Maylin is the first to wake up. It’s 5am. She asks “Mom, can we leave?”, meaning she’s tried hard enough to keep sleeping, she wants to leave the quiet bedroom where her dad and sister are still fast asleep, and move into the living room. There are still two other rooms full of sleeping people in this condo, so we tiptoe into the livingroom and find quiet things to keep ourselves busy. Téa joins us shortly after.
Once Eygló is awake, we have some breakfast, and then it’s time to head out. As luck will have it, Binni is part of the team renovating the airport, and he is heading in the same direction as us this morning!
We get to the airport for about 8.30am, and our flight leaves at 10.30am. Two hours is plenty of time for check in, security, immigration and finding our gate, but it doesn’t leave us too much time to explore the new areas of the terminal. (I do manage to find the salty liquiorice candies I forgot to get in Norway though, so my year is saved.)
Before long, we are seated on our flight. We have the three seats on the left and one seat on the right of the aisle, until one of the cabin crew comes to inform us that the other two seats next to Joe are available, and we are welcome to use these seats to spread out. Maylin moves to the window next to Joe, and so the two of them, as well as Téa and I, have three seats for extra space.
Icelandair does not feed you on their flights unless you pay for it. The kids boxes today include some very dry flatbreads with cheese, and neither kid wants it. Joe eats their food, and I order a tomato penne pasta for Téa, an oatmeal with banana and blueberries for Maylin, and a chicken korma with rice for myself.
Téa is adamant she will watch movies the whole flight, but I make her try to nap. She manages to rest for a couple of hours. Maylin does not. She is absolutely not able to close eyes and lie still for more than 10 seconds at a time. We give up and allow her to stay up…
25 minutes, or 7 hours and 25 minutes, or an entire eternity later, we land in Vancouver. We are BACK! We see the North Shore mountains to the north, the ocean to the west, and we know that we are home.
Immigraton and baggage collection is a breeze. We have all our bags, and can take a relieved selfie in the arrivals area.
Home, but not quite. We have an AirBnb booked for the next few days, and have been trying to ask for an early check in for the last couple of days, without actually getting a clear answer. We try now, calling the number we have. “Oh, I’ll have to ask the cleaning crew when they’ll be ready, I’ll call you right back!” We wait 20 minutes, then call them again. “I’ll call you back in two minutes.” By now, we have accepted that it won’t be until later, and we should probably eat lunch at the airport before getting in an Uber.
We make our way to White Spot, a BC chain of family style restaurant. Téa had found a White Spot across the street from our AirBnb, and requested we go there for lunch because they serve poutine, and she’s been looking forward to her favourite meal since we left in September. So we lug all our stuff up the elevator and all the way across into the domestic terminal. The restaurant has a fence to the terminal, so I spot an available booth and request to sit there so we can keep all our bags on the carts and keep an eye on them. It works, and we are seated right where I wanted.
We now know that we can check in to the AirBnb at 2pm. We hang out at the restaurant until about 1.30pm, and then head for the Uber. But first, a selfie with the YVR sign!
We get into the AirBnb uneventfully, except for the stickers in all the elevators saying “AirBnb is illegal in this building, any unit owner will be fined $1000 per day if found out”. Great.
But the AirBnb is perfect for our short term needs, a two bedroom, two bathroom condo, good kitchen, if sparsely equipped. We dump our bags, no use unpacking, except for wet toothbrushes from Iceland this morning, approximately 100 hours ago. We can see a grocery store from our living room window, so we go grab some quick and easy essentials like cereal, bread, ham, cheese and oat milk. No use stocking up on anything, it’ll just add to our move when we have to leave the AirBnb Monday morning.
But! Where are we moving to? Poor Joe has been non stop apartment hunting for the last few weeks, and he’s got some good ones he wants us to go see. Like right away. We have our first viewing at 5pm, the second at 5.45pm, today. As in, we’ll be soooooo tired by the time we go there! But they’re both in walking distance, and the sunshine and blue skies are giving us a new boost.
The first viewing is an older style building, with super tall ceilings in the living room, but too much furniture that’s way too big. We easily point out which one would be Téa’s room, which means the third bedroom would have to be Maylin’s… This is what kills all interest in this apartment. If the third bedroom had matched the second one, I might have kept it on the contender list, but no. Just no.
The second viewing is much better, with south facing panoramic windows, but with zero storage space, and major drawbacks with both kids’ bedrooms. I wouldn’t put Maylin in either of them, and so it’s also a no. I’m hesitating just because that view, and the fact that there’s a school perfect for both girls only 7 minutes away, we can see it from the balcony, but the apartment itself is not great. Luckily, we have two more to see tomorrow, so we will keep searching.
On our walk back towards the AirBnb, Maylin runs out of batteries. Each foot suddenly weighs a ton, and everything is hard and sad and difficult and can’t I just be carried home and go to sleep? So Joe ends up taking Maylin back, while Téa and I have to stop at Shoppers (yay Shoppers, we’ve missed you) and buy something for dinner. Maylin is asleep by 7pm.
Shoppers is at Richmond Centre, and once we’re through the doors, Téa lights up. Ooooh, look they have MiniSO, the store we’ve been visiting in all our countries so far! We take a look at the cuteness, and Téa finds Maylin’s favourite chips there too, so we have to get her a bag of those. We get what we need at Shoppers, and then start looking for dinner.
We ended up getting Quesada’s for dinner, a Mexican fast food chain that she likes from back in Ontario. This girl loves all things familiar, and she needs all the comfort she can get right now. She gets a quesadilla, and Joe and I split a rice and pulled beef bowl with all the veggies and spicy sauces. It’s quick, it’s convenient, and it’s just what we need at the end of the second “world’s longest day” in a row.
After we eat, we hurry up and get to bed. After all, if Maylin has been sleeping since 7pm, when will she get up? I have a funny feeling I’ll be up very soon again…