Someone else’s story

So it’s related to mine, but I loved this blurb from the details of the trip for Luc’s brothers and mother (who arrived at Pearson just minutes after we did, in a – well the – different terminal, on a different flight, from a different city…isn’t modern travel cool?). Anyway…

On their way through customs, the officer asked the reason for their visit. They responded that they were coming for their brother’s wedding – “he’s marrying a Canadian girl”. With a big grin, the officer responded “good choice!” and barely looked at their passports (apparently) before stamping them and letting them through.

Cute

Another little detail – the smile and the comment cost nothing, but made the travel that much more pleasant for those three people, and reminded me (once again) why I miss dealing with Canadians so much!

Random act of kindness day

Upon arriving to my dad’s house, I leafed through the local newspaper: the Waterloo Record, I came across this article for the return of random act of kindness day on November 13th. I thought that the idea was cool, and have long subscribed to the belief that if you do something nice (and unexpected) for someone, they are far more likely to pass it on. The little thing that I like to do, to counter what I feel is unfairness about the parking receipt system (versus parking meters, where money left on a meter could be enjoyed by the next person who pulls into the spot) is to give a ticket with time left on it to the next person I see pulling in as a leave a parking lot/space. Of course, since this only works if someone happens to time it just right, I have since taken to leaving the ticket sticking out of the machine so the next person sees it before putting money in. Anyway, let me tell you what got me on this topic:

Yesterday was errand upon errand day, preparing for the third (and final!) wedding ceremony Luc and I have planned, and our honeymoon. One of the top priorities was to get the bridesmaid’s dress finished. The first shop couldn’t help (at least not same day, which I desperately needed), so we headed on to the next one. After get caught detours and wrong turns we found a parking lot near where we thought the next shop was. We paid for a half hour of parking, and the receipt read that it was paid up to 11:11. Something just seemed lucky about that, but the superstitiousness that led to that thought led me to keep it to myself for fear of “breaking” it. (Silly, I know, but everybody has those superstitious moments). We found the shop, and sure enough they agreed to take care of it same day (even though at first they were talking about the next morning). We were back to the parking lot in no time, and as we walked up, I saw a woman about the buy a parking ticket. I ran up to ask if she wanted hours, but she was planning to stay for several hours, so my 20 minutes wasn’t about to help her greatly. She seemed to think that the idea was really cool though. So I stuck the ticket into the change slot of the machine, and we were off for our next errand.

Just after 4:30, we were back to pick up the dress. To my (very pleasant) surprise, I found a ticket with 20 minutes left on it stuck in the machine. I stuck it on the windshield, my mind churning in wonder at our luck, and wondering whether it was the same person. When we got back to the car (with still a good 15 minutes left on the ticket, I checked the time of purchase and put the ticket back in the machine). It wasn’t hers. I actually can’t decide whether it being hers, or it not being hers makes the story even better, but either way, I absolutely love that there are probably tons of other people out there that do that, although I’d never seen it before (actually, just a couple of weeks ago, someone gave Luc and I one with hours left on it in Mulhouse, so this was the second time, but you get the idea).

So while I think that random act of kindness day is great, why wait for November 13th? You never know how much impact a small gesture could have on someone else. I realize that getting my 5 minutes of parking free thanks to someone else (rather than having to pay the minimum half hour) is minor, but it just makes your day (good or bad) so much better.

Lagging and Blogging

As jet lag has me up just after 4:00am for the second day in a row, I thought I’d make use of it to post some bits and pieces I wrote on the plane, and a couple of other things, post-dating them to roughly when I wrote them during the travel on the 16th. Enjoy!

Final thoughts of a smooth flight

One more tasty snack, early arrivals, no wait at customs, all bags arrived…
The trip was definitely the smoothest yet. And the tasty snack was a hot pastry with either lamb or vegetables, and both (we each got one) were fantastic. We’d had this kind of pastry the last time, and they were great then too. I kept the box for a while the last time planning to look them up, and, having tossed it ages ago, despite seeing the name again just a couple of hours ago, I’ve already forgotten. Ah well.

Let the pondering continue

Having watched a movie while I wrote the last bit, and while I got a bit of work done, then reading a bit and getting in a nap (in an attempt to get onto Canadian time as easily as possible), I woke up as they were bringing (more) water around, and was pleasantly surprised to find them also distributing ice cream and cookies. I have been served ice cream on flights before, but for some reason it seemed particularly nice today. The cool relief from the dry cabin air (just waking up from a nap, no leas), was just great. With so many empty seats, they also gave some of us an extra package of cookies! Another one of those things that they didn’t have to do, but that adds an extra touch (did I mention Bravo Air Canada?). Of course, just before that I was tempted to ask for extra ice cream, but when the gave us the extra cookies, it just seemed wrong to do so.

