Fancy visiting Canada?

A little Canadian post for you as I seem to be stumbling across snippets from my home land lately….

I think tourism Canada must be pushing tube advertising as one of their main strategies this year as over the past few days I have come across a couple of tube ads.

Its so funny,  I actually thought they stole that photo from my computer as that is exactly how the hubby and I used to spend our holidays, on the waters edge in our tent (please note the sarcasm do you see electricity or an internet connection, yeah… I don’t camp).  The other thing about the photo is that they are in the YUKON .  Yukon is the territory in Canada that borders Alaska and the Arctic circle, it has 30,000 people and enough land mass to give each person 6.2 square miles each (read large and empty).  The average temperature is 14 degrees in July (read bloody cold) and I am willing to bet that over 90% of Canadians have never been (or considered going)….which is why I almost choked when I saw the price in the bottom left….£2216 ($3957 CDN).  Mother nature wasn’t kidding, she has EXPENSIVE taste.

The second one I saw this morning and it is a bit closer to my heart as I was born in New Brunswick….oh the days I spent on my sailboat watching whales I can’t tell you (yes I can…it was zero I have never seen a whale).  Hey, it probably will bring in more tourists than pictures of 6 feet of snow and the fog rolling in over the harbour!  In all seriousness there is a special place in my heart for New Brunswick, it has a bit of a British feel with some lovely old buildings in the city centres and nice sprawling rural areas….how’s that for a sales pitch?

Finally this viral has been doing the rounds and I just can’t resist.  This is our polite national greeter who guards the American border and welcomes you to Canada – you don’t want to get thrown out of Canada though -  we aren’t so polite then, we send the talking grizzly bears to handle that.

El wherea??

We are back from our week away to get some winter sun. We were looking for somewhere hot and weren’t planning on doing much more than tanning and reading.  Based on a that brief, a friend of a friend recommended El Gouna, Egypt. After doing some research on Trip Advisor we decided it sounded exactly like what we were looking for (let me point out that although we were heading to the culturally rich country of Egypt, we didn’t intend to venture near anything cultural…except for observing the resort camel or tasting locally brewed beer).

El Gouna, from what we could tell, was completely built to be a tourist destination…7 years ago it was pure desert now it is 14 hotels, a USPGA golf course, a marina and a downtown area.  The area is completely assessable via tuk tucks which you could take around the area for a flat fee of 5 Egyptian Pounds per person no matter where you wanted to go (about 62 pence or $1.14 CDN).

The downtown area was walking distance from our hotel and includes a bunch of restaurants (Thai, Italian, Lebanese, Greek, Pub, etc etc), a supermarket and various other shops.  The Marina was a bit farther away but also had a number of restaurants and a collection of private yachts that could rival Monaco.

The El Gouna tourist board (or whomever manages this mini paradise area) has encouraged the hotels not to offer just all inclusive packages to get hotel guests to leave their resorts and drive business to the downtown and marina restaurants.  We opted for a bed and breakfast option which worked out well as we were spoiled for choice when it came to food between the resort, marina and downtown.  There was a 2 hour time difference but the hubby adjusted to the LET (Local eating time) well and we started testing the restaurants out right away.  The food was excellent (minus the minuscule mini bar snacks)  and we couldn’t help but notice the effort that each restaurant took in their presentation.

The staff at both the restaurants and resort were incredibly friendly, honest and never did someone approach us to sell us anything or imply that they wanted a tip for anything.  One night we went to the Seventh Star restaurant at the marina, when we left I noticed that I had far less cash in my wallet than I thought we had.  We talked it through and convinced ourselves that I hadn’t lost it, that we had in fact somehow spent it.  Two nights later we went back to the same restaurant (because it was so good and they were so friendly) and the manager walked up to us and asked us if we had lost some money the night before…stunned we said yes at which time he said ‘don’t worry I kept it for you’.  Needless to say they received a good (and very well deserved) tip that night.

Our resort (Movenpick El Gouna) was great, it was immaculately clean, food was amazing and we were never at a loss for where to suntan as there were 3 pools, 3 lagoons and 1km of sandy beach along the Red Sea. All in all it was lovely and reminiscing about all of this makes me miss it already!

The view from reception

I could ramble on and on (as I do) but will stop and just throw in some pictures as they probably say it better than I could ever do.

