We were so tired but the time in NZ was early in the morning so we didn't feel like going to sleep. We eventually went to bed about 11pm Toronto time and slept for 12 hours!

‍