Airports I have known and not loved

---

Since leaving Anchorage has been a mixed blessing. Stayed in sterile, hoypoloi horrible hotel on 18th floor in Vancouver which is beautiful from the air but only saw a bit of downtown which is tyoical downtown, anyway only a stepping stone to the Rocky Mountaineer train to Calgary. This was wonderfully well organiyed from go to whoa and is a huge enterprise. The day was damp and grey and we spent two hours travelling slowly through ailway yards and suburbs then.......voila, British Columbia opened up its glories for the rest of the day, aided by Cameron our guide/waiter, very knowledgeable. We spent the night in Kamloops in a my-style motel, small, friendly and by the river, very comfy. We were driven to the Lumberjack Show, a super meal and corny but interesting and funny show demonstrating lumberjack skills. Next day saw us through Alberta, changing scenery, grander, stunning mountains, whitewater rivers, a black bear, lots of elk, eagles- and stimulating company, a Sydney university lady bound for a conference and making the most of it. We talked shop all day.

Peter, Kim and Fletcher the dog met me at the Calgary hotel next day and took me walkies in Nose Hill park, allegedly the largest green area so close to a city in all of N AMerica........amazing nobody made it a golf course. They dropped me at the airport, we left 45mins late but arrived in Frankfurt only 15mins late, were met and escorted at breakneck speed across the airport, driven to another terminal, galloped down an escalator, lost the guide, found him again, explained the urgency to be told (here I,m struggling with a Hungarian keyboard) ,oh you won,t catch that, it,s boarding now and it will take you 1 1/2 hours to get through security, It did. what trouble can you get up to, what nasties can you collect, in an airport departure lounge? So, missed the connection, so missed the NEXT connection........changing my ticket for the next plane was beyond the wit of most in Amsterdam airport until.........an angel in blue KLM uniform, three hours later, got me onto it in the nick of time. I made Budapest four hours late but my luggage hadn,t coped with this and I was knickerless in Budapest for 48 hours.
Still, all safe, Andrew and Monika fine, and I,m doing this very badly on a Hungarian keyboard one finger at a time.........I,ve been ,helping, at Andrew,s school today which is an amazing place. I,ll do this properly at home when I,m compus mentis. Went for a trip with his top class aged 6, yesterday, and today have helped in the 5 year olds class. Now to try to rearrange my flight home so I can go see a sick friend in UK. Will try to update when I can but the kids are pestering me to return to class........cheers, TTFN, Lady C

---