Woke up this morning definitely not wanting to go, but really when do I want to leave the house? Normally, never. I'm a home body through and through which makes my choice in careers pretty interesting. I forced myself to get up this morning and pack. Things aren't that great right now. I'm feeling all sorts of off but not going on this trip wasn't going to help anything, so I left the house the way it was, packed and headed to Philly airport for my flight.
Finding parking there was an adventure. I'm going to have to research where to park for next time.
Check in at the International terminal was a breeze - that is once the US Air employee showed me the correct way to slide my passport - DUH! And getting through security at the A terminal was also a breeze except for this ass in front of me that left a water bottle in his bag and didn't take it out because he couldn't find it. Okay, whatever, the security guard shows him where it is and he finds it but then proceeds to drink it while the rest of us in line behind him wait - are you kidding me? Inconsiderate, self-centered people drive me mad.
My flight was actually leaving out of the F terminal so I took a shuttle from A to F - took a tour of the tarmac and wasn't really happy to be on a little bus amongst all of the gigantic planes.
I got to the gate with an hour and twenty minutes to go, or so I thought. Plane was delayed due to mechanical issues. That's just great and just what I wanted to hear, but honestly happy that I wasn't flying out of BWI today. Someone discarded pepper spray at security in the B terminal there and it went off - they had to evacuate the whole terminal. What a mess.
Despite the one hour delay, the trip was uneventful. I sat in the front row of the very small jet next to a girl who thinks traveling as much as I do would be great. Like I tell everyone, do it for a year and then let me know. She asked if I was excited to go to Halifax - umm, nope, not even a little. I'm not going to see much. I land in Halifax and drive to Moncton, hotel, hospital, drive, hotel, plane - not much to get excited about. She was upset that the plane was late because she wasn't going to have anyone to pick her up. She asked me where I was headed and when I told her Moncton she said, "oh that's in the opposite direction from me." Did she really think I was going to offer her a ride. I'm an American from the Northeast - yeah right, that wouldn't have happened.
Get off the plane, head to customs. Apparently when I told the custom agent what I was doing, he didn't like my answer. I think I confused them by saying that I was going to do some work at a hospital - I think they thought I was moving to Canada for work since he sent me to immigration. I'm not moving up there. It took a long time to get them to understand what I was doing in their country. From now on, I'm just going to say clinical research and see how that goes. I won't make the mistake of telling them I'm going to work at a hospital again.
The rest of the trip was pretty easy. My bag was waiting for me, getting my car was a breeze and I was on my way.
The most confusing thing about driving in Canada was realizing that the kilometer per hour are on the top of the speedometer as opposed to below the mph as is on US cars. I figured that out pretty quick and was on my way.
During the drive I saw a sign that said I was at the half way point between the equator and the north pole. Now I've been to the northern half of the northern hemisphere - how about that. The town was called Stewiacke.
The drive looked very much like a drive at home - saw signs for Subway, KFC, McDonalds.
I had to pull off the road into a little town to get Canadian money for the toll so I pulled off of an exit in Masstown to hit an ATM at a little gas station that looks like something the 1950s or 60s left behind. I wish I had gotten pictures of it. I did take a picture of the restaurant across the street that is shaped like a lighthouse. I'm thinking next time maybe I'll stop here and eat to see what it was like.
The toll was $4 CA to drive on road - no bridge or anything and it's interesting that Canada has no $1 bills - it's all coins.
I arrived at the hotel exhausted and ordered a steak from room service. Forgot the ketchup, still it was pretty good.
It was interesting to see how bilingual these places are. Moncton is much more bilingual than Halifax. Everything in Moncton is in both languages.
Stew emailed me the list of auction items for this Friday. I'll be out of town and he's supposed to go to the Phillies' game, so it figures that there are things there that we wanted.
I'm getting in bed to read for awhile and will probably fall asleep pretty quickly.
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