Blogging from my new favorite airport - YVR

Every airport should have, in addition to a personal Stephen Fry who will buttle your luggage from gate to gate while demurely extricating you from the clutches of a tennis racket wielding fiancé, free wireless Internet service.

Vancouver International has won my heart and mind not so much with their check in attendants who assured me that my bag was going to be ripped to bits but their beautiful, shiny, quick and speedy free wireless Internet. Bless you YVR, bless.


Do you know what you should not advertise on a ferry or any other water-bound passenger transport? A museum exhibition displaying artifacts from the Titantic. And you should really not place that poster by the BC Ferries poster advertising how safe your little tugboats of death are.

I'm already aware that the ocean wants to kill me and feed my precious, precious nutrients to the kelp. I don't need a reminder that what I'm crossing through what is basically a big, watery graveyard with seals.



However, my trip to Victoria concluded with me not drowning so I am pleased.



Victoria is my cold, foggy Holy Land, so I Chaucer-ed my way to my spiritual centers: Monro's books, which was torture because I wasn't allowed to buy books because they are heavy and I don't have anymore room left in my bags.



... So I bought one book. But it was Possession and it was on sale. And it's really light. And it's A.S Byatt. So what if I already have copy. It's in Peace River. Which is far away from London. So there.



I also stopped in at Murchie's Tea & Coffee Ltd. every morning for obvious reasons.



I worshiped at the statue of the most bitchin' English monarch of all time: Queen Victoria.



I made sure the moorings looked stable...



... before taking a turn around the Victoria docks and indulging in all my Horatio Hornblower and Patrick O'Brian fantasies.



I spent time with my sister and my sister's dirty toenails.



And now I must bid farewell to the coast, Canada and to all those that were so kind and welcoming and generous with their sleeping devices. It was a fantastic send off that included some great literature, great food, great conversation and a great deal of walking. I hope to hear from all of you while I am on my travels.

Anne smiled and said, 'My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.'
"You are mistaken," said he gently, "that is not good company; that is the best."

- Jane Austen, Persuasion