The resort camel

The beach along one of the inlets to the Red Sea

A nice calm sunny day

Sunset from our back patio area

Away from my blog at the moment…

Apologies as it may be a bit quiet on the blogging front. I am currently on a sunny week long break with the hubby. We have had great sunny weather so much so that my milk bag white legs are turning a slightly tanned colour.

I don’t think I can’t post pictures remotely but will when I am back if this doesn’t work.

In the meantime I am off to the poo(l) ….yes, I do laugh every time I pass that sign.

I'll be by the poo

The joys of airline travel

On top of the gale force winds I mentioned earlier, our flight was once again, filled with kids…but not just kids…babies, and crying ones at that.  My favourite bit was when a woman sat down behind me in the window seat with her 2 year old on her lap…she then continued to speak to him as an adult trying to reason with him to make him stop screaming and kicking.  She repeated over and over… ‘what is the matter, you have never done this before’…as if to console the whole airplane that in real life he’s a great kid that never cries.  Really, I don’t care if he is a perfect angel on the ground, if he doesn’t stop kicking my chair he’s going to have a rum and Coke on his lap courtesy of the nice lady in front of him….oops sorry ma’am…I have never done that before, I am not sure what’s the matter with me.

As I sat trying to think up a gadget that you could attach to an airplane seat that absorbs the force of a child’s kick without pissing off the person in front of them, the pilot came on telling us that there was severe turbulence ahead….which lasted for 3 hours. At least the turbulence bumps lessened the impact of the 2 year old feet in my back.

Because of the 3 hour turbulence they kept the seatbelt light on…which was strange as the air host/hostesses weren’t particularly bothered if people were going to the toilet while the seat belt sign was lit up. On other airlines, they scream down the aisles or get on the intercom and demand people get back in their seats…on this one they just sat in their jump seats comfortable in the fact that if anything happened their bodies would be way more recoverable in the crash than the losers standing in the queue for the loo’s.

I, having one two many rum and Cokes as part of my plan to get me to sleep,  had to go to the bathroom.  I figured, if no one else was being shouted at that I would take the risk.  Just as I shut the door we hit a huge patch of turbulence and I was convinced that the back end of the plane was going to break off and I was going to plunge to my death in an airplane washroom.  Finishing my business as quickly as possible, I washed my hands (alternating washing with holding on to the holy sh*t handles conveniently located in the loos) I unlocked the door and made a mad dash down the turbulent aisle diving across the hubby to belt myself in…for some reason the prospect of dying in my seat was better than the loo…go figure.

Anyway I am happy to be on terra firma…until April when we do it all again for a wedding back in Canada…hopefully by then the pneumonia, laryngitis and stomach flus have cleared up and the chances of a snow storm are greatly reduced (reduced but not eliminated).

Home for the holidays

Well, we are back from our whirlwind and mildly chaotic trip home for Christmas.  We finally did receive our bags…2 on Christmas eve and one on Christmas day.  The vodka bottle was still in tact however the chocolate mousse cakes I had frozen and packed in ice packs for  Mom, sadly didn’t make it…they were a little too warm to be deemed safe to eat.  We had a lovely Christmas with the family…and I even received some blog related presents including 2 Coronation Street tops which I love and my very own Slanket hand made by my Mom!   I will start early next year hinting about stuff as it worked well.

On top of the delays and lost luggage we had a few family illnesses to contend with –   Mom with laryngitis (a Christmas present from Santa to Dad perhaps?), Mother in law with a cold, Father in law with pneumonia and Mom with a Christmas Day 24 hour stomach flu meaning she missed out on dinner.  The hubby and I did catch something as we both had stuffy noses and sore throats for most of the trip and the hubby had a nice big nose bleed  Saturday night….fa la la la la, la la la laaaa

Needless to say once Sunday arrived I was mildly looking forward to heading home to my own bed.  When we woke up on Sunday we were greeted with a loud rumbling noise, like a train going by…I opened the curtains and realised it wasn’t a train, just gale force winds bending trees and knocking down my parents outdoor Christmas tree…perfect flying weather.  As we drove to the airport we saw fallen down signs, trees and debris flying everywhere (dad almost got taken out by flying styrofoam at the gas station).  This did make for a fairly bumpy flight from Toronto to Detroit but we arrived safely.  I won’t bore you with the details of the return flight….I’ll save that for tomorrow.

