After what seems like an eternity of traveling we have finally got to Vancouver safe and sound. Our morning began at 5am BST when our alarm woke us up, we'd had little sleep that night before (maybe 2-3 hours) as we had so much on our minds it was hard to relax. We left Coventry at 6am and arrived at London Gatwick about 8:15am (it was better arriving early than rushing around last minute as you can never predict London traffic).

 Check-in at the airport was a breeze, we literally walked straight up to the desk and were seen to straight away. This was one of the many advantages of booking premium tickets with Canadian Affair (it only cost an extra £38pp and we had fast check-in, extra baggage, extra leg room, better quality seats and many other small things that made it good value for money). I was very appreciative of the lady who checked me in too as she let me off with heavier than allowed baggage. We then found out that boarding would be earlier than we'd expected, 10:30am. We had planned to spend an hour with our family before we left but the stress and emotions became overwhelming and we decided to more or less go straight through to the departure lounge after checking in. Saying goodbye to the family was the hardest thing, nobody could hold back the tears and despite trying my hardest they were still streaming down my cheeks 30 mins later when sitting in the departure lounge. This is what happens I guess when you say bye to some of the people you love the most, knowing you won't see them in person for a few months.

 We boarded the plane and finally set off at 11:50 BST. The take off was a nightmare, a minute or so into the plane speeding up all I could hear was shrieks from one of the cabin crew members and the sound of tons of water flooding out of somewhere onto the floor. It continued as the plane to began to lift up and progressively got worse and I clearly heard a lady shout at one point "it smells of chemicals, oh my god!". Needless to say this didn't do my nerves (which we were already on edge) no good. I think I nearly hyper ventilated as the water splashing sounds continued and If it hadn't have been for Lou I think I would have had a bloody heart attack! Luckily within a few minutes of the plane being in the air the Cabin crew seemed to be acting a little more calm and I could see them start to clean up the mess, it turned out to be some type of cleaning product. I never did find out where it was coming out of or why it had done in the first place, I was just relieved it had stopped. Thankfully the rest of the flight was fine, nothing too special but nothing bad either, just 9 hours and 40 minutes of mundane flight stuff really and as hard as I tried I couldn't get any sleep.

 We landed in Vancouver at 10pm BST, 2pm local time. We had to go through immigration to get Lou issued with her official permit documentation. We queued for about 45 minutes but when she was actually seen to, it only took about 5 minutes to process everything. The immigration people were really pleasant too considering how busy and stressed the conditions they work in are. We collected our baggage and hopped into a cab around 3:30pm PDT (11:30pm though by our body clocks). We both sat in silence for most of the ride just smiling and shaking our heads, we couldn't quite believe we are here now after all this planning.

 It took us about 30 minutes to get from the airport to the hotel in Burnaby ($40) and checked in at the hotel promptly (the room is lovely by the way!). After having a quick rest for 10 minutes and then a shower the excitement kicked in again and it drove us on to go out and explore. We went into one of the biggest shopping malls I've ever been to, it has something like 400+ shops, Lou's dream! We had a brief look around, grabbed some dinner and Lou also got her first pair of shoes. All the travelling has left us feeling a bit dizzy so we didn't really have the stamina to do much more. We then just nipped to the local supermarket, Save On Foods, and grabbed some small bits and pieces before returning to hotel which leads me up to now. It's now almost 10pm local time, 6am by my body clock. Lou has just slipped into dreamland and I will following shortly.

 Tomorrow we just plan on taking it easy and recovering from today. We will probably just get on the Skytrain and head downtown for a few hours, then on Monday the serious home hunting begins. I haven't got the energy to proof read any of this so hopefully it all makes sense!