Luftangus

The Last Flight

I wanted to defend Air Canada. There have been too many stories in the news from the point of view of the irate stranded passenger. The self-centric ignorant sheep that make up most of the people of this part of the world. Those who feel slighted by the slightest injustice. So I wanted to say that Air Canada, and all airlines, do a fine job and that the vast majority of flights are flawless. I wanted to say, "I took 17 flights in one month and not one of them got messed up." I made it to 16.

The 16th flight took me from Toronto to Ottawa. It was ten minutes late leaving, but nothing serious. A short stopover and I'd be taking flight 118 to St. John's, the same flight I took home on the first day of the month when I was coming home from Montréal. That first time went perfectly. The second, not so much.

The plane was late arriving to the gate. They did the switch-over as quickly as they could, and got the plane loaded up. There was a weight restriction due to the shitty conditions in St. John's and the shitty Embraer aircraft. (Not to be a plane-racist, but seriously, Brazil? Making aircraft? Masters of industry, right there. I'll take me a German or French plane please.) So I think a few stand-bys or late check-ins got turned away, but us normal folk got aboard, and we taxied out to the runway about half an hour late.

We got to the runway, turned to face take-off, and kept turning, right around and taxied off the runway again.

I'll have to paraphrase the pilot: "This plane is plain plum-broked, yo. Hold on while we call maintenance."

We wait. We wait some more. Then we taxi back to the gate.

Pilot: "We're back at the gate. We're going to have the engineers take a look at this problem."
You could hear the sound of 100 passengers scoffing.

We waited. We waited some more. Then the engineers come on board, and like all good engineers, they do the first troubleshooting tactic (say it with me): they tried turning it off and on again.

I've never sat in the dark on a powered-down plane before. It was chilling. After a few minutes the lights came back on.

We waited. We waited some more. About an hour and a half late now. The sheep were getting restless. "Who wants off this plane?" Yelled one of them. "Bullshit!" Yelled another. You could feel the tension and the stir-craziness building.

Pilot: "Well we've taken care of the noise the plane wasn't making. But now the air conditioning is broken. We'll fix that later, but we have to do up a new flight plan and fly lower..." (And no, I have no idea why broken air con equals lower flying) "..to do that, we have to lose weight by dropping fuel, passengers...or another way is to remove some baggage."

Oh, you can bet the sheep loved that. Of course, how this was news I'm not sure. The plane is lined with windows and I, at least, saw them pull out a cart full of bags about a half hour prior. 'Someone's not getting their bags,' I thought. My stuff was all carry-on.

Back to the pilot: "We'll get the flight plan done up and we'll be on our way. I'll get back to you in twenty minutes."

The sheep, after having waited for two hours plus, didn't much care for the idea of another twenty minutes. They wanted off. Now. They were livid. I was laughing. I'm pretty sure I could sit on a plane for a good four days before I cared. I got TV, I got tunes, I got cookies, I'm good.

Of course, I was laughing on the inside. It felt like someone was going to get lynched, and I'm easy laughing-jackass prey. Though me thinks it was the pilot's head they wanted on a spike.

We waited. We waited some more. Three and a half hours late now.

Quoth, the pilot: "OK folks, sorry about the delay, we have a flight plan but we have another problem. The flight crew is about to reach its daily flying-time limit. So we have another crew en route and they'll be here in 30 minutes but in the meantime we're going to let you off."

The attendant added, "don't forget to take all your belongings incase this goes another way." In case this becomes a crime scene perhaps?

So we de-planed. They had police lining the way out, and some in the lounge. Probably for the best, that was.

We waited in the terminal. We waited some more. Then the pilots came off the plane.
Three people applauded as they glared at the pilots, who were doing the walk of shame from the aircraft. I never thought applause could sound so sarcastic. Dumb sheep. I couldn't not laugh at the indignant sheep. I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time. I tried my best to cover it up.

The rest was pretty drama-free, though it did take close to another hour. The gate agent admitted the situation was mis-handled. But personally, I don't know what was improper. The damn plane was broken. The pilots did the best with the information they had. So did everyone else. Air travel is a complex mechanism, so when one part goes to shit, everything tumbles. If anyone, blame Brazil.

We were eventually off, some 5 hours late. But what's 5 hours, really? This is why you're supposed to practice sleep deprivation at home.