Until then, some pictures of our white Christmas (click to make them bigger).

All I want for Christmas is…my luggage

The trip so far:

Friday
- Arrived in Detroit to catch connecting flight…Snow Mageddon hit canceling first flight out
- Stood in a 2 hour queue to be booked on a new flight only to find out 5 minutes later that it, and the next flight out were cancelled, couldn’t get rebooked until Sunday afternoon
- Luckily, the brother in law had booked us a room in the hotel in Detroit airport in case such conditions arose…checked in, called Dad and begged him to pick us up in Detroit the next morning
-Knowing we weren’t flying again went back to the airport to get our luggage back and were told we couldn’t, it would be flown over the next day

Saturday
- Super Dad arrives at 9:00 and drives us home
- Spent remainder of afternoon buying clothes and toiletries as we were lugageless

Sunday…luggageless, ran out to buy clothes as we had a dinner to go to with a dress code of  ‘no jeans’ and all we had were…jeans
Monday …luggageless
Tuesday …luggageless but drove to airport to yell at luggage manager…still luggageless and it started to snow again

Today, we have heard that our luggage  is meant to arrive (by Santa perhaps?)…at this point I really don’t even care, I am getting emotionally attached to my 3 outfits and think that the bottle of vodka we were trying to sneak home in our luggage will have broken all over everything anyway.

You’re not going anywhere…

On some of our recent trips I have noticed more and more in-plane advertising. I think its a great idea as I have self diagnosed myself with ADD and the worst place for me to be is stuck in a tin airplane for hours on end with nothing to do. I tend to search the seat pocket and read everything inside (including instructions on the sick bag) so when there is advertising like below on the Air Malta flight or Ryan Air you better believe I will read it.

Air Malta seatback advertisement (it was actually printed on the little tissue you rest your head on)

Ryan air overhead compartment advertising

Ryan air advertising

My thoughts are that when they have you stuck in your seat they should be advertising things that you can purchase either right there ON the plane?  Great way to recoup those rising fuel costs!  They seem to instead have messages about buying real estate in Malta…which is really only applicable to those travelling to Malta (at least the Ryanair’s ads are applicable to all passengers as obviously you are familiar with their service and will probably be marginally more interested in the ads).

The one campaign that bugged me most was on my last Air Canada flight back to London . On this flight we were lucky enough to get one of the few planes they have upgraded and put in TV’s into the seats which meant we had had on demand TV (as opposed to the way to Toronto where we had this). The issue was that once you chose a TV show or movie, there were 5 minutes of commercials you had to watch before the feature started…and you couldn’t fast forward through (which to be fair as my background is in marketing so may as well capitalise on your captive market, they certainly aren’t going anywhere).

My problem with these ads were that they were all the same no matter which programme you watched and that first one was for my favourite steak restaurant in Canada called The Keg. I was stuck on crap airplane, after being served crap food and every time I tried to watch a show I was shown a 30 second commercial with a freshly grilled filet steak that is only available in CANADA which was a) somewhere that I wouldn’t be returning to for at least 6 months and b) WASN’T available on the plane and I was starving! I probably would have dished out good money had the air host/hostess come by with a tray of steak from The Keg.

Anyway my long winded point is that in air advertising is a great idea. In theory it could help to regulate flight prices by bringing in advertising revenue but I also think that airlines should carefully target their advertising audiences, go to companies that have products you can buy instantly on that plane…either from the food cart or duty free.  Bored people spend money (or is that just me?). Also try and advertise products/services that you can actually purchase in the country you are travelling to versus the one they just left….those are just my thoughts.

If you stuck with my blah blah this long I thank you with this great video from Mad TV (US sketch show) that is absolutely hilarious…now if only the belts could be sponsored by someone.

 

Back from golf heaven

We arrived back safe and sound from our trip to golf heaven Scotland. We took the overnight sleeper train up to Edinburgh on Wednesday night which albeit not glamorous, was very practical as you travel while you sleep. We got on the train just before midnight, headed to the bar car for a nightcap then were tucked into our bunk beds by just after midnight. We arrived to Edinburgh at 7:00 ready to head up to St Andrews.

