Babies and Gate Changes and Fog...Oh MY!

Alright, so I made it back to PEI with only a few minor bumps and bruises. Most of my ailments were caused by the obscene amount of sitting in cramped quarters which always comes hand-in-hand with long distance travel. Dad and I left the house around noon on Wednesday afternoon and arrived in Kelowna about 4pm. The roads were unexpectedly fantastic (except for over the Blueberry-Paulson which was less than ideal but still drivable) so we made decent time considering it had snow both that day and the day before. Plus we got to see some big-horned sheep and dozens and dozens of deer on the drive, which is always enjoyable. Surprisingly there was only one car in the ditch on the entire drive, which was shocking considering before we headed out I had guessed there would be 3 and Dad guessed 2 (people are stupid drivers on icy roads sometimes).

We did a small Costco shop, had a quick dinner and Dad left me at the airport and went back on his way home. My flight was at 8:00 so I had some time to kill. I started a book called "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer and while I'm only about half way done at this point, I'm really enjoying it. The author explores our logic about eating animals, such as why it's alright to eat cow in our country but dog is a total no-no. Whereas in other countries, eating a cow is sacrilegious and devouring man's best friend is a common delicacy. So far, really good book with lots of great statistics, facts and lessons which are amazing to learn about. Like, did you know that in the US alone, over 250 million baby chicks are destroyed because they are born male and therefore cannot lay eggs so are rendered useless? They are either sucked up onto an electrical plate to die or are tossed into large plastic bins, alive, where they suffocate. So sad.

My first flight was uneventful. Kelowna to Vancouver is a useless flight because I am going in the opposite direction of PEI, but Air Canada had all these cutbacks which got rid of most Calgary stops, which sucks. But, I had a couple hours in Vancouver to write some emails and watch an episode of Breaking Bad. Next flight was at 11:30pm and headed to Toronto.

It was hell.

My plan was to try to sleep since it was the red-eye flight. Haha. Good one Adrienne!!! I was surrounded by chaos. Behind me was a loudly snoring man. Beside him was a screaming toddler who slept intermittently. Beside me were two young boys who yelled at each other constantly because they were watching movies and wearing headsets and the only way they could hear each other over their headsets was to yell...loudly. About 10 rows in front of me was a baby with the most frightening scream I have ever heard! It was as though he was a 18 year old horror movie starlet who was getting stabbed repeatedly in the shower. I have never heard a baby scream like that! And he was vocal for about three quarters of the flight. I just want to point out that I feel for the parents who have these screamer babies on airplanes. I understand that babies scream and cry and a lot of the time there's nothing you can do. You see the faces of mom and dad which are covered with remorse for their babies which don't allow other's their rightful peace and quiet. Shit happens.



Oh man. And the thing that bugged me the most was the snoring man behind me. Not the fact that he was snoring, but the fact that he could sleep soundly through all of this. Oh, and there's more!

By the time we finally reached Toronto (a painful 4.5 hours and one movie later) it was too foggy to land so we circled around for 30 minutes waiting for the fog to disperse. Finally the pilot told us that we would have to go to Hamilton to refuel and wait for the weather in Toronto to improve. So we sat on the Hamilton runway for well over an hour and waited. At this point the boys on my left had fallen asleep but the one directly beside me was constantly shifting and elbowing me violently. We eventually got to take off and go to Toronto. YES! Unfortunately my plane which was supposed to land at 6:55am landed at 9:55am instead - and my flight to Charlottetown boarded at 9:30am. I know the Toronto airport quite well so when I got off the plane I began running to the terminal where these flights always take off from. This was when I heard over the loud-speaker, "Last boarding call for Charlottetown. Miss Adrienne Kotyk, this is your last call at Gate 45." WHAT? Gate 45? Since when did Jazz take off from that gate? So I spun around and started running back the way I came to get to Gate 45. They announced my name over the speakers again, which got me running a bit faster. Fortunately I made it in the nick of time (people were giving me some dirty looks when I got on the plane because they all knew that the plane was being held for one passenger whose plane had arrived late). Why they feel the need to announce to the entire flight why the plane is being held is beyond me. Common human sympathy perhaps? Either way, I made it back to PEI.

Now I have to get back into a normal sleeping routine. This may prove harder than usual for me. I have now successfully slept until 11:30am (yesterday morning) and 12:30 (this morning/afternoon) which is not good! School starts in a few days so I have to get into the swing of things again.

PS. Happy New Year!