s07e12 - Up, Up and Away

It's been a few days and since I last put pen to paper I've managed to escape Toronto (just) and have made two thirds of the way across Canada to the province of Alberta, in particularly Calgary where I will spend the next few weeks staying with my very good friends Andrew, Naomi and their little baby Sebastian, who is 4 months old and already thinks I'm something quite odd as I seem to have the knack of making him giggle every time I look at him!

So why did I only "just" get out of Toronto?
Well, me and Baz and devised a cunning plan to move out to Mississauga for our last night in Toronto so that the ride to the airport for a 715am flight wouldn't be a long one. For those wondering, Mississauga is closer to the airport ... 'a lot' closer to the airport)
In any case we checked out of 'crack central' (Sherbourne Ave) at our allotted 11am and then took a 50 minute cab ride out to the Best Western on Dixie Rd, right next to the airport only to have reception tell us that our room was not ready yet and that we should come back in around 3 hours.

Brilliant.

So off we walked down Dixie ... which I know has a few retail outlets on it and so the walk probably wouldn't be so bad. Unfortunately we walked toward the more industrial side of Dixie straight into wind that I'm sure was coming straight off a glacier someplace.
We found refuge in a Mr Sub for about an hour watching the Canadian government stab itself in the front while chowing down on a delicious chicken sandwich. That killed an hour and in that hour we started getting snow. Not the cool variety snow though, wimpy little flakes that burnt up as they hit the ground .... very unsatisfying.
With 2 hours to go before 'check in' take 2, we ended up playing a few dozen games of eight ball in a little tavern just around the corner from our over night digs.

Well the rest of the day after that was pretty uneventful but the morning didn't start without incident with our airport shuttle at 530am being waaay overbooked and then after being promised exit seats on the 4 hour flight to Calgary myself and Baz where seated one row behind the exit seats giving the both of us a very cramped and long flight.

Andrew met us both at the airport and and gave myself and Baz a first rate "idiots Guide to Calgary" tour before dropping Baz off at his mates place and then heading back to his house out on the prairie someplace!