The main reason for the trip was to get my Dad and hubbie on ‘The Old Course’ at St Andrews…although they don’t make it easy. Apparently you have to book a year in advance to get a guaranteed tee time otherwise you have to enter ‘the draw’. To enter the draw you have to call the day before you want to golf and get your name in the draw for a tee time the next day…luckily the guys did get a spot so we headed straight from Edinburgh by train to St Andrews so they could get on the course.

We had a lovely Scottish taxi driver who told us all about St Andrews and confirmed the fact that Prince William and Kate Middleton met at St Andrews University and had been living together for ages before the ‘media’ caught on…I was surprised by that as other than golf, a few shops and some (albeit beautiful) ruins, there wasn’t a lot else to do other than Prince William/Middleton watching so am surprised more stories weren’t leaked by Golfing WAGS who were stuck in the town while their hubbies golfed. I sure as hell would have been facebooking my pictures should I have seen those two popping into the Tesco on the high street!

In a nutshell the guys golfed the Old Course, New Course and one called Kingsbarns which they both said was the most amazing course they have ever played…my hubbie had the round of his life shooting an 81 (insert golf clap here)…at least he may have a fallback career for when the credit crunch hits us. I on the other hand can run tours of St Andrews for the golf WAGS and make up stories of William and Kate sightings.

Kingsbarns - the favourite course

Dad in a wee bit of trouble

All in all it was a great trip, pretty sure Dad enjoyed himself and it didn’t’ seem the hubbie was too put out by having to escort his father in law around some of the world’s best golf courses…he’s such a trooper.

Arrived safe and sound…with plenty of processed food

So the ‘rents have arrived which means I am now fully stocked up on Cheez Whiz, homemade Rice Krispie Squares, Motrin (brand name ibuprofen but it works better than ibuprofen because it has a better name), Kraft Peanut butter and the 30 Rock season 1 DVD…nope, not sure how they got through immigration either but I am happy they did.

So far they have learned that Gammon is ham and milk is cheaper here than it is at home.  They also discovered Dark Chocolate McVities (although I prefer the caramel ones) and seemingly haven’t been too bothered by the fact that today was a very ‘London day’ that stayed pretty overcast.

 

Anyway we also surprised Dad with a golf trip to St Andrews Scotland (mom is coming too but the surprise was for dad’s retirement/upcoming 60th birthday).  We leave tonight on an overnight train to Edinburgh then the guys tee off on the Old Course (the famous one apparently) tomorrow morning.

I am pretty sure I will find loads of blog material on our trip and am hoping to have a WTF? Friday post that includes haggis.

Cruising through the Cotswolds

Well we made it back from our first driving trip in the UK alive. The car thing went pretty smooth despite leaving our traffic sign book at home which meant I could only assume signs below were pointing out places for me to take out my antique camera and take pictures.

Photo opportunity?

 

When we went to pick up the car they unfortunately only had a manual car (it seems automatic drivers are few and far between here) which meant that I couldn’t experience the adventure of driving on the other side of the road – which was probably a good thing seeing that the roads were too small, oncoming traffic was too close and we encountered multiple walkers and horseback riders on these very small roads that wouldn’t have had a chance with me at the wheel. I was amazed though about two things…one that the windshield washers went the opposite direction of ours (aaah the small things that amaze me) but the second was that gear shift was the same as on North American cars?!?

I prefer an automatic

 

 

 

One of the few things I do remember about driving a manual car is that if you pull the gear shift toward your leg and push up to be in first…hmm using this theory I would be in 5th pretty quickly…the pedals however are also the same so I guess it makes sense to have the gears this way (again, good thing I wasn’t driving).

Anyway car dealings aside we couldn’t have picked a better weekend as it was sunny and hot all weekend which was lovely. We started off at Cheltenham and toured around a route that took us through adorable little villages each with their own local pub covered in leafy vines with a crooked little roof.  There were also tons of walking trails through the area that I think next time would be good to do as we passed these amazingly huge homes and castles in the car but you didn’t get a good look through the window – turning around to double back was virtually impossible due to the fact most roads were just one lane wide. 

Anyway all in all it was lovely and I would definitely recommend it to anyone.  I am also happy to say that I think I am over my paralysing fear of driving in the UK…I still don’t want to do it in London but am excited about the prospect of more road trips to places I have only heard of like Devon, Cornwall, the Lake District and Wales J