On, August 25th, I finally left Canada for London. That Monday was a bit of madness for me, I had finished packing (but wasn’t happy with the results) around 3 am, stayed up until about 5 getting lists finalized and printed, and being generally stressed out. I woke up just before 7 feeling extremely anxious. At this point, my two suitcases were weighing in between 49 and 49.5 pounds (the limit being 50) and my carry-on was about .3 of a pound under 22 (the limit). My personal item stretched the boundaries of personal item for SURE as it ended up weighing in at over 22 pounds and I couldn’t get the zipper closed… oops.
Regardless, I did not fall asleep full of joy and happiness as my suitcases were missing some items I was super loathe to part with and might even end up overweight if the wind blew the wrong way.
Just after 7 I went down to talk to my mum and voice my fears, she then assisted me in removing a few items from each suitcase and redistributing items in order to get BOTH my large suitcases and carry-on suitcase underweight… I wish I had packed those jeans I had decided against the day before, alas. By the time I got everything sorted and my dear friend, and the most helpful packing assistant ever, Steph had to head back home and I had juuuust enough time to finish getting last-minute electronics together and get myself put together.
We left Peterborough around 2:30 pm, before I knew it (and with a pit stop on the way due to my nerves) we were at Jack Astor’s and I was eating my first meal of the day, and my last meal in Canada. My amazing friend Steph, who was also my personal packing assistant extraordinaire stopped by Jack’s to do me one last HUGE favour. She had procured some book files but we had been unable to get them from her micro SD card onto my computer (and we tried every conceivable way) so this wonderful woman drove back to Brampton, from Peterborough, loaded all of the files onto a thumb drive and then drove that over to me, hers was the last (non-parental) familiar face I would see in Canada!
Once at the airport my parents and I waited in what I felt was a ridiculously long line, but which they assured me was not) to check my two 48 pound suitcases. I found this to be very difficult as I suck at saying good-bye, especially to the two people who mean the most to me in the world. My dad had been pretty stoic about the whole affair prior to the airport but as we were waiting in the baggage line even he couldn’t help getting a bit emotional. This is good as, in the letter I left for him to read after I left, I told him that if he didn’t tear up I would be very disappointed. I was not. Mum and dad stuck around to the bitter end to shout out and wave to me as I passed through security and then, I was on my own. Another vision teacher, Jodi, was flying out on the same flight and I had told her to look for a girl with a purple carry-on and grey/white large personal item bag (it’s a diaper bag, I am not even ashamed because it’s fabulous and it weighed as much as my carry on and STILL passed for a personal item. BONUS!). Time went on and I still had not met the elusive Jodi so I felt a bit awkward, lonely, and started to question what the hell I was doing. Luckily, just as I was feeling the most freaked out, Jodi appeared! We sat and chatted for a bit while waiting to board but we were seated ten rows apart.
Finally, the time came to board, I was seated beside an older couple who didn’t speak much English but had an aisle seat so I was able to stretch out my legs a bit so that was cool. Not cool was the in-flight literature.
One does not want to read about volcanoes when one is racing against one that is set to erupt at any time. As I hunkered down for the first 4:55 minute leg of my journey I was full of excitement, trepidation, fatigue, and sadness … here goes the adventure of a lifetime.
falling asleep midsentence 