Canada, Family & Airports

September 2008

Arrived in Vancouver after 21 hours flight time to be interrogated by Customs at Los Angeles Airport.  I think all my flying nightmares came true this trip commencing with a body frisk at Brisbane Airport before even leaving the home country; witnessing some nutter at LA Airport and hoping he wasn't on our flight - but of course he was and where was he seated?  Next to me, of course.  At Dallas Airport Ali Abdullah did not turn up and his luggage had to be removed from the plane.  Next our plane was held up for over an hour caused by a cyclone just off the Louisiana coast.  Getting into the USA, even just in transit, was a nightmare.  We definitely were grateful to see the beautiful giant First Nation sculptures and forest wildlife walk-through as you enter Canada's gateway airport.

It had been 40 years ago that I visited my Canadian family in 1968 so it was a joyful Sunday lunch at cousin Janet's albeit peppered with jet lag.  Everyone of Janet's family was there except for her hubby, Dino, who was in Italy....  So good to see everyone again and to meet the next and the next generations, not to mention savouring Janet's amazing cooking....   Next day, conveniently for us, was a public holiday and we traveled down to White Rock near the US border to have a late lunch at cousin Richard and Ali's.  This time it was all cousin Carol's side of the family.  My darling Aunty Betty was at both Janet's and Richard's so I fear we've tired her out somewhat.

Before arriving at Richard's, Carol took us round to see the old block of units that grandma's parents owned, the house where they all lived and where Grandma, Aunty Ange and Aunty Betty lived when they first left Australia to come to Canada way back in 1934 when Ange was 17 and Betty 11 years old.  Next we visited the church where Ange and Betty were both married, the school that Uncle Peter attended and the cemetery where my great grandmother and grandmother are buried.  There's no headstone for ggm but we found the general area where she's buried.

It's another day and we visited with Aunty Ange today, going out for pizza and as usual, eating too much.  She looks wonderful and certainly much younger than her 91 years.  I should have had a tape recorder with me to capture our conversation as my memory fails me and we talked much about our family history.