After packing up our stuff this morning, then heading down to the diner for one last unhealthy breakfast, we got a taxi from outside the hotel to take us to the airport. Our taxi driver was getting frustrated with some of the heavy traffic we faced driving north out of the city - some of his driving was pretty crazy. However, he did finally get us there safe and sound, just about.

Just when we thought we had finally seen the last of the queues of New York, we were a bit alarmed to see the massive snaking queue in the airport just after check-in, which was to lead us to the security checkpoint. I was very concerned as we had arrived a little late due to the traffic and we were due to be flying in one hour. This queue looked like it would take us an hour just to get through! Thankfully, someone was seeing sense and they began calling out for people who had flights that were departing soon. It didn't take too long before they called out our flight and we were escorted to a much shorter queue to get us through security and to our gate in good time.

We hadn't been able to get seats together on the flight from New York to our connecting city destination of Minneapolis. We were both seated in the middle of a set of three seats across from each other. When it became apparent that the person in the aisle seat next to me, and the person in the aisle seat next to Stu were travelling together I asked if they wanted to swap seats so we could each sit with our respective partners. However, he said no. No problem as the flight was only around two and a half hours and I had my iPod to keep me entertained.

The flight was fairly uneventful, save for a small amount of turbulence. We arrived in Minneapolis with around half an hour to spare to get our connecting flight to Vancouver. We were both a bit hungry and didn't want to rely on the snacks they would have for sale on the plane so we both queued up for some food. I was a bit concerned as we were nowhere near the gate for departure and time was ticking. I swallowed down a double cheeseburger in double quick time so we could make our way to the gate - it was just approaching 5pm and our flight was due to depart at 5:20pm. However, at this point Stu decided he was still hungry and began to queue up for more food. When I asked him to hurry he said that we had loads of time - thinking for some reason that we had an hour before our flight was leaving. I politely informed him that it was in fact twenty minutes and we needed to hurry. I could feel my stress level rise as the clock ticked away while he waited for his food, and I could see that our gate was several travelators away from where we were. For someone who likes to be on time (preferably earlier than on time) I was getting very stressed and worried that we would be late for our flight.

Finally Stu got his second serving of food and we headed at a fast pace over to the travelators - three long ones in a row. Then we had to make our way down a couple of escalators and eventually a long corridor. By this point we could see our gate ahead, and also see that there were no passengers there waiting so we picked up the pace and started to run. Thankfully they were still boarding, even though I think we were nearly the last passengers to get on board. At least we were on board and I could finally relax a little.

This plane was smaller even than our plane from New York - it was just two seats wide on each side of the aisle. It was good though because at least we were sat together on this flight, and because the plane was small it actually meant you got served drinks quicker and there were never any queues for the toilets. I expected that the turbulence might be felt a bit more in a smaller plane, although in fact our flight turned out to be totally smooth.

Once we passed half way through the flight we started to notice some of the huge snow-capped mountains below us as the clouds began to separate, which at some point must have been part of the Rocky Mountains.

After landing safely and collecting our baggage we made a call to the letting agent of our apartment in Vancouver where we would be staying. We would jump in a taxi and meet her at the apartment.

Around half an hour later we had arrived in Downtown Vancouver and at our apartment (after first walking the wrong way up the road). Halle, our letting agent, took us up to the apartment on the fourth floor, briefly told us a bit of information about the place and then left us to it. It felt good to be here and nice that we had our own space again - at least for a week anyway.

First things first and I had to get some washing going. Later we had to sort something for dinner. It was too late by this time to venture out to find a shop so we decided to look up somewhere to get takeaway nearby. We found a Thai place that delivered and made our order. It arrived soon enough and we watched some DVDs from the collection in the apartment. Stu had darted out to get some cereal and milk so at least we would be sorted until after breakfast tomorrow.

We found ourselves feeling tired quite early - I assume a combination of all the travelling today and the change in time zones. We are now three hours behind the time in New York, so whilst it was feeling like gone midnight, it was still only around 9pm. We decided not to head to bed too early so we could try and adjust to the time zone a bit better. Instead we just chilled out watching DVDs - it felt good to be able to relax again.