Oh, Canada!

Jul 7, 2007 · 3 minute read

Sometimes, you simply get the feeling that your life needs more adventure. At four in the morning, however, ADVENTURE! is the last thing that crosses your mind, far behind “Oh my goodness, what sort of time is this?”

Still, I remained true to the spirit of ADVENTURE! and hopped on a bus to Heathrow for my first-ever flight on Air Canada. How I marvelled at the Space Age check-in system that meant I didn’t have to speak to another human being and made the standard security questions even more pointless (“Press Here if you’ve let a scary terrorist pack your suitcase for you”). Marvelled, then frowned, as it took me five minutes to work out how it scanned my passport (it needed to be upside-down, though I didn’t see this anywhere on the machine, so I ended up looking a touch silly).

There’s something inescapably British about how Heathrow dumps you right in the middle of the huge duty-free section as soon as you clear Security Control. Even when you’re leaving, you should be a good little consumer. I’ll have to get used to it, I suppose, as the RDU/LGW flight to Chapel Hill is moving to Heathrow next year.

Incidentally: Surely, somebody at the publishers should have noticed that, well, the title has already been used? And that this book sounds suspiciously similar (it even appears to have Jordan Catalano in an updated guise!)?

Anyway, Air Canada. Everything is bilingual! Which doesn’t quite make up for the lack of LCD screens in the backs of chairs; not that either of the films they were showing were all that interesting. Instead, I watched SiCKO and Andrew Marr’s History of Modern Britain. Hurrah for the iPod Video. While everybody else was watching Hugh Grant, I was knee-deep in HMOs, North Sea oil, striking miners, and the three-day week. Not exactly holiday viewing, I’ll grant.

Some seven hours later, and Toronto Airport. Which is, in contrast to Heathrow’s shabbiness, is an airy beauty of metal and glass. Light streams in from outside, everything is typeset in the rather lovely Interstate font, and it’s full of helpful Canadians to point out that I was going the wrong way. Unlike Heathrow, it also seems to have restaurants that you’d actually like to eat in, which was a bonus on the way back…

Mind you, I wasn’t in the airport for long; soon I was on another, much smaller plane to Thunder Bay. I had the luck to be sitting next to an ex-pat Briton who had left the UK in 1979. IT was one of those conversations that started out well, but I soon fell into the trap of “What do you think of your new Prime Minister, then?” That and the country went to pot when we got rid of grammar schools. I was, perhaps shamefully, far too tired to put up much a fight about the differences between the tripartite and comprehensive systems of education, so I just nodded and moved on to a different subject. It seemed the best way of resolving the situation.

And then! Thunder Bay. It’s a little remote, and not quite what I’m used to in comparison to Chapel Hill, but still, an interesting place. It took me a while to get over the odd culture shock; it’s not America, and it’s not the UK, but a strange mixture of both. You can buy Crunchies and Hersheys at the same supermarket. A touch bizarre.

Yes, I did walk over these bridges. No, I’m not doing it again.