Feelings of the Day: What was I thinking? What were we thinking? An event as important as a big trip should have had us prepared much earlier. Our mistake and resultant stress was our punishment. You can never go back in time.
Full Day’s Events: Have you ever started a trip knowing that so much could have been done so much earlier? The little things that you had been putting off because “that won’t take long”? Well, next time we will start those trip preparations much more than two weeks away. To shorten the description of the day before we left: we did a lot, we were both tired because of our efforts, and I didn’t get any sleep because I was afraid that if I closed my eyes then I would be reluctant to wake up. I pulled upon my Navy experience to push through, draw from my energy reserves, and stayed awake until our second flight.
Our check in and puddle jumper to Vancouver was flawless. After landing we stopped at “Dirty Laundry”. My moka and blueberry muffin were rich in flavour and not too sweet. The flight to Montreal also went smoothly. Traveling over Western Canada, and reading the excellent “A Perfect Crime” by Peter Abrahams, I often looked at the changing scenery below. I enjoy looking at this topography of places remote and rough. These are locations I will only experience from tens of thousands of feet in the air because they are so isolated. The start of our vacation seemed more real to me as the light misty blanket of the mountains transitioned to the icy veins of streams through flat snow. I had a deep powerful sleep, lacking dreams, after I closed my eyes.
Upon landing we went to the Air Canada lounge, which we previously purchased as an add on because of the length between flights, was a pleasant experience. It was nice to get a more relaxed environment while traveling by air: comfortable seats, free food, drinks, and reliable wifi. It was in the last half hour that our travel experience became more interesting. The message was innocuous enough: our seats had changed. We were no longer sitting together but had been upgraded to business class seats, which made us quite happy. Our new tickets were printed at the front desk of the lounge and we proceeded to our gate. Although we were early, we saw over a hundred people lining up to speak with the people at the desk. They were not happy and we found out that there had been a change of aircraft and therefore a change in our seat assignments. Then we found out the plane we would fly on was changed to an older craft, for an unknown reason, and that was why our seats were changed…it was not an upgrade that we received but rather a computer throwing up all the passengers names into the air of the computer server and letting them fall onto seat assignments randomly. Not only were the passengers in line to get their new tickets but also to try to sit with spouses and family and those who had paid for business class were insisting on getting their luxury seats again. I felt for the Air Canada staff.
For us there was one more seat change and that was for my wife to get thrown to row 22. I knew I was going to sleep on this flight, and I can sleep anywhere (right after I read the last chapters because the story was that good for it to delay the additional blessed slumber I needed), so we switched seats. Although we were delayed leaving Montreal by an hour, so that most of the folks could be helped or at least listened to, we arrived only a half hour later than originally scheduled. Customs and baggage pickup was no trouble and quick. We were now in Madrid, Spain.
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