Wednesday, July 9, 2008

It begins - Vancouver airport

So here I sit in Vancouver airport. Local time is 7:50am, which is pretty impressive considering I left Sydney at 10:10am on the same day.

The flight went a lot quicker than I expected – and it just so happened I got given one of the best seats on the plane. It was definitely the one with the most leg room, as there was no one in front of me at all. I sat next to a nice Canadian/Australian bloke named Marcell (an interior designer who’s lived in Perth for ten years) who was taking his five year old son back to his homeland for the first time.

Food was really good, there was a bit of French cuisine and a lot of fruit. Canadian Coke is a lot sweeter than Australian stuff, and I don’t hate it. Canadian beer doesn’t taste as good as the Australian stuff though, and I couldn’t put my finger (or is that my tongue?) on the reason.

The sun coming up over the clouds when you yourself are above them also is absolutely beautiful. I got my camera out to take a photo or two, when I realised that I hadn’t actually put batteries in it – and they were in my other bag. What’s more, I haven’t brought an SD Card reader with me, so I couldn’t upload them anyway. Thankfully though, Marcell came to the rescue and let me use his and offered to email them to me. What a nice guy.

As we got off the plane and walked into the airport (at about 6:50), the place was absolutely deserted. It was quite eerie, like all those movies where you think it’s all empty and then a zombie jumps out and chews on your face. The people on our flight were the only tourists in the whole of the international section of the airport.

But now I’m in domestic where there are people milling around doing their everyday kinda thing. They still sound American to me. I should probably learn to discern the difference.

Being on the other side of the world for the first time ever is actually quite exhilarating. In the line to check in luggage at customs (which just consisted of some guy in an orange flakjacket and boots taking the bags off us and putting them in piles) I was standing behind a girl when I realised that – “Hang on, I’m in a completely different country. I can just be friendly and be myself and people will just assume it’s that friendly Aussie tourist-ness.” (As it turned out, she’d just returned home from Aus, where she’d travelled all up the east coast from Melbourne to Cairns)

The other major thing I’ve noticed is that I start conversations with “G’day how are you?” – something I know I’ve always done, but it seems so awesome now.

An hour and a half left til I can get on board the flight to Edmonton. Guess I’d better get used to these airport waits. Thank God for wireless Internet.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was wonderful talking to you on the phone to know that you got there okay, and reading the blog certainly filled in the gaps (o ye of few words....) But as good as the blog info was, PLEASE don't forget to phone home!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Haha your mum loves you! I'd make fun of you but i guess there's no point since you're mum is awesome. and so am I! the world makes sense again. congratulations on being in a different country. and looking forward to many MORE different countries as time progresses.