And so the Journey Begins

Well, actually, the journey is at halftime, but the first half we didn’t go anywhere.  Now, here we are (actually here I, Sean, am) on the way to actually meet our fifth child!  This will be the first of our children who I will meet first, and I feel so honored that I get to have this chance.  Not many fathers get to have that chance, so I hold onto this opportunity with an amount of gravity reserved only for the most profound of life’s moments.

On the way to the airport

But alas, I’m not there yet.  I’m hanging out in my first layover of two.  I started this morning in Columbia, SC, drove with the family up to Charlotte, NC to catch my flight to Toronto, ON.  Charlotte airport was a rather easy airport to navigate; it wasn’t anything compared to my usual port of call, Atlanta, GA.  Things went smoothly without a single problem.

Since this is the first time that I have traveled internationally in over 16 years and first time by myself, I am constantly playing the game of “Where’s my passport?!”

“Oh, its in my carryon.”

“Oh, its in my jacket.”

“Oh, its in my butt pocket….wait, why is it there?!”

First bit of advice to myself – find a place to park the passport.  For me, I found my front pocket to be quite handy.  I also relocated my credit card and immediate boarding pass there.  Makes life a little easier.

Oh, and on the subject of carrying stuff on your person, I abso-freaking-LOVE my jacket.  Not only does it have a slight shabby professorial feel to it, but man I have pockets galore.  It's like a free carry on!  Currently, its housing my calculator (yeah, I’m a nerd…get over it), my Bulgarian phrase book and my little St. Therese statue and…hhmmmm, room for lots more.  Oh well.  I did have more but it got moved to my carry-on (the real one).

Well, the flight to Toronto was not too bad.  The plane was a small commuter plane so that meant that my carry-on got stored on the plane elsewhere.  So I had to say adios to it while I took my actuarial exam materials and a book, The Search for Saint Valeria, into the cabin.  They didn't offer a single bite to eat on the plane, not even a biscotti!  But drinks were provided, so it wasn't a total loss.  I sipped my ginger ale while reading my book whose main protagonist is a ginger ale connoisseur.  Perfect!

Rosemary took one last shot of Mom and Dad together

As I said, the plane was small and not very comfy, but I managed to catch a few winks before landing here.  For some strange reason, I had Weird Al's song, Canadian Idiot, stuck in my head as we landed.  It was kind of cool coming off because they had the staircase with wheels come over to the door for us to come out.  I always found that to be the “proper” way to come out of a plane…probably comes from watching The Rescuers Down Under.

Anyway, after landing in Toronto I had to muddle through customs and found that I was completely lost!  I can usually navigate my way through most American airports, but I didn’t find the usual plethora of check-in counters.  At this point I noticed that my cognitive abilities were considerably impaired and couldn’t problem solve my way out of a paper bag with a cat in it.  Then I remembered that I should look for departures.

Which leads me to the sad part of the story.  I had to take an elevator to the top floor for the ticket counters.  Knowing that Joey is an absolute elevator geek, I wanted to get a photo of the elevator for him.  Well…I took the camera out, and I turned it on and….the camera was broken!  The camera would turn on, but the display was all matter of messed up.  That really upset me; got me in a funk.  I just had a hard time thinking of how I was going to do this trip to meet our Abraham without having photos to share.

I was in this funk when I made my way to security and I sort of fumbled through getting my stuff onto the conveyer.  It must have been how they packed the carryon in the commuter plane that caused the problem….What about my computer?  How was it?  I had all of these questions going through my head at security.

At about that time, I was told to wait as they did some sort of security thing on the other side of the metal detector.  So as they were doing that, and in between my dark thoughts of compy doom, I slowly put the rest of my “metal” in the little bins.

“Crap…better put this broken camera in there.”

“Oh yeah….my belt….can’t forget that….”

And some other stuff.  Once they got that cleared up, they had my bins and carryon go through their detector and I was good to go. Except that….

I won the PRIZE!  I was hot enough for an enhanced pat down!  Actually they said that I was “randomly” chosen (wink-wink) for the enhanced pat down.  Well, either that or a full body scan.  I wasn’t feeling frisky so I decided to do the body scan.

Once I got my stuff together, I found my way to the gate.  It was around 3:40 by then and I wasn’t to board until 6:30, so I decided to walk around a bit.  That’s when I saw it!

A Best Buy Express kiosk!

To be honest, I hate Best Buy…well, it doesn’t excite me.  Can’t really say hate.  Nope….trying to teach Joey not to say that. So no, not hate.  But this time, I was absolutely happy to see it.  It is one of those self-serve automated things with a touch screen menu.  I decided to take a look for digital cameras….any one would suffice!  Well, within reason.

Out with the old (blue) and in with the new...

So for the next five minutes I’m standing there trying to decide on what to get.  All of the ones that I wanted to get (read “inexpensive”) were sold out.  But there was one rather decent, slightly higher priced camera that was available.  Not knowing what was ahead as far as availability, or compatibility to US stuff, or….trying to feel better about killing the other camera, I decided to get it.  Was it the best decision?  We will wait until the end of the week on that one.  I tried it and it looks slick and is mucho mucho mnogo better quality than we had before, so….looks promising.

After a tuna sandwich, some chips, and a coke, I wrote this.  I’ll be boarding in a bit heading for Allemagne!  I mean Germany, before landing in the great land of Hristo Stoichkov: Bulgaria.

St. Christopher, pray for us!  Oh dude….I just saw one of the planes and they are HUGE.  Lemme go get a photo!

God bless!

Sean