the end bit and back to real life

i didn't make it to otavalo on my last day. but i did go up the TelefériQo - a gondola that takes you up to the top of a mountain where there are GREAT views of quito. unfortunately, the clouds came in before we got to the top, so not much of a view. my last day was pretty mellow. just wandered around quito. and we got hailed on. BIG hail. painful hail. and it came down QUITE hard for an hour or two. at the end of it all, there was a layer of ice/hail a couple centimeters deep on the ground. it almost looked like snow...



so i left for the airport on friday morning to start my way back to canada. i was thinking it'd be a pretty easy, low-key day. little did i know what was to come...

i checked in my two pieces of luggage, was told that i would have to pick up my luggage in miami and then re-check them in and then they would go straigh to calgary, paid the airport tax and went through security and headed towards the gate my plane was leaving from. i passed the duty-free shop and bought a bottle of local liquor (sugar cane alcohol brewed with fruit) for my dad. board the plane, plane leaves, plane lands - a rather uneventful flight, which is totally ok. i have about an hour and a half to get through american customs, pick up my luggage, drop off my luggage again, go through security again, get to the gate that my flight to dallas is at and get on the plane before it leaves or before the airline lady sells my ticket to someone flying standby. an hour and a half isn't a very long time - ESPECIALLY if they're taking digital photos and two sets of fingerprints from EVERYONE. it took an hour for the ten people ahead of me to get through and i'm starting to get a little anxious and then another customs officer comes by to take the current guy off. that took at least five minutes. and when i get to the counter, the customs officer looks at the cover of my passport and tells me that i could have actually gone through the U.S. citizen line-up. he asks me if i know why. because everyone likes canadians? nope. apparently canadians are processed and shuffled through the same way (administratively) as american citizens. so basically i stood in the long line so that he could take two minutes to stamp my passport and customs form. oi.

i look at my watch and boot it to the luggage claim area. i grab my bags and make my way toward the new luggage drop off area with the airline lady telling me to hurry because my flight was boarding. so i drop my bags and run to the next security checkpoint and it's not until then that i realize i forgot to put the bottle of liquor in my backpack into my checked-in luggage. i ran back to the airline desk and asked if it was possible to check it in at that time but it was too late. i didn't even have time to go somewhere to send it back home by post. so U.S. customs got it. boo. to top it off, i had to SPRINT to my gate as my name was called as "final call" about three times. my flight was leaving at gate forty-six. i was at gate one. i ran. when i got to the gate, the airline lady looks at me, "chan?" "yeah." "oh, please wait a moment." and then she types something into the computer and reprints me a boarding pass - she had already taken my name off the list and was selling my ticket to a standby flyer. SOOO glad i made it.

i had a few hours to spend in the dallas fort went airport. like i mentioned in an earlier post, it's a fun airport to be in. i went around the skytrain again. bought overpriced food. and then struck up a conversation with the salesguy at a store and he sat me down in a sweet $4000US massage chair and let me sit there for an hour while we chatted. that was one comfortable chair. best layover EVER. almost missed boarding for my flight to calgary because the chair was so comfy.

so i got back to calgary on friday night. got picked up by a couple friends at the airport and went to peter's for a burger - mmmmm. =) on saturday, i had these grand plans to get stuff organized - oil change for my car, grocery shopping, unpack, put stuff away, get an appetizer ready for the work holiday party that night. so i wake up early to get a start on all this, head down to my car at around eight thirty or so, i turn the key in the ignition to start my car only it doesn't. nothing. no noise, no lights. nothing. my battery was shot. i wander around the underground parking lot to my building, hoping SOMEONE has booster cables. no one has them. so i call a few people - no one's picking up their phones. apparently my friends like to sleep past nine on saturday mornings. so i sent out a mass text message asking who was awake, pleading for help. a few people responded within a half hour or so and one ended up coming over to give my car a boost. he followed me to the shop where i dropped off my car for new oil and a new battery and then he and his girlfriend were SUPER nice and drove me around to run some errands for the next few hours. picked up my car that afternoon and still made it to the party. =)

i was back coaching kids' triathlons on sunday afternoon. back at work in the hospital on monday. i didn't realize how many people at work were following this blog until people started referring to things i've mentioned here or they just told me that they were following it. almost makes me want to go back and re-read all my posts. and i'm finding that i don't know where to start when people ask me how my trip went. there's SOOOO much to tell that i get kind of overwhelmed and then just say, "it was really, really good." i'm not trying to be anti-social and it's not that i don't want to talk about it, i just honestly don't know how to begin... anyways, my first day back was good. a little rusty and slow - but it shouldn't take long to get back into it again.

so i've been back for four days now and i'm already starting to wonder where i'm going to find the time to do everything i want to do. i don't work full time at the hospital but i am still going to coach kids' triathlons once a week. i sent an email out to the volunteer coordinator at the place i'm volunteering at to figure out a regular voluteer shift; looking at registering for a beginners' spanish course at mount royal college for january; wanting to join the masters' swim club again and go to yoga regularly; i'm considering looking at some opportunities to do some consulting work in the community again; there are books i want to read, movies i want to see, friends to catch up with, and snowboarding trips to look forward to - once there's a decent amount of snow that's sticking around. so yeah, i'd REALLY like to have another twelve hours tacked on to each day. or an extra day or two every week. or if i didn't have to sleep...that would work...

AND i still have to sift through all my pictures and whittle it down to something more manageable than two thousand. i don't know if i'll post anymore on here but i will leave a link to a web album where i will eventually upload more pictures - so check back once in a while if you want to see pictures.

a guy i met had emailed me a couple days ago and said that after a week of being back, it'll feel like the trip never really happened. i didn't really believe him at first but now that i've started getting back into the groove of life here, it does feel a bit like i wasn't ever gone for two months - much less on a different continent. it's a little unnerving how easily and quickly i'm settling back into life here...