Can Fish, Will Fly

I have been feeling pretty stressed about this whole Nova Scotia trip without Michael, but yesterday the rubber hit the road and I decided that it was time to relax because I had done all that I could do to prepare and needed to just start enjoying it. I was feeling pretty proud of myself for having the foresight to book a direct flight to Halifax, because if I had doubts about Michael and I navigating the Pearson in Toronto, then FOR SURE mom and I couldn’t do it. We are both highly anxious and don’t really pay attention so I felt like that was $60 well spent. Ahem.

We pulled into Calgary last night, the 25 of September and shared a yummy Olive Garden dinner, took our sleeping pills and were off to dreamland by 10pm. I woke up in the morning refreshed and ready to go, only to realize that it was 11.57pm. Thankfully, I was able to get back to sleep. I had provided mom with earplugs so that she wouldn’t have to hear me in the off case that I snored…

She missed the wake up call so I gently woke her up by tapping her on the tip of her nose. She can sure jump! She paid me back by using aerosol deodorant. I had the worst asthma type attack I’ve ever had and I was sure thankful when we found an inhaler!

We shuttled to the airport and made it through check in and security lickety split! The only glitch was that they took our grapefruit segments away because they were packed in juice and over the legal limit. You never know what two flatlanders armed with citrus are capable of.

Just as we were about to start boarding, the gate attendants reminded us all to get out our identification and make sure they were up to date and that the names matched exactly. To fly within Canada you need either one piece of Canadian photo ID or 2 other government issued IDs. I had texted mom and reminded her to bring her Driver’s license but she was already in
Regina when she got the message and had brought her passport along so it was no big deal that she had left her license in her other purse... until she pulled out the passport.

Me- Mom! Your passport is expired.

Mom- Hahaha. It doesn’t expire till 2017!

Me- Um…it IS 2017. We had better go talk to the desk agents.

They informed us that we would not be getting on that flight but not to worry! There was one leaving in just under two hours that had a little bitty layover in Toronto. Again, not to worry though...we would arrive in Terminal B and also depart from Terminal B. All we needed to do was go to Cabella’s and pick up a Fishing License. Say what? Ya… a fishing license is valid Canadian ID THAT THEY USED HER EXPIRED PASSPORT TO VERIFY AND ISSUE. (because THAT makes all the sense in the world)

So we grabbed a cab and Ranjeet assured us that he would wait for us with our carry-on baggage (our checked luggage was already on the plane enroute to Halifax...non stop of course). Imagine the pickle we would have been in if he had taken off! You better believe I snapped a pic of his plate before we went inside.

We got up to the license area and the nice girl there immediately recognized our frazzled appearance and said-
I can see you need a fishing license for a flight but our license issuing software is down.

There was a Canadian Tire right next door so rather than hang myself, she suggested I call them and see if they were having the same issue while she called the Licensers to see if they could help. Canadian Tire came through and my mom is now the proud possessor of a one year Alberta Fishing License. She should get seconds of use and enjoyment out of it.

Ranjeet hustled us back to the airport while regaling us with the story of the reams of paperwork he had to do to come over from India. Fascinating Ranjeet, but can you please just drive like you would back home and get us back to the dang airport? Tick Tock!

We got to skip the check in line and go straight to security for my second x-ray of the day. I set off the sensors because of my hip so I bypass and go straight through the machine.  The cutie that was escorting me to the machine asked if I would like the pat down or the scan. I looked him up and down and since my Mom didn’t raise no fools, I chose the pat down. He blushed and informed me that it would not be him that did the patdown but rather Ranjeet’s cousin. She was a handsome woman with an enviable gal-stache, but in the interest of getting to the gate on time, I chose the scan in the end.

Our seat mate on the flight was a hoot! I think he looked like a Jason so that’s what we’ll call him. He joked mom right out of her funk with hilarious well timed jibes about her fishing career and us being lost in the wilds of Nova Scotia forever. I’m also 87% certain that he was an air-marshal. It was a fun flight and he blocked people to get us off the plane which almost worked except that he wandered past us when we were lost for about 3 minutes. As far as he knows, we now live at the Toronto airport.

The Calgary gate ladies were awfully nice, but they don’t know the first thing about the Toronto Airport. Gate B is about 12 km long. And we had to hustle the whole way. We lost a lot of time waiting on the tarmac for an open spot to park the plane. (My aviation terminology is stunning, eh!)

We did make it to our connection with sweat pouring down our necks and had another lovely seatmate that I will call Gale. She lives in Digby, NS, and gave us some great tips!

Our luggage was well rested and hanging out waiting for us at the West Jet booth when we got into the airport. Our driver, who we’ll call Robert, (because I can’t read what he wrote on his card) was amazingly well versed in the history of the area and inspired me to try to get to the museum tomorrow morning where there is tons of really wonderful Titanic memorabilia that was picked up by the ships that went out to collect the bodies of the deceased. All of the lost souls that were recovered from Titanic are buried in Halifax.

Many thanks to Ranjeet, Jason, Gale, and Robert for making what could have been a really stressful day into one where we laughed and learned and had a generally good time.

Mom- I’m proud of how calm you stayed. (on the outside anyway!) I’m so glad you came with me, and one little glitch just makes for great Blog Fodder! If this is the worst thing that happens on this trip, we’re golden!