Friday, June 25, 2004
Midnight in Calgary... Goodbye Britannia
It's almost midnight here in Calgary on the first Friday night since we arrived. I'm lying in bed, with P beside me, blogging on our lovely wireless network. And this is my first blog. I have lots of photos to add to the site, and lots to write about everyday life in Canada, webcames, wireless networks and wireless gaming, but for now I need to start at the start...
7 days have passed since our big going-away party and our slightly disorganised exit from the UK. It's been a real rollercoaster of a week, but we're doing well and there have only been a few small bumps in the road so far...
Leaving our families was tough - much tougher than I had expected. And the people I expected to handle it the worst did surprisingly well, while others proved much more upset than I thought. In particular, P's mother and my dad were hit pretty hard by it all, bringing home to us the real significance of our Big Move. Both seem OK now, but saying goodbye is never easy and this goodbye was pretty awful. Everyone got together to give us a special book of photos of all the members of our two families, each accompanied by a hand-written salutation - I had a look at it today again and it brought a lump to my throat to realise how far from home we are now.
We got our stuff together on Saturday morning, packed our bags and went for lunch with P's dad and sister, thinking we had plenty of time... Then we decided to put together a last minute work permit application for P, at the insistence of Immigration Canada, and suddenly it was time to go the airport... We left some clothes behind as they wouldn't fit in the bags and we didn't even have time to strip the bedclothes before we left! The house was a mess anyway as it was full of Denise and Roy's stuff, and it wasn't really the way I had envisioned leaving the UK.
At the airport we fell foul of the 32 kilo rule, and the airline refused to handle our huge bags as they weighed 37 and 42 kilos respectively! We we going to leave all of our shoes behind to get the weight down, but the girl at check-in took pity on us and let us take our extra weight in a separate plastic bag without even charging us excess baggage! The kindness of strangers, indeed. There's no more humbling experience than being crouched on the floor at the head of a long check-in line with your belongings scattered on the floor, trying to decide whether you should put all of your shoes in the bin or not. I think we now know a little of what it must feel like to be a refugee.
Anyway our shoes arrived safely in Manchester and so did we. We bought a third bag, restowed our shoes and rebalanced our belongings at the lovely Britannia Country House Hotel. We were staying the night here for free, and we didn't get our money's worth... An awful room, surly staff and tasteless food (how can you get a burger and chips wrong?) combined to make our last night in the UK one to forget...
And in the morning it was off to the New World...
(To Be Continued)
7 days have passed since our big going-away party and our slightly disorganised exit from the UK. It's been a real rollercoaster of a week, but we're doing well and there have only been a few small bumps in the road so far...
Leaving our families was tough - much tougher than I had expected. And the people I expected to handle it the worst did surprisingly well, while others proved much more upset than I thought. In particular, P's mother and my dad were hit pretty hard by it all, bringing home to us the real significance of our Big Move. Both seem OK now, but saying goodbye is never easy and this goodbye was pretty awful. Everyone got together to give us a special book of photos of all the members of our two families, each accompanied by a hand-written salutation - I had a look at it today again and it brought a lump to my throat to realise how far from home we are now.
We got our stuff together on Saturday morning, packed our bags and went for lunch with P's dad and sister, thinking we had plenty of time... Then we decided to put together a last minute work permit application for P, at the insistence of Immigration Canada, and suddenly it was time to go the airport... We left some clothes behind as they wouldn't fit in the bags and we didn't even have time to strip the bedclothes before we left! The house was a mess anyway as it was full of Denise and Roy's stuff, and it wasn't really the way I had envisioned leaving the UK.
At the airport we fell foul of the 32 kilo rule, and the airline refused to handle our huge bags as they weighed 37 and 42 kilos respectively! We we going to leave all of our shoes behind to get the weight down, but the girl at check-in took pity on us and let us take our extra weight in a separate plastic bag without even charging us excess baggage! The kindness of strangers, indeed. There's no more humbling experience than being crouched on the floor at the head of a long check-in line with your belongings scattered on the floor, trying to decide whether you should put all of your shoes in the bin or not. I think we now know a little of what it must feel like to be a refugee.
Anyway our shoes arrived safely in Manchester and so did we. We bought a third bag, restowed our shoes and rebalanced our belongings at the lovely Britannia Country House Hotel. We were staying the night here for free, and we didn't get our money's worth... An awful room, surly staff and tasteless food (how can you get a burger and chips wrong?) combined to make our last night in the UK one to forget...
And in the morning it was off to the New World...
(To Be Continued)
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