Day One: Trans-Atlantic Voyage

STARDATE: 2009.219

LOCATION: Somewhere over the North Atlantic (flying from Calgary to London).

PROLOGUE

I realize this is a travel journal, but part of the experience so far has been the fun (and sometimes frantic) preparations and farewells that I’ve gone through over the last week. In a nutshell:

• squeezed in a few nights at Clear Lake MB,
  
• blasted home for my last day of work Wednesday,
  
• spent a great Thursday in Moose Jaw / the Cowan farm with Jessica (my girlfriend), highlighted by a trip to the Déjà Vu café with Sean Boots (conversely, not my girlfriend),
  
• packed like a maniac Friday (vacuum bags are awesome – thanks Uncle John!)
  
• had a great barbeque, shinny, and Kaiser with Tendler, Sean Willson, Pref, and Mandi (we also watched the Roughriders play, but they were far from great)

And finally, after somewhat less than four hours of sleep, the three of us (Mom, Dad and I) dragged our carefully-packed suitcases (along with almost 10 lbs of peanut butter) out to the car to start leg one of the trip to Tromsø!

DESTINATION: CALGARY

I was so excited for my journey that I… promptly fell asleep. When I woke up, we were already past Maple Creek and fast closing in on the Alberta border. Strategic napping: one of the great secrets of traveling.

Once in Calgary, we headed to at the Airport to precheck our luggage (one of my parents’ time-saving tricks). Our luggage dropped off, we headed to my Aunt Nettie’s house - she’s a great aunt in every sense of the word. After a couple of Coronas and a tasty meal of Guinness-marinated bratwurst courtesy of Uncle Bryon, Aunt Nettie took us back to the airport for our flight.

Calgary’s airport was fairly unremarkable – we cruised through customs and were fleetingly tempted by duty-free (one litre bottles of Famous Grouse for $23 – that’s half of SLGA’s price), but eventually settled in to wait at our gate.

DESTINATION: LONDON

I was pleased to learn that the Airbus A330 we flew on was a two-aisle aircraft (there’s a more technical term for that, but it escapes me at the moment and Wikipedia is painfully out of reach). In other words, it’s largest plane I’ve ever flown on (somewhere around 340 seats, but my estimate). It also has two of the coolest features I’ve seen on an aircraft (though this isn’t saying much – most of my flying has been on Air Canada Jazz-type jets).

First was the extremely cool first class loungers – they’re definitely a step above coach (though don’t get me wrong, my seat is surprisingly comfortable and they’ve even given us special headrests for the night flight)

The other cool thing was the interactive touch-screen entertainment unit integrated to the seat ahead of me. This thing has movies, TV shows, XM satellite radio, a decent selection of CDs on demand, interactive maps of our flightplan, and even a few games.

In other words, it was a toy.

And I played with it.

And I broke it.

Not kidding – I had worked my way through all the show listings (Fawlty Towers or The Office anyone?) and was going through the music when I managed to Jam the software on Even Flow.

(Even Flow is sung by Pearl Jam… ahh, now you get it. I know, I’m not funny. You’ll be used to it soon enough.)

Luckily, the software eventually sorted itself out and I was able to flip on over to the highly-touted Star Trek movie - both Aunt Tara and Roman (aka Chekov) had given it their Trekkie seal of approval. It is indeed a great movie and I’ll reaffirm that no knowledge of the series is required to enjoy it. The movie did precipitate my second urge to look things up on Wikipedia – I’m starting to think I have a problem.

BEDTIME

It’s getting late and I probably should get some sleep before we land in London. Hopefully I keep updating this journal as I go! (and if not, that either means that I’m busy having a great time or that I’ve become personally acquainted with a polar bear) I’m new at this whole blogging thing, so any and all comments are appreciated!

One more random thought before I go: Due to the fact that our flighpath follows a Great Circle of the Earth, the shortest distance from Calgary to London takes us over the Hudson Bay, Baffin Island, and Greenland. In other words, this is a bad time to be listening to The Marten Hartwell Story by Stompin’ Tom Connors (yup, he’s on Air Canada’s select CDs). Marten Hartwell was lost up in the NWT after a plane crash – what can I say, I’ve got great timing.

Signing off at 12:30 AM Saskatchewan time (that’s 7:30 AM in London, 8:30 AM in Oslo, and 4:00 AM in Newfoundland),

Adam