So, being on Air Canada, I felt the need to check the origins of the ice cream (with the fun spoon built into the the lid) and was disappointed to see that it was from the UK. Then I realised that it would be silly to have Canadian products (like the salt and pepper in hockey puck shaped mini shakers that I got years ago) on a flight _to_ Canada since, well, flying products somewhere for the sole purpose of having them consumed on the flight back seems a bit ridiculous when you think about it (although I suspect that it does happen often).

Random (or rather Ramadan ;)) thought

As a gentleman near us got his meal ahead of everyone else, certainly due to some particularly dietary need, a thought occurred to me (being that it’s Ramadan): when a Muslim travels through time zones (and therefore the day is suddenly extended by, for example, 6 hours or so, or the night reduced by as much), when are they allowed to eat?

We’re checkin’ in (they’re checkin’ in) aka why I’ll also fly Air Canada again

After first going to the wrong check-in desk (silly us for assuming that buying our ticket with Swiss meant checking in at the Swiss desk) we got to the right place (the Air Canada desk) where there was no line up, which was great, since I was concerned it would take a few minutes having not received a boarding card with my web check-in, but a paper that said “this is not a boarding card: go to the check-in desk”. The woman at the desk greeted us in Swiss German and asked where we were going. In the sliver of German I have, I said hello, told her we were going to Toronto, and then told her that my German wasn’t very good. She respond something pleasant, and then asked Luc (in English) for our passports.

We put the first (biggest) suitcase on the scale and held our breaths: we were right around the limit, but were pretty well prepared for the potential need to readjust. We were lucky though: it wasn’t too heavy. As Luc wrote the paper address tags, I realized that he had not included an address in Canada, so I asked the woman if I could switch them, explaining that my wedding dress was on the bag, so I wanted to be sure it got to the right place. While we wrote the other tags, I realized that she had added a “priority” tag to the suitcase and smiled: “we’d better make sure it gets there then!” and then, looking at Luc and back at me, “but I can’t even ask you what the dress looks like!”. I had almost forgot to tell her that when I checked in online, it had not given us seats together, so she had a look and said “well, the flight isn’t very full, shall I give you to aisle seats with an empty seat between them so that you have more space?”. As I write this (4 hours later, while sitting on the plane) it still makes me smile to think about. For her, these actions are nothing: they cost her nothing, nor did they cost anything to Air Canada or Swiss, and yet the effect on us is huge. It’s a shame that such customer service is so rare, but at the same time it makes it that much more amazing. Bravo Air Canada.

So here we are, in the plane, (not “on” the plane, as George Carlin once noted – around 2:58). As we took off, Luc and I couldn’t help but quote this video that we both saw just a few days ago. And here we are, flying to Canada on our first direct flight ever…ok, so we had to get to Zurich, but that is hardly a burden compared to past trips where we were stuck at Frankfurt airport (3-4 hours from home) for 8 or 9 hours, because of issues with connecting flights.n

Leaving the stress behind

The last day before leaving for a long-awaited 3-week holiday was not without its hitches. With piles of work to take care of and a planned 3-hour teleconference from a client’s office following 2 hour presentation for another. Frankly, it wasn’t _that_ bad, but I’m always a bit stressed when I’m travelling, and despite having tried to make this trip across the ocean the easiest so far, there are always little things.

The plan was pretty good, if I do say so myself: the client meetings were planned on that day since they were in Zurich, and we were flying from Zurich the next morning. A hotel for the night was certainly more expensive then taking the train home that evening and back the next morning (especially in Zurich), but the peace of mind of being walking distance from the airport, and not having to get up at stupid o’clock was well worth it.

After the meetings, I stuck around in “my” meeting room to get some work done, feeling nicely independent with my visitor’s badge getting me in and out (not that I left the meeting room for several hours). A little after 6, and all I had to do was run up to IT (on another floor) to print off my boarding pass, grab my bags (on the same floor), and meet Luc at the train station minutes away to grab a cab for the hotel.

