Travel Day #1: Through Amy's eyes

On tap are an ipod, four books, 18 movies, plenty of games and a whole score of turbo shitty American TV shows. It’s really unfortunate that Horatio, everyone’s favorite fluffy red-headed criminal investigator doesn’t keep me at the edge of my seat or that TV’s forensic science doesn’t blow my mind because man am I friggen bored. A view of the Rockies from the plane serves as a reminder that there is life outside this flying sardine can. Life which will resume in t-minus 10 hrs when feet touch ground in Nadi, Fiji.

Recounting some of this butt-numbing travel day, I’ll begin with our simultaneous panic attack. Either through the fault of an oversight on my part or junk mail’s overprotection, an email in which Sylvie set our meeting location in the Halifax airport remained unread. Alone at my gate with boarding time at 11:55am and the clock reading 11:57am, I began to pace, breath and worry heavily. All the while, Sylvie was apparently doing the same in the airport’s Timmies. Luckily with the help of a rule-breaking, might I even say bad ass, clerk at the Continental Airlines check-in, Sylvie’s mind was put at ease with the top secret knowledge that I had already in fact checked in. My mind in a full fledged freak-out, partially due to drinking four cups of coffee, was set to rest by the sight of Sylvie finally turning the corner. Heart attack averted! As two chatty Cathys, we sat and had ourselves a catch-up session until Mr. Stary McGoogly-eyes butted in questions-a-blazing. Struggling with our increasing annoyance and our ingrained Canadian courteousness, we both minimally made small talk of the awkward variety. A horseshoer by trade, he invited himself to Fiji and we both gave him the Frig-NO giggle. Thankfully Newark, our first connection, was where we parted ways with this older gentleman.

A total of 21 hrs of traveling with only a few sporadic naps between the two of us, we gladly set foot into Fiji airport at 5:30am. We had all we could ask for, a view of the surrounding mountain covered in a thick lush green forest with clouds lingering at its summit, a minor wait at the gate and a comfy air-conditioned coach bus waiting to bring us to the beach.