2015 San Francisco - Day 8

2015 San Francisco - Day 8 - Morning

(Link to all 2015-April San Francisco / Berkeley trip blog posts)

We are really spoiled to have YVR. SFO in comparison was annoying for early morning travellers, with very few services open and basically nothing open until 5 AM at the earliest when the airport wakes up -- not even the washrooms were open!
Only two restaurants started up a bit later in the morning, and maybe because they had the captive morning crowd, the one I went to (Andale) didn't really try that hard in courtesy or customer service.
Even the Duty Free Shopping isn't open till 8:30 AM, so if your flight departs before then, you'll miss out.

No Duty Free till 8:30 AM means I'll be airborne before I can buy that wine for my friend's contact in Vancouver. Drat.
Coffee from Andale was also way too strong. Dark roast? Anyway, it was too bitter and sour and I dumped the last half of it.

The flight back to Canada was as routine and uneventful as the flight to San Francisco one long week ago. No news is good news, especially given the number of crashes over the last year.

I'm home.

Comments

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 3

A picture from my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. I can't remember why I had this couple in the picture, but I do vaguely remember this to be in London, on the first official day of the tour group getting together. Their insistence on my helping them take a picture caused the three of us to be late getting back to the bus. The local tour guide had a "rule" about lateness, that we had to buy chocolate to share with everyone. As it turned out, later in the trip, on at least two occasions, we were stuck on the highway on either a long commute or a traffic jam, and I had chocolate and chocolate-covered marzipan to share. About the chocolate-covered marzipan -- Apparently we were in Austria just as they were celebrating Mozart's birthday with special marzipans wrapped in foil with the famous composer's picture. I'm pretty sure it was Mirabell Mozartkugeln . Anyway, there were enough to go around the en

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 10

The last of my pictures (at least the ones that survived the cheesy disposable cameras) from my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. Below is the obligatory group photo. Not sure everyone's in it, actually. I'm pretty sure this one was taken by the tour director, Mike Scrimshire as I'm in the back row, on the right side.

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 9

More assorted couples on my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. An American couple who joked about being from "the land of the giants" -- and with good reason, because both of them were really tall! A cute Jewish mother-daughter pair who ducked out part-way to divert to Israel. I vaguely remember the issue of the daughter being an orthodox Jew was highlighted in France when, to make things easy, she just declared herself vegetarian for the wait staff. I also remember there was some logistics error in France because our party size was way underestimated or simply relayed incorrectly, and there was a shortage of food at dinner. Dessert came as an unopened can of yogurt. It did not seem like they tried to make it up to us later, either. Plus there was smoking every which way in France, and I had a helluva time with that. We were also in a hotel that seemed tucked away in the burbs, and not walking distance from anythin

Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

Search This Blog