Having grabbed my purse from the meeting room on my way to IT, I (miraculously) had my cell phone, although I left my notes and my computer behind. I went up to the floor where IT (and my luggage) were, and found that my badge no longer opened the door and the receptionists had apparently left for the day. I ran back to the floor where my computer was, and found myself equally stuck. I knew that there was still someone from IT around, because he had told me that I could stop by any time before 7, but I didn’t have the direct phone number, and the line to reception was just that: connecting me directly to voicemail. Starting to panic, I called the client I had met with in the morning to ask what the extension number was for IT…but she didn’t answer her mobile. I tried to get the attention of the cleaning ladies on both floors, knocked on windows, and felt the panic rise. With doors all around the building, there was no guarantee that anyone would leave from the side I was on, and I was terrified of being stuck there without my stuff. I suppose in retrospect, I could have come back the next morning (worst case scenario) but that thought had never occurred to me, and the fact of my computer sitting open in a meeting room would hardly have put me at ease.

Back on the floor where my computer was, while frantically trying to get the cleaning lady to hear my knocking, I didn’t see one of the employees come up to the door to leave. His friendly smile as he opened the door and asked “got locked out?” came as a tsunami of relief. I packed up my computer, but I was not out of the woods: IT was not answering the phone (so that I could ask the guy to let me in the door) and my luggage was still on the other floor. I sheepishly asked a guy in a nearby office if he would let me into the other floor and, after a moment’s hesitation, he handed me his badge. Hurrying upstairs, I ran into another client on my way to IT, but I was a bit too distracted to be as useful I would have liked. I got my boarding pass printed, got my bags, and rushed to the train station afraid to not be there to greet Luc (being much more familiar with the train and station thanks to numerous trips to that office over the past couple of years).

I lashed my two suitcases together and hurried along, checking my phone as I went. A text message from Luc had me worried that he might have gotten off at the wrong station, but as I realized that the train was 10 minutes further away than I had thought, and I relaxed a bit. Nonetheless, I called Luc to make sure that he had not/would not get off at the wrong station.
Luc arrived, we found a taxi, and were on our way. Dinner at the bistro near the hotel was nice, and the staff (/ owner?) as well as the apparent regulars were all very pleasant. I got a bit more work done, a decent night’s sleep, and a relaxed but efficient preparation. The GPS that we bought in part for our travels, in part for Luc’s family’s travels, and in part because we’ve been talking about if for ages, came in handy: pedestrian mode led us through a path we never would have taken (or probably even found) shaving a good kilometre off of our walk.

Delayed reaction

I “worried” to my climbing partner yesterday (who was suffering from the day-after effects of climbing for the first time in months) that I wasn’t hurting, so I clearly hadn’t pushed myself hard enough. Last night I started to feel it though, and today I feel a tightness in my back and arms that seem only to make sense with climbing in mind. So I could undoubtedly have pushed myself harder, but my body is telling me that maybe I wasn’t TOO too easy on myself either

Reawakening

After a months-long hiatus, and with plans to start climbing again in October (since I’m leaving in 2 weeks for a 3-week holiday), a last-minute suggestion to go climbing last night was the perfect reawakening to all kinds of bits and pieces of me. The timing was great, after just a couple of days ago a good friend told me that it showed that I hadn’t been climbing in ages, because I’d lost muscle tone (frankly I hadn’t realized that I’d ever gained visible muscle tone) but that was a good incentive to jump on the invitation to the climbing gym when it came unexpectedly yesterday!

I can indeed confirm that those muscles are gone, although my climbing partner assures me that it will only take a few sessions for them to rebuild (although I will have to push myself harder than I did last night for that to happen). From the time we arrived, the sensations that I forgot I missed started to return (actually, the excitement of actually going was the first one), although some are clearly more pleasant than others:

• I didn’t remember the gym smelling quite so sweaty (not good)
• It only took one or two climbs to feel the familiar warmth in my forearms (good)
• The inside of my fingers felt raw in an unreasonably short period of time, although more from the spotting than the climbing – I think (not good)
• All kinds of muscles stretched their legs for the first time in ages (good)
• I ran out of energy after far fewer climbs than I should have (not good)
• We were at the gym that has the sauna and lounge chairs (goooooooooooooooood)

So now we’ll have to see whether we can get a few more such trips in in the next 10 ten days, otherwise I’ll have to wait over a month to get back in the groove, but even if it only ends up being a single trip for this month, it was so worth it. Maybe it’s also time to pick up the burpees where I left off (although I might need to build up to that too…maybe I have to start all over or something…decisions, decisions)