Taxi! I know you thought june was meant to be an expose about Vancouver and Canadians and not New York City, but this is a sneak preview of the upcoming fall content here at Paws on the Road. The great irony of Canadian film locations is that they are affordable, practical and reliable but not exciting enough to be the subject of their film. They are forever impersonating American cities. The most common impersonated city has to be the big apple.

Shooting of a film called “Rags” in downtown, sadly no famous people here. Just an interesting stop at a movie set on my way to the ocean side. They even brought the free newspaper boxes, such as the Daily New Yorker, to line the sidewalk with. Give it that small extra touch. For really the only thing you really need to turn any city into New York are yellow cabs. But in case movie goers should not be convinced about the authenticity of the set they brought one more Crown Victoria.

Hockey fever is still very much on. (For those of you not following at home, i.e. those of you who are not Canadian or from Boston, the score is now 3-2 in favour of Vancouver. The next game is Monday night in Boston and should prove to be an exciting one. Tensions are running high, and this game should refute any claims that hockey has lost it’s traditional blood sport rating. Both teams have won all games played with home court advantage, I hope the trend continues. Tying the final at 3 for best of 7 and bringing the last game back to Vancouver for a very exciting evening in downtown.) To keep Canuck shirts from the New York streets they closed the entire block and hired extras. So every person you can count on in the following picture is being paid to stand around and walk purposely when they hear the call, “action”.

An interesting tidbit is that the cab logos are an impersonation of what the new New York City Taxi logo is supposed to be.

I was under the impression that the new logo had the letters “NYC” at the beginning in a smaller font and the T, without serifs, was in a circle instead of a rounded corner square. Could be the official logo is trademarked and they can’t use it outside New York. Either way we will have to wait until the fall to find out what the real NYC logo looks like.

Also two blocks down the annual LEO award, apparently the biggest red carpet in western Canada. Western Canada being a lot of tall trees and very few humans this is not saying much, unless it’s a red carpet for Ents. The nominee list seems to be for only about 7 films, in fact they where feeling so short they added the “Opening Ceremonies of the Paralympics” as an option for the category Music, Comedy or Variety Program.

And apparently Smallville, the teenage superman series, is filmed here in Vancouver or a lot of Canadians snuck into the crew for it’s nominated for several categories.

It’s incredible what kind of deals you can find online. Like the flight we took yesterday/today. Back in July when we started looking for a flight out of Europe our only requirement was that it had to land somewhere in Asia. After sifting through many different destinations (Bangkok, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur) and airlines (Thai, AirAsia, Aeroflot) we finally came up with a winner: Emirates from Rome to Seoul via their hub in Dubai. The reason we picked it? Because they had an offer we just couldn’t refuse – a first class flight at an affordable price. (And by affordable I don’t mean Ryanair-affordable but a reasonable value-for-money ratio that even mere mortals can afford once in a lifetime.) Of course our regular flight travels have now been ruined for life.

It’s just past midnight here in Dubai but from this plush gold-and-blue trimmed couch in the first class lounge I see several waiters and bartenders hovering, just waiting for a sign to bring me a drink – from the possible five refreshment stations. A few steps away there’s a full dinner buffet (including sushi!) and my dear husband has just stopped by to let me know that I have a massage booked in 15 minutes, compliments of Emirates. Definitely spoiled rotten for life.

The flight was quite nice as well. Dinner and movies on demand, all the alcohol you could possibly drink (we were quite behaved with just a couple of glasses of champagne and some wine with dinner). Dinner of course was a four course affair a la carte. Table cloth, little bottles of condiments and 5 types of breads, including garlic bread and timed arrivals of the meals as to avoid interrupting our inflight movies (although most of “Knight and Day” is worth interrupting).

Did I mention the amazing leg room we had?

The seat in flat mode was longer than a regular bed and with room to spare at the feet to walk around. They even offered us duvets. DUVETS! Also a mattress to make things even softer. There were two other passengers along with us in first class and we had three flight-attendants to take care of us all. Not a bad ratio. Each seat included noise canceling headphones, touch screen remote (with access to outdoor cameras mounted on the plane) and a stocked mini-bar with sodas and water.

Having seen and experienced the first class lounge in Dubai we now understand why the hostess at the Alitalia lounge in Rome explained to us (apologetically) that the lounge was mixed and not an exclusive Emirates lounge. Here in Dubai it’s a mini resort; in Rome it was a waiting area with free coffee and peanuts.

We could have posted this from the lounge here in Dubai but we are just mid-way to Asia, with the most interesting part still before us: our next plane is a brand new Airbus 380 double decker. Shower at 10,000 meters, anybody? Although some recommend we do something entirely different at that altitude.

