My gosh, I’ve never felt so homesick in three years as I have in the past several hours. That’s a good thing. If there’s ever a time to wish you were home, it’s as you’re on your way there.
As I write this, it is 9:12pm and I am in Toronto. In Calgary, it’s 7:12pm. In London, it’s 2:12am. I left the hostel at 6am(UK) to catch my flight, and when I arrive in Calgary, it’ll be around 8am(UK) which means I’ll have been travelling for 26 hours straight, for those of you keeping track. That doesn’t include the time before and after travelling when I’m still awake. But if I’m tired by the time I arrive home, it’ll be easier to go straight to sleep and in turn, easier to get over the jet lag.
To my surprise, travelling through London was relatively easy, even though I hadn’t researched it very thoroughly. I walked to the nearest Tube station and went to Victoria Station. There was a train from there that went straight to Gatwick Airport which I was lucky to find without hassle, and once there the signs pointed at the shuttle that took me right to the North Terminal. Only there did I get turned around a bit.
Because I am just one measly person with two carry-ons and two barely-under-the-limit checked suitcases, and because I’ve experienced before how terrible the Tube is for anyone wanting to travel with wheels, I hired a company to take my checked suitcases the night before. I picked them up this morning and dropped them off at check-in.
One was a tiny bit under the weight limit and one was a tiny bit over, so I took the dictionary from one to put into the other. To be honest, I was pretty proud of myself for getting it so close, especially considering I didn’t know what the weight restrictions were when I was packing and I didn’t have any way to weigh them. Luck and a guess.
Because my first flight was only to St. John’s Newfoundland and Labrador, it wasn’t as long as I was used to them being. Once there, however, I found myself in a relatively small airport with six hours to kill and nothing to do. I got myself some Tim Horton’s. I played a piano that was there. I checked social media, messaged friends, Skyped my dad. In the end, I managed to occupy myself so well that I looked at the time and realized my plane had boarded twenty minutes ago and was set to fly in ten minutes and I hadn’t even gone through security yet. I booked it. Thankfully, there was no line-up and I’m fairly adept at maneuvering through security at this point, so I checked the board and went to gate 4.
You know when you’re at an airport and you hear someone called by name over the intercom and you’re like, wow. That person’s late for their flight. What an idiot.
Today, I was that idiot. Not only did the intercom come on and call me, not to gate 4 but to gate 2 on the other side of the second floor, but they said in the announcement that it was the second time they were calling me. I did not hear the first time.
The real walk of shame is going up the aisle to the second last row in an airplane-full of impatient passengers whose schedules haven’t actually been held up at all because you weren’t that late, but you were late enough for the staring anyway.
This time I’ve learned my lesson. I’m sitting next to the counter where they’ll call passengers for boarding the plane which is outside the window behind me. There was some sort of emergency on the last flight so mine’s been delayed slightly, but I’m almost home now. I won’t complain.
By the time you’re reading this, I’ll be home and probably asleep in bed. I know this because boarding has just started so I don’t have time to take out my camera and cord to download the pictures I’ll be including with this post. My London posts will be put up over this next week. So much has been happening that between the action, the writing, the photos, and the internet access, it’s been hard to keep up. It’s my turn to board now, so I’ll say goodbye and goodnight to everyone, whether it’s night where you are or not.
Precarious Writer 