Back to Venice (And Canada)

We arrived in Venice early on the last day, but were not disembarking first, so we made it up to the Lido deck for breakfast. We happened to be sitting next to a couple that was also from Ontario and after chatting a bit, we learned they were from Sault Ste. Marie and the husband was an instructor at Fleming College, where Erin went to school. He taught Erin’s program and knew him very well!

After disembarking, we took the train into Venice to get on another train to the airport. The departures area of Marco Polo Airport was very different and much more lavish than the arrivals area where we started the trip by waiting quite a while for our travel companions.

We took a short hop to Rome and had to go through a passport check where a rude Italian man tried to cut in front our group. I explained that there was a line and he seemed pretty surprised to be told to wait by a young woman. Then he tried to pretend he did not speak English and finally that he was in a rush and should get to cut in. It turned out he was on our flight, so he was in the same rush we were.

We also got to experience a bussing facility to take us out to our plane in the middle of the tarmac. This was my first bussing experience and it was crowded, had limited seating and the lines for any type of food or drink were crazy long. After getting to our Alitalia plane, its airworthiness seemed a bit sketchy and it also had broken seats, broken entertainment systems and our Italian friend. Mom and I just tried to sleep the whole way home, which worked pretty well. After landing in Toronto, we finished off with our drive home to London and all proceeded to pass out for many hours.

Overall, it was an exciting and interesting adventure. We came home with many memories, stories and lovely souvenirs (including my bruise, which had become a beautiful rainbow in the two days since it happened).

Welcome to Amsterdam!

Myself, some of our extended family and a few friends were supposed to set off for a Mediterranean adventure on Thursday, May 1, 2014. We were going to be flying to Venice, on Thursday, May 1, 2014, arriving on Friday, May 2, 2014. On Sunday, May 4, 2014, we would be embarking on a cruise with stops in: Bari, Italy, Katakolon, Greece, Santorini, Greece, Piraeus, Greece, Corfu, Greece, Dubrovnik, Croatia.

It is a six-hour time difference and even longer combination of flights! As it happens, we had a bit of a delay to our trip. Italy, Greece and Croatia would have to wait a bit longer for us. We had a serious lack of internet while away, so I will be posting about our experiences over the next week or so.

After myself, mom, Esther, Brian and Betty Jean arrived at the airport in Toronto nice and early, we found out that there was bad weather in New York and they changed our flights . . . to 6:00am the next day!

We weren't having it, so at the last minute, mom and I were sent off to a KLM flight to Venice, connecting through Amsterdam. It all happened so quickly, that we didn't have any time to chat with our other three travel companions and had to simply run off. We now have passport stamps from the Netherlands! I was pretty excited because many of the people I worked with (and will be working with again) are from a Dutch company and I’ll get to tell them about my stop next time I see them.

The food on the KLM flight was awesome and I even had a beer to go along with my dinner. It all came in cute little containers and tasted pretty good! It also seemed like they never stopped dropping by with drinks and snacks (although you could sleep and they would leave you be), which made our unexpected detour much more pleasant. I napped a bit, read a bit, visited mom a few rows up and watched a movie, all in addition to the food.

Finally, after our connection at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, we arrived at the Marco Polo Airport in Venice, Italy! We were hoping that shortly after this we would see our three missing travel companions, but they didn’t seem to be showing up. After some other family members and friends arrived on a flight from Paris, France, where they had already been exploring prior to our cruise, we gave up hope that the others would be arriving today.

Exhausted, we headed into Venice on a vaporetto, a type of waterbus, after a long hike out to the dock in the rain. We rolled our suitcases onto what we thought was the spacious boat and had a seat. I commented how smart it was to be able to roll suitcases on since this was the airport stop. Then, the actual vaporetto showed up . . . and it appeared to be very tiny! We had to lug our suitcases across the gangplank, where they were piled into the top section of the boat, while we crawled down underneath. We watched in sadness during the trip as rain poured down on a few suitcases belonging to members of our group. Hopefully our accommodations would have lots of blankets to warm us up, since our clothes obviously wouldn’t be doing that!

We ended up taking the wrong vaporetto and were a bit far from the apartments we would be staying in. We had to cross the Realto Bridge, which is composed of approximately a million steps, with our giant, soggy suitcases in tow. Luckily, two very nice tourists helped me out because I am just too small to be dragging a bag that large up and down stairs! We finally ended up in our apartments and after trying to get some messages through to our missing travel companions, mom and I passed out for the night in a series of naps. We hoped that this would get us on Italy time for the rest of our trip!

Lauren Takes to the Airport for the Last Time

Well, this is it. I no longer have my fancy security pass and I'm playing the role of passenger today. I've been at the airport for the past 14 hours, since I came in for my last day of work today and decided I wasn't going to leave!

We had our Christmas luncheon today, where we all dressed up in ugly Christmas sweaters, ate lots of tasty food and participated in a gift exchange. Since I had nowhere else to go, I got to spend time chatting with some of the other engineers, directors and even the vice-president of engineering!

In case you haven't heard, I was also selected as Co-op Student of the Year for 2013! I'm thrilled about this and I'm sure that the airport is breathing a sigh of relief that their experiment in hiring me worked out so well. I even got to chat a bit with our new CEO at the luncheon, since he had also heard about the award!

I have a replacement coming in for January, so hopefully the student will be able to find as much value in this experience as I did. I think that the biggest thing I took away was the confidence that was reinforced in me to actually believe that I'm ready to be an engineer (well, an EIT), once I graduate.