To top it off, once back on the plane, the new pilot said something you never want to hear a pilot say just before takeoff: "We should be on the way shortly, so, uh, hope for the best."

Posted on 30 April 2008 | 11:44 pm

Oakvillin'

The last stop on my trip ways always supposed to be New York. Then, the day before I was leaving for Vancouver, I got a call from Peja, my high-school friend who lives in Oakville. He was back from his stint working in a diamond mine in northern Ontario. So I changed my plans and booked a ticket from Vancouver to Toronto.

He moved away two years ago, and I've only seen him once since. And with him on-site up north, we don't get to chat much. So it was good to see him again and it's been just like old times.

We grabbed coffee in Port Something, went for a drink in Hess Village in Hamilton, and went to dinner in Toronto. And we ate sushi and bubble tea. OK, so it wasn't exactly like old times. In Newfoundland, we'd mostly drive around and do nothing cause there was nothing to do. And I guess there was a bit of that here as well.

Between the endless suburban hell and the clogged highways, I think I'm glad I didn't end up moving here a few years ago, as I had planned. Though on the weekend, when it warmed up a nice bit and we sat and ate outside in his backyard, I got a glimpse of why people like houses and the ‘outdoors’. Though personally, I’ll take my gloom thank you.

On my last night, we headed to Toronto. We did some shopping and grabbed a bite. That was all good. It was walking around the city that surprisingly did nothing for me. My first time in Toronto was my first time in a decent sized city. And walking around downtown back then, I was in awe. But after this month, all I saw was another city. And an ugly one at that. Though to be fair, I didn't really get to see it like the others I saw this month. This stop has been a relaxing visit with a friend, not a frantic one-day see-all attempt, so I won’t judge (Toronto sucks).

I head to the airport in an hour to catch my flight back to St. John's. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of Luftangus.

Posted on 29 April 2008 | 4:18 pm

Vancou-va-va-choo!

I leave Vancouver tomorrow morning, and I must say what a Fantastic time it wasn't.

I accept that life (in general, not just mine) likes to kick you in the balls. My time in Vancouver was just another such example.

But first, a travel tip: don’t travel.

4am Tues morning and I wake up feeling some inklings of a cold coming on. Sure enough, by the time I get to Halifax for my first connection, it washes over me. But me, well aware of the whole kick-you-in-the-balls thing, wore a metaphoric cup. In this case, a pack of Advil Cold & Sinus and a stack of kleenex I had grabbed on the way out of the house. I figured it should at least keep me mobile. And it got me to my Vancouver hotel as if I wasn't sick at all.

Now, I have the immune system of a sexually-promiscious, malnourished 90-year old, so I get colds fairly regularly. My normal response is to go into an immobile state, sleeping and eating until it's over. However, with some Advil C&S and enough food I can keep the energy up enough to keep on living if required. For instance, I had a cold in late-December, but still was able to go to a Christmas party and assemble a giant pile of IKEA furniture.

(And it's a cold, not the flu, learn the difference you bloody ignorant sheep.)

So, I figured I'd be able to at least do something here. And if not, a decent hotel room plus room service could be a fine time. Do some writing, watch some of the TV I took with me.

But no. My stupid mouth decided to form two concurrent ulcers in the two worst possible places. I'll spare you the details, but basically it has made eating and speaking impossible. I don't know how common this is for most people, but I can only remember prohibitive mouth ulcers happening twice before in my life. And having to mouth-breath at night because of the cold did not help things. Anyway, because of my immobile tongue, I've been living off of non-dairy smoothies and non-caffienated soy-based beverages. I couldn't even eat the free chocolate in my hotel room.

With no energy, I should've stayed in bed the whole time. But as you're probably aware, I'm stupid. So I spent a bunch of drugged and dazed hours wandering the city each day. It's hard to appreciate the view of the harbour when you want to dive in (thereby killing oneself, since one / I can't swim).

You can check out some pictures I took when I had the frame of mind to take some. They're of nothing though, cause my mind wasn't really functioning. Case in point, while walking down some street, one of my shoes was making a clicking sound. So I stopped, looked at it: nothing. Walked on, it kept making the sound, so I stopped and looked again: nothing. Repeat this a few more times. About twenty minutes later, I realized I was checking the wrong shoe. And the other one not only had something stuck to it, but the thing was pink and sticking out beyond the edge to where it was in plain view. Again, I'm stupid.

