Day 1 - Departure from Vancouver, BC

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I was up bright and early today to catch the 5 am ferry off Vancouver Island. I love taking the early ferry, it's so quiet and peaceful and it gave me lots of time to think about the adventure I was embarking on. To be honest, I was absolutely terrified. I had never been away from home for this long before. If I thought the two weeks I had been gone last time was hard, this was going to be even worse. It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't been in a serious relationship at the time. But I tried to think positive. I was going back to Europe!

I'd been working a LOT of overtime to save enough money for this, and I was determined to enjoy myself, and not miss home too much. Even with my anxiety, I was still incredibly excited. The ferry was pretty empty, as per usual, and once we arrived at Tswassan I waited for the bus and chatted with a few of the people around me. Most were headed for the airport as well, and they were all interested to hear about the Contiki tour I was doing. At the airport I checked in, got a coffee from Starbucks, and settled in to wait to board my flight. It was a pretty dull day. It was raining too. I couldn't wait to get to (hopefully) the sun in southern Europe.

I was really scared to go on the plane, as I am terrified of flying. For some reason I had decided it would be a great idea to watch the entire series of Air Crash Investigation right before leaving. However, I guess the pilots knew what they were doing, and there weren't any issues. The flight was about 9 hours long, boring, and uneventful. I tried to get some sleep...

What did I learn today? Trust the pilots!

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Photos

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Waiting at Vancouver International Airport