Day 1: Home to Vancouver Airport

August 19, 2025

We woke up early enough to prepare a bunch of Egg McBagels to have in the Vancouver airport. Those are Victoria bagels and our own eggs, the last time for that type of food for a while!

Marvin crept down the driveway in his silent Bolt EUV, although they have it emitting an eerie whirr, to warn hapless pedestrians.

The one hour ride to the ferry gave us a chance to calmly visit with Marvin, a big plus. I also enjoyed spotting the differences between Marvin's Bolt and our two year older model. Aside from some physical changes, they have added features of some certain value - like posting the current speed limit and on-board navigation. Dodie pooh poohs all such features, claiming the driver just needs to look out the windshield and get on with it!

I was impressed in advance of getting to Europe by the efficiency of the ferry, the bus and train to the airport, and the airport itself. One exception was the long line to check in with Condor, a line that formed four hours before departure. Security also, went very slowly. And I guess it was ok that they detected our jar of instant hot chocolate and scrutinized it carefully. Who could blame them for this Tim Horton's product. Tim Horton has become rather suspect of late.

This time I was also impressed (rather than peeved) but the extensive use of indigenous art all around. One large piece, The Spirit of Haida Guai was truly impressive.

Dodie is walking, but very very slowly. So Condor arranged to shuttle her down to the gate. The shuttle was slow in arriving and as has happened in other airports, we tried to commandeer a wheelchair to do our own shuttling.

The shuttle people saw this and shut us down, but then did quickly put Dodie on a shuttle. I jogged along behind, and got there just as fast, though with the help of those moving walkways.

So here we are, waiting to board. And I'm glad to report that the weirdly stripey Condor plane is actually parked out front. Other times the lack of seeing a plane has been a telltale bad sign!

Stay tuned for the next installment, hopefully from Frankfurt, sometime tomorrow, though with the travel and time zone changes, it's hard to predict just when!

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