I fear any judgement I make about the city would be more than a little biased. I like the style of the condo buildings, and I can respect the balls of any city that digs a big hole in the middle of downtown and puts up a sign that says "Expect delays for [three years]." But I surely didn't see anything that really impressed me. Besides the eateries maybe. There seemed to be endless places I actually wanted to try (which is really something for a guy who doesn't enjoy eating) but even that was probably because I was so hungry. Oh, and coffee shops. Vancouver definitely needs more of these. At one point, I was able to walk 6 feet without passing one.

Anyway, it's off to the last city tomorrow morning. I'm still not back to normal though, so I am expecting it to be a giant crap sandwich. Not that I could even eat a giant crap sandwich right now.

Posted on 26 April 2008 | 10:38 am

Let's Go To The Map!

I should be flying today, but instead I am grounded since it seemed every seat on every flight out of Newfoundland was booked up this weekend. I can only assume it the mass exodus caused by the end of the school year.

Anyhow, while I pause for a couple days (this was the first day all month I got up and had nothing in particular to do) I’ll be catching up on my ScriptFrenzy musical script. And I thought I’d post an update of my travels thus far.

So here’s a map:

And here’re some stats:

That’s all until Tuesday.

Posted on 19 April 2008 | 3:11 pm

Calgary

For those unfamiliar with the process, allow me to share with you the schedule for a cross-country weekend trip.

Up at 4am NDT on Sat, depart at 6, transfer at 8 somewhere in EDT, land at 11 MDT. That gives you 29 hours before you depart at 3pm MDT, transfer at 10 somewhere in EDT, and arrive at just before 4am NDT, making it just under 48 hours from door-door (where both doors are the same). And of course you work on both Friday and Monday.

It's kinda intense. It's the fine espresso vacation versus the venti drip that the masses prefer.

But before I continue, a travel tip. Or, more of a travel theory. If you want to sit next to someone interesting or intelligent, don't sit in a window seat. The middle-seaters are not the brightest people. (They, are, however, fun to lie to: "No, I don't fly this route very much — I normally take the one through Ottawa. It's a half an hour later but I don't have to switch planes.") I chose a middle seat on one my of flights home to test the difference. It didn’t prove anything. (Stupid to the left of me, stupid to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with..)

Now, Calgary. It was 20 degrees and sunny, I saw a Lamborghini in the hot yellow metal flesh, and there were Ducatis everywhere. But there was still snow on some sidewalks. It was like someone opened a box of Quaker Instant Summer but forgot to stir it thoroughly.

And Jason was there too.

Anyway, with nothing planned we toured some coffee places, walked around, did some mug hunting (fruitless as it may have been, Jason can now attest to how difficult a task it is).

We met his lady-friend for dinner at the Cactus Club where they ate identical meals, looked at each other knowingly, and were generally so in love I almost vomited in my salad. (The eighteen pounds of fruit in my stomach from the giant smoothie I drank prior to eating didn't help.)

As a side note, Brazilian's are awesome. Not the people, and not the waxes (creeeeepy), but the drink. Oh, the drink. It's in the pictures, which this trip seems to focus around food. Hmmm...

I stayed at Jason's house for the night, the same place I stayed when I was there. It was very odd. It was perhaps the closest one could ever come to going back in time. Normally life-phases are closed off over a year later. Waking up in the same guest room, putting on the music I listened to that fall, and even the smell of the house were a nostalgic smack in the face. It was neat.

That's about it for this week.

Posted on 14 April 2008 | 10:56 pm

I said I think I went to Boston

Another one day trip this weekend, this time to Boston. What a fantastic spot.

But first, a travel trip: if you’re going to the US for just one day for no particular reason, you will get questioned by the border guards. First, going into the country I got asked a lot of questions. But I answered them as fast as they could throw them so they let me past without too much trouble. On the way back I got a similar questioning but they also pulled me aside to search my bags and swab them for drugs. After looking through all of my stuff they found no drugs, but apparently I wasn’t supposed to bring a snickerdoodle into Canada.

Boston was from the very beginning a hugely pleasant surprise. To be fair, I had practically no expectations of the city though, so it wasn’t hard to beat that.

