Alex's journey to Vancouver

As often happens to me, I woke up several minutes before my really early alarm was set to go off; I must have an accurate body clock or something (or a slightly early one). I think I'll stick to using my phone's alarm clock anyway. I decided to wait until my alarm went off before I got out of bed (the alarm was set for 5:45 am), and was just settling in to an ill-advised lie-in when I was jolted up by flashing lights. Startled, my first thought was that Lee, my housemate, had forgotten about the fact that the fire alarm is connected to the landing light and that flicking that light on and off causes the alarm to go off, so I braced myself for the wail of the fire alarm... When it was not forthcoming, I realised that it was in fact my bedroom light he was flicking on and off.

Lee is experienced with early morning wake-ups and had agreed the night before to help me out in getting up and ready in time. He let me take the first shower, and when I got downstairs my breakfast (or the parts making up my breakfast) were all laid out for me, having put them there ready the night before. At about 6:30 Lee dropped me off at Hazel Grove station en route to his work, and I sat on the train for 20 minutes reading a newspaper before it set off on the short first leg of my trip: Stockport station.

My train from Stockport to London Euston was the fastest of the day (just under 2 hours) because it doesn't stop anywhere else. As a result all the reserve seats had already sold out by the time I tried to book one two days earlier, so I had to take my chances. After walking all the way down the non-1st class carriages I found a seat, but felt somewhat guilty about making the man next to me stand up so I could sit next to him (he had a walking stick and took a bit of time to get himself moving). I don't think he really minded though... And he could have just moved over to the window seat. What really annoys me about these Virgin trains is how half the train is 1st class; fewer people can get into each carriage and usually half the seats aren't being used anyway, meaning there are always people (usually students and the like) having to stand up in the vestibules, which smell like crap (literally). They shouldn't have spent so much on the fancy space-age design of the interior and put something aside for proper on-board sewage management.

When I walked into the main area in Euston, I was struck by the sheer number of people there. Euston isn't a small station by any means, but you could hardly move for people. It has always baffled me how there is absolutely a finite number of people on this planet, yet in a place like this it doesn't seem that way. Nobody could ever meet or know all the people in that station, let alone the world, so I think my mind just likes to round up those kind of numbers to "as near to infinite as makes no difference".

I got the tube to Green Park without much incident (except for the woman who was in a hurry to get on the tube before the beeping doors shut and ran full pelt into me, burying me into the crowded train... which was fun, actually) and within a few minutes was on my way to Heathrow Airport. I spent some of this trip people-watching, but most of it laughing at the underground station "Cockfosters". With the journey to the airport over without incident, I stepped into terminal 3 hoping the whole trip would be as smooth.

I took advantage of the fancy self-service check-in machines, thinking I was really clever by scanning my passport and entering a code from my printed out itinery sheet to get my boarding passes. I was even able to check seat availability on each of my flights... The first one was completely full so I was stuck with my aisle seat (I didn't mind having an aisle seat particularly, mind), while the second flight had maybe 5 free seats to choose from; I stuck with the window seat I'd been given though, for variety's sake. I then advised a nice Canadian (I'm guessing) lady (guessing about the nationality, not the gender) about how to use the machine, which she was very appreciative of, even lending me a pen with which to fill in my bag tag. As I waited and waited for the huge family in front of me to have their bags checked in, I started to wonder if this really was the fastest way of doing thinfs after all, but I think it was an isolated incident. After they had checked a couple of their bags in it emerged that they hadn't used the machine yet, so I had to wait there while they did so (the Canadian woman told me I was far too polite for just waiting my turn, I told her I was just British).

When I got through security I killed time by revisiting all the spots we had seen in that area last year... The huge display of booze which nearly caused Billy to blow his whole Canada budget before even getting there; the Beef Eater statue Steve had posed for a picture with; the Dixons where Billy had made a quick logo with Photoshop on a laptop, causing Jon much embarrassment; the café where we had eaten pizza and pasta before our flight... The only thing missing was the red super car Billy was so astounded by... I guess someone must have won it between now and last year. I even went on the same internet machine thing, although I didn't have a 7-0 Xpert Eleven victory over Steve to rub in his face this time.

I eventually got on the plane, and had almost settled into my seat when a hostie asked if I wouldn't mind moving across the aisle so that a family of 3 could sit together. This turned out to be a good thing, as I ended up sat next to a nice woman for the flight. No, I'm not being pervy, let me explain. For the first short part of the flight we sat politely ignoring each other as strangers do, but eventually we exchanged pleasantries about how we both regretted not eating anything in the airport, both being hungry by this point. When a hostie next passed by, the woman asked a question about meals in perfect French; this got us talking, and it turned out she was from Paris, working as a French teacher in London. Thinking back, it should have been obvious, because she looked exactly like you would expect a young Parisian woman to look. I won't go into much detail though otherwise I might start gushing about how pretty she was. Anyway, she was very friendly and we spoke for a good chunk of the flight. Oh, and her name was Lea, said the same way as Princess Leia from Star Wars.

