Back to Canada….for now

First off, I would like to apologize to those of you who received a notification of a post only to find it inaccessible. Amateur error on my behalf, my apologizes.

So here we are, safely back in the wintery grasp of our home and native land, Canada. Very happy to be here mainly for the fact that after 3 years of delays due to COVID, illness, and travel I finally am scheduled to get a hernia fixed. This is a massive reason for celebration.

The main purpose of this post is to talk about travel though. Over the last year or so as the world has slowly opened back up, it has seemed to me that we have been assaulted by a never ending stream of nightmare stories of air travel, cancelled flights, and lost baggage. I am sure some of you may have been the victims of this nightmare, but this is a tale of hope.

We began our three day journey back to Calgary with lovely weather to send us off. Due to logistical challenges we had decided with the homeowner to do the handoff of our house sitting duties on the neighbouring island of Kefalonia, which is where the airport is located that would be taking us to Athens.

Once on the island of Kefalonia we made our way to the main city of Argostolion. Did the handoff of the car, dog, and cat to the homeowner and enjoyed a lovely dinner updating her on the events at her home.

Once we were finished in Argostolion we boarded our Olympic Airline flight to Athens. We departed 5 minutes early and arrived 30 minutes early which we thought was pretty impressive for an hour and 5 minute flight. We then transferred to our Aegean Airline flight of 4 hours to London. It departed on time and I have to say that both were amongst the smoothest landings we have ever had. On top of the on time performances, all our bags arrived without damage in London. Hats off to the Greek airlines.

After all of our flights over the last several months and the fact that I always seemed to be in the middle seat with a larger stranger beside me, I had been working on Karen to agree to a treat for our 8 and a half hour flight to Calgary.

Our flight attendant, Maureen, came and asked me why I was smiling non-stop through the flight. How could I not be. I certainly couldn’t justify this for shorter flights, but for extended ones I have to say it is worth every penny.

In the end we arrived a little late, but I was totally fine with that. All our luggage arrived undamaged and to top it off we had a fantastic Uber driver pick us up.

It was the perfect way to wrap up this adventure. Now to catch up with family and friends and investigate some new areas of our native land.