Remember that whole ‘spoiled rotten for life’ part from the first leg of our trip? Well if the first one had left us cold in any way, which it didn’t, then the second part would have even the most seasoned of travelers on his knees. Words would not do justice to the sheer opulence and luxury that we wallowed in for the next 8 hours, so we took lots of pictures instead.

The first class cabin

Our tiny piece of heaven, which wasn't tiny at all

Little tiny LED star-imitations, accurate constellations too

The pièce de résistance: le bathroom. It was far bigger than ours in Barcelona...

Planning for the next leg of the trip is about to commence – Asia here we come!!! So far Vietnam, Japan and Australia are on the list with possibly Laos, Palau and Indonesia in between. It’s all still a bit muddled but we’re working on it. Stay tuned!

We had booked our flight from Santiago to Caracas (via Bogota) for March 3rd but the earthquake had slightly damaged the airport in Santiago so anything or nothing could happen with our flight. Once again everyone had a different opinion on whether we’d be able to leave or not.

The airline, Avianca, said the flight would definitely leave on Wednesday morning. Which was very reassuring even though the operator on the phone was in Bogota and didn’t know much about the situation on the ground in Santiago. Our Chilean friends said that the airport wouldn’t re-open until the coming Monday so we should just concentrate on getting our ticket changed for next week. The internet was suspiciously quiet on all accounts; no one posted anything about flights leaving or how much the airport was actually damaged.

So we spent a few days in Santiago in limbo. We got some work done and did some sight-seeing but unfortunately many museums were closed.

Although there was some slight damage visible in parts of the city, most people went about their business as usual: going to work, eating at restaurants and shopping. Our friend Lola gave us an excellent city tour and took us up to the San Cristobal mountain for some beautiful views of the city and a cup of ‘mote con huesillo’. A very excentric Chilean drink/food that combines ice-cold fruit sirup with wheat grains and a dried peach. Really, you have to try it to understand it.

Sorry, very much not in focus...

In any case, on Tuesday afternoon Avianca called us to say that yes, the flight was definitely on for the next day (yay!) however because the airport buildings were still closed, we had to arrive at 3am at the Avianca office in Santiago where we’d be put onto busses to be taken to the airport as a group. Of course there was a small organizational problem at the Avianca office that morning with everyone scrambling to be the first on the bus, lest they leave anyone behind. But eventually we all made it to the airport where check-in was handled in some very tasteful, white fabric, party tents. They even had a make-shift customs desk and a portable x-ray scanner. The wait before the flight was probably the worst of it all because the waiting area was packed with tired and grumpy people and a cold draft was coming in through the gaps at the bottom of the tent. But we were just grateful to be there and on our way.

When we got off the plane in Bogota, a crowd of people clapped and cheered for us in the arrivals area; there was free coffee, arequipe and bottles of Colombiana: a disgustingly addictive soda that tastes like a mix of Red Bull and Seven-Up. What a wonderfully warm welcome!

Happy new year everyone! It’s about time we get our paws on the road again. Today we’re off to Argentina where we’ll spend a month in Buenos Aires before we head south into Patagonia. Plans are still a bit vague at this point as to what will happen after we leave Buenos Aires in February but it’ll probably involve Isla Valdez, El Calafate and the glaciers, Bariloche, crossing the lakes into Chile and then going up to Mendoza and Santiago. As always, any and all tips on where to go and what to do are welcome, so keep ‘em coming! (We also promise to finally include comments. That’s our resolution for 2010.)

And the road beckons once more… After a lovely summer spent tingling around Spain, France and Italy, we’re packing our bags again. This time it’s off to farther distances: Florida, Mexico, Costa Rica and by Christmas we should arrive in Venezuela.

We have all kinds of adventures planned, from getting our scuba diving certificate and learning to surf to doing a cooking course in Mexico and whitewater rafting and ziplining across Costa Rica. (Well, maybe not ACROSS Costa Rica…)

This is the part of the trip we have planned so far:

Costa Rica is still a blank apart from a week’s surfing at Jaco with our friend Henri. But I’m sure once we’re on the road, ideas and plans will come. They usually do.

If you have any tips for us – please let us know! We’d love to hear from you. (That said, we’re also working on getting comments up and running on the blog so it’ll be easier to leave feedback in the future.)

As some of you might know, this blog was supposed to have been started a few months ago. But then travel got in the way. *cough cough* So this is a little visual update on where we’ve been so far!

(These aren’t the actual roads taken most of the time , rather the roads Google thinks we should have taken.)

View Larger Map

Conor was very excited to go to Beirut. Until he realized we were going to Bayreuth. (Say: Bye-roid.) Oh the disappointment…

This quaint little Bavarian town only pops up when Wagner is mentioned (big festival each year) but surprisingly people live here all year round. For example Martha and Henri who took us out for some first class Thai food and even shared their last chocolate cakes with us. (Thanks guys!)