Flying in and out of the city was very nice since the airport is so close to it. I flew out just after dusk, so I could see the city and the lights as we circled and ascended. Beautiful sight that I wish I could’ve captured somehow.

The city definitely has a distinct character, a flavor as I like to say. I wonder if other cities around there look similar. It (the parts I saw at least) has been developed to all hell and kept up. Given the number of tourists around it makes sense. The look of money.

The people (at least those I ran into) were way nice, like totally. Scary nice. Very tourist tolerant. I guess they’re used to it. Even the scruffy middle-aged man sitting next to me on the subway while reading a pamphlet entitled Is AA For Me? didn’t change my opinion. Though I didn’t ask him directions. I myself got mistaken for a local several times. I had a conversation with one fellow about the Red Sox (quoth me, “Am I a fan? HUGE fan!”) and I was asked things by any number of tourists (all of whom I was all too glad to point in a random direction). Though I was a fair-skinned guy with a backpack in a college town that has a large Irish population.

Overall, I liked. You can check out the pictures, but they were more of a breadcrumb-trail of all my walking this time around. To end, here’re some random notes.

• There were two graveyards I passed in the middle of the city that seemed to be attractions. I’m not sure what creeped me out more, the dead people six feet below or the swarms of camera-toting Asians standing above taking pictures.
• I walked underneath the construction site for the new Apple Store and had no idea until this morning.
• They have a bus / subway hybrid. It’s a road-going bus from the airport for a few stops, then it comes to a tunnel, shuts down the engine and hooks up to overhead streetcar-like lines and goes underground to become a subway line in the city. So freaky.
• The subway map was clear. The Green Line map, however, I could not figure out to transport my life. And the full map wasn’t always posted next to it. Confused, would we.

Posted on 7 April 2008 | 11:37 am

Bonjour!

After only a one-day visit, one conclusion about Montréal is clear: French is bitchin'.

But let's back up, and take it one step at a time.

I arrived early in the morning, and while making my way to the shuttle that would take me downtown, I ran into Steve Reddy. He's a friend of my brother and a one-time roommate of us both. He doesn't live in Montréal. I believe the expression on both sides was a weirded-out 'wha??'

He was renting a car and heading downtown, so I hitched a ride. Bonus.

It was still early in the morning so I walked around Old Montréal while I waited for the city to come alive. I didn't think it was anything of note, but Bernard liked the Basilique Notre-Dame.

He also liked the geodesic dome.

And it was his first time on a metro.

For me, the day was mostly walking around aimlessly, going here, then there, then getting lost trying to go back to here. You can read the picture annotations for yourself. Some of the pictures didn't come out, and so I didn't post them, but I took a whole lot of Métro rides (hello tourist day-pass) and was on my feet for about eight hours, so you can assume I saw a whole bunch of stuffs.

Two things I will say, though.

The first, is the trouble of traveling with a (fake) dog. I imagine parents of small children have similar problems. With Bernard, I've never been able to figure out how to turn him off once he comes to life. Hit any button and he lights up, then barks or whines every minute for who knows how long until you pay attention to him. After a couple of the above shots, he started up and I couldn't stop him from making noise. I tried his nose, his tail, I tried holding the buttons and then rubbing his head and neck. Nothing. He just kept going. So — and this is where it differs from dealing with small children (hopefully) — I put him in my pack. It was all I could think to do. But that's why, if you happened to be on the subway with me today, my backpack was barking.

Second, everyone speaking French by default is fantastic. Everyone greets you with a 'Bonjour' and I was delighted when my 'Bonjour' elicited a relatively-lengthy French response (which I didn't understand), rather than a switch to English. I wanted to keep the conversations going in French, though I know precious little. I royally messed up ordering an espresso from the non-tourist-area cafe I visited in the morning, where the barista didn't speak much English. Then in the afternoon, I managed to order a 'Croissant Poulet Grillé' without the counter-lady switching, but when she asked me if I wanted a drink (which I only really understood cause she pointed at the drink case) I responded with, "Yes." Damn.

And it's so cool not to be able to read signs. I wonder if the illiterate get the same kind of childish glee out of that.

So when I got to Ottawa (for the return flight connection) and was greeted in English, I was quite disappointed. English? I thought. What fun is that?