Halifax to Vancouver

Dear Diary,

This morning I was woken up at 8:20am after having slept through my alarm. I had packed almost everything the night before and was well on schedule for leaving for the airport at 9am.

My father, however, had remembered the previous night that he'd promised his mother a family portrait of us and that we hadn't done it yet. So half an hour before we were supposed to be leaving for the airport he began calling portrait studios for an emergency photo shoot. Luckily, since it was 8:30am on a Saturday, nothing was open and I got to go to the airport. We instead had a neighbour come over to take some pictures of us next to our car. I think it will look GREAT in Grandma's livingroom.

After passing the bridge toll booth, which had big signs about what coins not to throw in, I went on an enraged rant about how they should get rid of pennies, nickels and dimes because I hate them and you can't buy anything with them anyway. My brother said you can buy those Remembrance Day poppies for a dime which made me laugh because you can't and he's been ripping off veterans.

I checked in at the Air Canada counter, requesting an aisle seat. The stewardess informed me that my travel agent had actually reserved me a seat between two other people. I had a horrible travel agent. If my dealings with her hadn't been set up already by the Japanese school, I would have shut her out of my life long ago. She actually kept giving me wrong information about my flight. Here's an excerpt from my e-mails with her:

"Subject: flight details
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 19:09:37 -0500

Hi Ryan
Sorry about the delay. My computer froze so... Your flight details are:
AC # 665 12th Nov Halifax to Montreal 12:05pm - 12:44pm local time
AC # 183 12th Nov Montreal Vancouver 1:40pm - 4:15pm local time
AC # 35 15th Nov Vancouver - Osaka 12:25pm - 4:25pm next day local time
Open flight to come home on or before Nov 11th/2006. I will call you before I send your tickets out.
Cheers,
Michelle Pottery"

From: "Ryan Smith"
To: "Michelle Pottery, Dreamtime Travel"
Subject: RE: flight details
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 22:11:03 -0400

Hi Michelle,

I was hoping you could just confirm my flight details again. You had mentioned on the phone that I was being changed to an 11am flight from Toronto, so I just want to verify whether it is the 11am to Toronto or the 12:05pm to Montreal. Thanks!

Ryan Smith

"Hi Ryan

Sorry about that. I did not have the newest print out with me. It is the 11:00am flight because the 12:05pm flight was not available in the class of service we needed for the 1-year open ticket. The flights are
AC # 609 Nov 12th Halifax to Toronto 11:00am - 12:29pm
AC # 33 Nov 12th Toronto to Vancouver 2:15pm - 4:22pm
AC # 35 Nov 15th Vancouver to Osaka 12:25pm - 4:25pm
Open flights to come home by the 11th of Nov 2006. Let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers, Michelle"

...And that's just one of the mistakes that would have resulted in me missing my flight.

After checking in, I had a bagel and some orange juice at Tim Horton's. I would rate them mediocre to good and good, respectively. If you're not interested in reading about what I ate and all of my insignificant thoughts, you've probably come to the wrong place.

The people at the metal detector confiscated my scissors. I guess I'll have to push my hijacking attempt back to Tuesday when I can get my hands on another pair.

Before the flight left, I bought a Forbes magazine featuring the 400 Richest People in America. I've always loved these magazines...

My flight to Toronto went down without a hitch (?)*.

Upon arrival in Toronto, I found my next gate and went to buy some lunch. I found a sushi shop and bought some salad from them. It was really exciting to see new sushi since I've tried literally every shop that makes sushi in Halifax. I called some people who live in Toronto from the pay phones, used the internet for about 6 minutes, ate a bacon cheeseburger at a restaurant called Wild Cats. At Wild Cats, there was a man who looked like an angry miner sitting next to me who had bought an entire box of Timbits which he was shovelling into his mouth.

The restaurant started playing Christmas music and I became sad after realizing I'd probably be spending Christmas in an apartment by myself. On that note, I grabbed my bag and went back to the gate. The gate was empty and the plane had already disconnected from the walkway. After a few minutes of panick, I confessed to an Air Canada representative that I think I had just missed my flight and they told me that the gate had been moved and the plane was just about to start boarding.

I went down an empty corridor to do some stretches since I knew I'd just be sitting around all day. I boarded the plane and got my coveted aisle seat. The nosy woman across the aisle watched me and examined what I was doing for most of the flight in that I had to keep making eye contact with her so she'd turn away. The in-flight movie was Supercross. I only caught little bits of it but would still deem it the worst movie ever.

I arrived in the Vancouver airport and there were giant carved totem-style statues. Alex Wood, a guy from my floor in first year at Western, is a flight instructor in Vancouver and had said that if the weather was bad enough to cancel his lessons, he'd pick me up at the airport. Unfortunately I was cursed with only light rain and I had to take the airport shuttle into town. Vancouver is a really impressive city. It's full of Asians, hippies and yuppies and is on a really beautiful landscape between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean.

I'm staying at the Hostelling International Vancouver Downtown hostel. It seems to be in a great location and to roughly fit what I was looking for. I'm sharing a room with three other guys. Unfortunately since I was the last one to arrive, I'm stuck with an upper-bunk. Something that I learned over the summer in Europe was that a lower bunk will increase your chances of sleeping by two- or three-fold.

I just gave Alex a call and he's on his way into downtown to pick me up. The plans are to go get some sushi & beer. I'll update again tomorrow.

Ryan

*(?) generally means I don't know if I got that expression or word right.