Leaving!!!

Departure day. It's 9.30am, we leave for the airport in half an hour, all the paperwork and bookings have been confirmed a dozen times, and we've been packed since yesterday afternoon. And, for bonus points, the luggage is several kilos underweight.

Everything is going smoothly. Very smoothly. Far too smoothly. Emma and I see this as a sign that Something Must Go Wrong.

We're being driven to the airport by Simon, Emma's nephew, and he just showed up. Our trip begins by putting our lives in the hands of this (semi-comatose) man:

In fairness he had a big weekend working on an intensive two-day project for his computer animation course. As far as IT geeks go he actually can pass as a normal human being, speaking in full sentences, not eating with his hands, and so on.

But enough about him. This is our travel blog.

We have 25 hours of flying ahead of us. Sydney to Dallas, six hours on the ground there (we hear there's a great bar in the airport - Anderson's, or Billy Bob's, or Willy Wonka's or something, Emma, can't quite recall), then arriving in Vancouver around 9pm local time, perfect for sleeeeeeeep.

Then we wake up in this setting:

10am. Time to go.