When she decided it would be a good idea for her to try to get some sleep, I began reading my book: Chris Jericho's new book, actually, and as usual with these types of things, I was hooked right away. I read it non-stop for the rest of the flight (except during turbulance when I was just gripping it very hard). Oh, and we did get a meal: Chckienbreast a la Marinara according to the lid. The chicken itself wasn't great but was at least edible, and I do like a marinara sauce, so it was OK. It came with what looked like oversized yellow rice and had the texture of pasta...? Answers on a postcard.

When I got off the plane in snowy Montreal and walked around the corner in the terminal, I said out loud "Ooooh dear." It was going to take all of my British queuing ability to withstand a customs line like this. But when I went down the escalator I noticed a sign (written first in French) saying "Connections to Canada", and asked a nearby member of staff if this was the way to go, which of course it was. So I followed the path marked out by barriers... AROUND the huge queue of people waiting to get to the Customs desk! I once agian had to speak out loud; "This is great!" A sentiment which several of my co-connecting to Canada travelers agreed with as we strode past the monsterous queue. I had to supress a laugh though, when a little boy in front of me ducked under a barrier and took off towards the huge crowd of people; without missing a beat or even really looking in his direction, the boy's father reached over and plucked him up by the back of his shirt, and plonked him back on track. Another man next to me couldn't contain his own laughter at it though. Written down it doesn't sound funny... Oh well.

I was pretty cheery at this point, but as I approached the desk I kept remembering the nightmare of going through Customs and being sent to Immigration last time. So then, here is a transcript of my dramatic return encounter with Canadian customs:

Him: Where are you going today?
Me: Vancouver.
Him: Where did you come from?
Me: London.
Him: Why are you traveling into Canada?
Me: Holiday.
Him: How long for?
Me: A week.
Him: Who are you staying with?
Me: A friend.
Him: What do you do back in England?
Me: Student.
Him: *stamp stamp stamp* Have a nice stay in Canada, sir.

THAT WAS IT! No "have you met this friend before?" No "you're not a criminal, are you?" No immigration, no follow up questions, no nothing! Things could have been so different last time! Oh well, at least this time it was stress free.

I had 2 and a half hours to kill in Montreal, so I went to find some food. I walked past a place called Moe's, but it looked busy (what did I care? I had 2 and a half freaking hours to kill) so I opted for Tim Horton's. After a really rather nice ham and "swiss" sandwich (ham sandwiches are greatly improved with mayo and I am glad that I've discovered my liking for it) and a REALLY good donut and hot chocolate, I sat down at my gate and dived back into my Jericho book. Up until this point I had been doing pretty well, but now it was about half 10 at night UK time and I could feel my eyes getting heavy. My plan had been to stay awake the whole trip on the basis that I was landing in Vancouver at 10:40 pm local time and it would be time to sleep by then anyway, so I could quickly adjust to the time difference. But when I got onto my last flight, I started having doubts. Mentally I felt fine, but if I got too comfortable and let my eyes close for a second, I could feel myself drifting off. I took 2 steps to solve this issue;

1. Order Coca Cola from a hostie, and
2. Listen to loud music.

The coke instantly perked me back up, and I got stuck into my second ever listening session to the new In Flames album "A Sense Of Purpose". I'm still not sure about it, but I'm pretty bad at putting into words what I do and don't like with my music so I'll leave it at that. The little tune for their 8 minute experiment "The Chosen Pessemist" has been stuck in my head ever since though. I also had another listen to R.E.M's latest, "Accelerate", which I've already decided I really like. The coke suger/caffiene boost soon wore off and I was back to square one again, but I soon got another shot of caffiene in me and spend the rest of the trip watching episodes of Red Dwarf and the X Files (filmed in Vancouver!) on my Zen.

I was relieved to finally arrive in Vancouver, and just in the nick of time: I'd finally drifted off on our descent but was awoken as we touched the ground. I wandered into the baggage claim area and was soon spotted a familiar face walking in my direction: Lea! No, not really, it was Dan, my Canadian friend and host, an even more welcoming sight at the end of my 24 hour journey. He drove me back to his house and we talked about the week ahead, amongst other things. By the time we got back to his house, we were both ready to hit the hay (luckily, though, he has actual beds and not hay). With "The Chosen Pessemist" still running through my head, I settled in to finally sleep, with the home local time being 6:30 am.

Epilogue: I woke up today at 6:30 local time. Stupid body clock.