The second half of our journey to Banff was certainly the highlight for us thanks to our trip to Gold class. We lunched in the fantastic dining cart with proper tables, actual menus and even wait staff. It felt a little special not because we’re unaccustomed to this kind of treatment but because of the major contrast in style and service. The meal was deliciously prepared in an actual kitchen – not airplane food, beautiful and tasty deserts and many glasses of wine. Aidan who almost always opts for beer rather than wine I think felt a little more sophisticated drinking wine, looking out the window and the magnificent rocky mountains. After we finished our meal we were taken to upstairs to the glass domed seating area that people in the gold class enjoyed the scenery from and were plied with may more glasses of wine and also a couple of cocktails. We noticed even the attendants were better in Gold Leaf, wittier, more informed and just more fun!! We tried not to brag too much about this experience, with Renae and Peter missing out but I think we did go on about it a little but it was all such good fun we had more fun on a train than I thought was possible. We arrived in Banff ready to start the next leg of our journey and stayed the night in a cosy inn.
The next day was pretty fabulous and we took heaps more photos. We totally loved Banff the atmosphere was completely different to whistler I’m not sure why. We spent much of the time on the lookout for knick knack shops – as Aidan liked to call it. You know the kinds of souvenir shops that your grandmother might frequent hehehe but we did find a few good items. Many t-shirts later we sadly left Banff in our people mover along the Icefield Parkways.
We drove to Jasper at our leisure or more like under Lauren’s dictatorship. Our first stop was Bow Falls after glimpsing the fairytale castle of Banff Springs Hotel – I’m sure you’d feel like Cinderella staying there… so beautiful anyway there were many beautiful rest stops along the parkway, it’s definitely the way to go if you want to see more of Alberta/British Columbia. With the glaciers melting many of the falls along the way were a great place to settle Lauren down now and again. She was for the most part very tolerant of this major disruption to her life.
We stopped off at Lake Louise and I must say I was both impressed and disappointed. The lake was bloody frozen, all this time I had been anticipating the emerald waters of Lake Louise. Bummer but it was still an amazing sight. One other memorable restroom stop was at an unassuming park, but on closer inspection you could see little gophers sticking their heads out of a maze of underground tunnels. They were sooo cute. They chirped little warning noises to each other as we all attempted to get close enough to them to snap a good photo. Just gorgeous!!!
We beat a hasty retreat through Sun Peaks a deserted and oddly green ski resort where we stayed for a night and kept driving back through Whistler taking some very dangerous back roads. Whistler was dramatically transformed. No longer blanketed by pure white snow but muddy and infiltrated by gangs of dirty mountain bikers. It still maintained some of its charm as the village has great atmosphere. We eventually made it home safely and I’m sure Renae and Peter never want to travel like that again with a little one but we had a great time. We miss them all. I hear Lauren is now standing up with the aid of furniture now.
So it’s getting to that time of our journey abroad when the emails slow down and in some cases stop all together, the calls come less frequently but we miss everyone no less. We have settled into a sort of rhythm, a lazy comfortable beat that makes the days fly by. I can’t believe it is already July, over halfway, with less than 6 months to go and we have begun to think more about our returning to our life in Brisbane.
Some people may have already heard but I finally have a job. I am an ER admitting clerk at my local hospital less than two blocks walk from our apartment. There were some hiccups to start with, unfortunately I had been buddied with a rather passive aggressive bully with little to no patience. It was from this very unpleasant woman that I tried rather unsuccessfully to glean some information about my job that I had no training in. No one likes new environments and mine felt as comfortable as having iced water trickling down your spine. I endured a couple days of this before reporting her behaviour and thankfully being reassigned to a very lovely girl with lots of experience in training. So having finished my training we thought it might be time for another holiday. Sarah, Aidan’s sister, traveled to Vancouver from Paris for a quick visit at the end of May promising to return with her fiancé Luc and true to her word they have come to join us for a short vacation. We fly to Toronto on Monday, staying at Niagara Falls, touring some wine country by the lakes and hopefully take a peek at the Toronto Zoo. Oooh I love zoos and monkeys. So hopefully we will have some great photos for you next time.
