As a change, and to get back into the writing habit, I thought it would be good to make more entries about our travels and travelling in general. I have a blog that was to be published back in November, but my procrastination overcame me and it never got published. So now the adventure we had this past Christmas and our plans for the summer of 2023 in France.
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| A stuck plane at our gate. |
After not being able to pick a sun/beach destination that suited all, we decided to take Victoria and Emilie on their offer to host us all in New York. We booked tickets on Jet Blue for a round-trip flight from Vancouver to JFK in New York. Considering the prices we were looking at for sun vacations, the round trip was even less expensive flights we have had in the past to Toronto for Christmas. The one thing that we did not plan on was the snow storm of the decade. The snow started early Sunday morning and continued through Monday night. Our flight was scheduled for 11:55 pm on Monday. The snow caused a 20 hour delay in our flight, and 2 extra trips back and forth to the airport through the worst driving conditions I have seen in the area for a long time. We are grateful to our Lyft and Uber drivers. The extra delay time was spent with two trips to the lounge, both on Monday evening and again Tuesday afternoon. and we even managed a few hours at home in bed. It was better than most who spent the night on the floor of the Vancouver airport. The Jet Blue team at the airport kept us up to date with the delays, and even when we called the 800 number, they were a big help in explaining our options.
They were finally able to get the snow covered planed started and attempted to warm it up to thaw the potable water before we boarded. They warned us that there would be no coffee or tea served and that the toilettes were unavailable until we reached cruising altitude, and use the hand sanitiser instead of soap and water. The free wifi made up for any lack of water.
This was the trip of observation towers. We went to the top of One World Trade way downtown and the Summit Observation
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| The Chrysler Building |
deck next to Grand Central Station in Mid-town. Both provided incredible views of the city and beyond. For museums, the Guggenheim and Modern Museum of Art were visited, while we found a few good pubs and bars for drinks and food. The highlight was the Boxing Day trip to see Hamilton. Who thought a musical about one of the writers of the US constitution might be an interesting story. You can see Hamilton on the US ten dollar bill if you miss him on Broadway. We also had a very enjoyable stroll along the Highline, an abandoned elevated rail line along the Lower Westside, and through the northern sections of Central Park.
Now that we are back in Vancouver, we have set our sights on this coming spring. We have a trip to Seattle to visit the nephew and family, a trip to Qualicum Beach to visit great friends and a few other social events. These will help pass the time until April 30 when we fly out to Paris via Amsterdam. We were a little shocked to see the prices of flights and so the stop over helped save a few hundred dollars each. Also, just today a good friend who visited us last spring in Bellac is heading over to Italy on the same flight as us. We spend our first few days in Paris showing our neighbour from Bellac the sights and then picking up our lease car and heading to our second home.
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| The Trip was mainly a family Christmas |
We know that we have invited everyone we know to France to stay with us, and this year appears to be a busy one. There is still room at the inn, but let us know if France is in your travel plans so we can find some dates that work for everyone.