I spent my last few hours at the airport with a few of the (female) engineers that I had become close with. We sat around in the Fairmont lounge, which felt pretty classy, even though I was wearing a sweatshirt. I think my uncle would also approve of the beverage I enjoyed before heading to security.

So, you might have seen the WestJet video where they asked passengers for their Christmas wishes and then there were gifts waiting at the destination. WestJet also gave me a bit of a gift this evening too. Although I'm convinced that my stuff has been multiplying in my suitcase because there is just way too much of it, apparently I've just accumulated too much stuff since moving here. My three bags weighed in at 51lb, 58lb and 61lb. Since the overweight limit is 50lb, they were going to be nice and only charge me overweight for two of the three bags. Today was a pretty busy travel day (apparently the busiest of the year) and the payment system was on the fritz as I was going to drop my bags. So, the agent said "Merry Christmas!" and told me that I didn't have to pay because they didn't want to deal with it. Thank you WestJet!

What else have I been up to this week, other than packing? Well, I decided to go to the Hannah Georgas concert last night at the Commodore Ballroom (she's really great live!) and passed marketing with flying colours! I also made these lovely candy cane reindeer because I'm just so crafty (and really like glue guns).

So, here it is. This will be my final post, since I'll hopefully be boarding soon (since the unusually massive amounts of snow are melting just fine) and landing in Toronto in a few hours (if the freezing rain can hold off). I am taking to the airport for the last time . . . for now, at least!

Lauren Takes to the Air - Part 1

This past weekend, I didn't just take to the airport, I took to the air! I headed back to Ontario for a quick visit to attend my cousin's wedding. Even though it was brief (I was only in Ontario for about 41 hours), it was totally worth it! I loved getting to see my parents and extended family (even though there's a lot of us, we're very close!) and even my best friend! She normally lives pretty much in Manitoba, so this is only the second time I've seen her in the last year. We might have stayed up until 2:00 am talking on Friday night. Whoops! My cousin is also starting at my university in September, so we had tons to talk about. My voice is still recovering from the trip because there was a whole lot of talking and not a whole lot of sleep. I haven't had a normal voice since sometime on Saturday evening.

My adventure started on Friday morning. I had booked a 9:00 am flight with Air Canada (keyword: "booked"), but unbeknownst to me, the flight I booked on was a Boeing 777 that originated in Sydney, Australia. It stopped over in Vancouver, then continued on to Toronto. The problem with this is that if it's late coming out of Australia, it's going to be late leaving Vancouver. So, I got to sit around "the office" for a few hours longer than I planned. This also meant that my connection home? Not going to happen! So, after a painful, hunger-inducing time spent in line, I got the connection cancelled and finally had my boarding pass.

Protip: If you want your flight to be on time, maybe don't book that particular one. However, if you want a free $10.00 meal voucher, that's your flight!

Sadly, I didn't have a window seat on the plane. The girl who did though was kind of weird. I sat in my seat, staring longingly out the window because I wished I had a window seat. I also wanted to see my airport from views I don't normally see it from. As we're still taxiing on the runway, she folds her legs up, shuts the window, closes her eyes and starts meditating. I totally get if you're nervous and that helps, but first of all, why did you get a window seat? I would have totally enjoyed it! Second, your eyes were shut, you could have left it open for me and still been content. I didn't think this was very cool!

Long story short, I made it to Toronto and after locating my lost dad and my bag (which took way longer than it should have . . . ), we went out to the car where my dad had a whole bunch of my favourite snacks waiting for me! We talked all the way home and my best friend was waiting for me at my house.

Then, Saturday was the wedding. So much fun and yes, an open bar. Apparently, at weddings, getting an alcoholic beverage when you're underage is okay, if you're with your mom. The second time I went up for a drink, I got ID'd because my mom wasn't by my side!

On Sunday, my second and last morning in Ontario for the trip, we went over to my aunt and uncle's new house because I hadn't seen it yet. They had a pool, but I didn't think it was quite warm enough for me to jump in. Actually, Ontario was rather disappointing on the hot, swimming weather front. After that it was time to head to the airport. I was making a connection in Toronto this time, so my parents didn't have to take the long drive. Since it's a small airport, it doesn't take long to get through security, but I went through a bit early, just to be safe. Since I obviously hadn't spent enough time with my parents, we mimed back and forth through the windows until I had to board. Pretty sure everyone else thought we were crazy.

On both flights, I got a window seat! My first flight was very cool because I was sitting RIGHT NEXT to the propellor. I loved watching it start up because it was so huge!

My second flight, from Toronto to Vancouver, I sat next to a lovely gentleman. During the second round of drinks, he toasted me with his orange juice. How lovely! One of the movies I watched on the plane was called "Lunarcy!" It was about people who are convinced that we are going to colonize the moon. As we were landing in Vancouver, I still had one of my my earphones in and about 10 seconds before we touched down, someone in the movie said "I didn't think there was anything wrong with the flight." I pretty much had a heart attack because I didn't realize it was in the movie, but thought it was someone on my plane. (They were recollecting when they heard about the Challenger explosion.) It was not, though and I landed safely. We came in over the water and it was still light, so I could see UBC, downtown, islands and my airport as we came in!

Stayed tuned for Lauren Takes to the Air - Part 2. This time I go to Alberta!