blog on and happy travels

Well, it's the closing days of 2006 and I'm back from the family christmas so I'm pleased to report that it's time to blog on. After leaving you my faithful readers for a week, I hope you have stuck with me or marked your calendars anticipating a return. Otherwise I'll be spending much of the next several weeks writing to myself.

I hope everyone had a great holiday season. The end of exams got my holidays off to a good start, but those stories have already been told (see below). As per my last entry I was leaving on a jet plane. First the packing and repacking, two bags, one bag, back and forth. I decided on two bags, and as you shall soon learn, this is an important part of the story. Armed with christmas presents (all with a certain saskatchewan feel) I went off to the airport. All went well, booked in, through security, and through the miracle of aeroplan points, a seat in executive class. All is well in the world.

My family has a ritual developed through 30 years of living 20 minutes from the airport. You get off your plane, you stop at a payphone and call home proclaiming "I've landed." Cell phones have led to a slight variant, but in essence this practice has been sustained for years. Upon news of landing, the parental unit hops into the minivan and as they arrive at the airport, the person arriving has grabbed their bags and is waiting outisde to be picked up. A model of efficiency. These are the kinds of systems upon which the british empire was built.

Well for some strange and unusual reason, my mother and I both thought we would change this time-honoured tradition because of some new fangled thing kids are calling the "Internet". With live tracking of flights online, the mom and I agreed that they should leave a few minutes before landing and the timing would be even better, no waiting for anyone (mainly me standing outside).

All went according to plan, mom mastered online tracking and left eight minutes before landing, the dad in tow. All is well, the plane lands, but then it all begins to go wrong. We taxi to about 200 feet from the gate and stop...and wait...and wait...and wait. I resign myself to the waiting. Unfortunately the lady sitting by me does not. She starts ringing the attendant button. The attendant arrives, and the conversation went something like this:

L: I have a connecting flight in half an hour
A: Politely responds and repeats what the captain said, things are backed up and we are waiting for a ground crew.
L: But I need to make my connecting flight
A: Well once we make it to the gate, you'll be one of the first off
L: But when are we getting to the gate
A: Once we have a ground crew
L: Can't you let them know I have a connecting flight

I mean really, it's two days before Christmas, it's one of the busiest travel days of the year, and yes because you have a connecting flight, the ground crew will drop everything and come deal with our plane. Thank you for speaking up, it means we'll all get off that much sooner and away from you. Are people really this stupid? Anyways, 25 minutes later they find a ground crew and take us to the gate.

No need to panic, yes the parental unit is probably outside waiting, but I'm in executive, I'll be first off the plane, and my luggage has those little priority tags which are supposed to mean my bags are first off.

I make the trek to the baggage area to join the throng of 500 people at 12:30am standing around waiting for bags. I walk over to the luggage carousel, dutifully taking position to whisk my "priority" bags off the carousel and out to the waiting minivan. I wait...and wait...and wait...and wait. 15 minutes later bags appear, none of which are mine, then look there's one of mine, it's coming, it's coming, it stopped. My bag and the carousel. Soooo close yet so far. A spit, a sputter and one really big wheeze and the carousel resumes. My bag tumbles down, starts working it's way towards me and wham, it stops again. Mildly impatient knowing the parental unit is probably freaking out in the minivan outside, I trudge down, grab my bag and prepare to head out. Thankfully before I left the baggage area some luggage god took mercy and reminded me that I had changed my mind and packed two bags.

Back at the carousel and wait...and wait...and wait. I put some Karen Carpenter on the iPod in an effort to calm the savage beast within. About 20 minutes later the carousel wheezes back to life and several minutes later my second bag arrives. Finally I trudge off to meet the unit. As I'm going up the escalator to go outside, I see the dad on the down escalator. He doesn't see me. Nothing like having to yell "Dad" as you pass like ships in the night on the escalator. I get to the top and wait for the dad to make his way back up. I find out they've been looping around for an hour waiting for me, checking every level, and my mom finally sent in my dad to see whether my plane "had crashed in the last eight minutes".

All was better as an hour and a half after landing, I leaped into the minivan. We made it home and broke into the christamas cookies. Isn't air travel fun?