AM I REALLY GOING TO ENGLAND??

Well, it's Monday, June 28 and I have to confirm my flight with Air Transat (see future references to this airline)..lol. I go to their website, put in the required information, and it shows my flight all right. But according to this webpage, it isn't going anywhere past Calgary !! I am not going to Calgary I say to myself, I'm going to Gatwick !! I phone the recorded confirmation line and that too states I'm going to Calgary and only Calgary. I panic, I check my ticket and it says Gatwick with a stop in Calgary and that's it. Oh my god, what do I do. I leave the day after tomorrow!! I search the website and find the customer service phone number and dial. I talk to a very nice french lady (the airline is based in Montreal), who assures me the flight does continue on to Gatwick. I said, then why do the phone recording and webpage only acknowledge the flight to Calgary?? She said she'd get that fixed. Within a couple of hours, sure enough, the webpage does confirm that I'm going to Gatwick. I sigh a major sigh of relief and manage to get on with my work day..........

Now, it's Tuesday, June 29 and I'm finding it difficult to work. My mind keeps wandering to the impending 12 hour flight, complete with two take-offs and two landings ! Well, no sense worrying about it, I'm going, tranqs or no tranqs!!!!! I get to Chrissy's after work (one of my many homes these days), and she has a birthday gift for me (the Divas Live CD) and is cooking me a birthday dinner !! Wooooohooooo...... aren't I just so lucky to have the best girlfriend in the whole wide world?? Of course I am !! We eat dinner, drink some wine and log on to crib (now there's a surprise). I finally decide it's time to go to bed but call Roger before doing so. He is already at Bob and Jane's (they live a short distance from Gatwick Airport) and I'm sure he could tell how excited I was. I asked him to call me at 4:00 am to make sure I was up. I had to go in to the office for a few hours before leaving for the airport at noon.

IT'S WEDNESDAY !! I slept (well, tossed and turned is more like it), got my wake-up call from Roger and bounced out of bed, looking forward to the day. By 7:00, I had my bag all ready to go and Chrissy drove me in to work. I barely managed to get anything done, I said goodbye to my co-workers (of which only a select few knew exactly where I was going for the weekend), and went to catch the airporter bus. I got to the airport in plenty of time and check in with Air Transat who insist my carry on bag is too big. I wasn't bringing a suitcase as it was only a 4 night trip, and wanted to carry on my bag so I didn't have to wait in Gatwick for my luggage, which always seems to be the last off the plane. I finally convince her that I really need to have my bag with me on the plane and she relents, puts a sticker on it, and I'm through the gate and heading to the smoking lounge. I decided not to take my tranqs for this flight, because they make you dopey for two days and I didn't want to be sleepy the entire time in England. So, I took gravol, which did absolutely nothing for me.

I called Roger before my flight and by this time it is 10:00 pm on Wednesday for him. In 12 hours I'll be in England.....I just can't believe it. I call Chrissy at work for a final goodbye and I get my seat on the plane. I did not get a window seat, I was on an aisle and had a very nice couple sitting beside me, the guy seated between me and his wife. I glanced over at his wife, introduced myself as a big chicken, and told her not to get mad at me if I happened to grab her husbands hand. She said, no problem and giggled. I think I scared the guy, he kept looking at me and asking me if I was okay. We're ready for take-off and the pilot comes on and says.... Welcome to Air Transat...blah, blah, blah.... our flight to Calgary will take approximately 57 minutes with turbulent skies. OH SHIT !! Did the pilot just say TURBULENCE? Not just a bit of bumping either !!!!! It was horrible all the way, but thanks to the nice couple beside me, they talked to me the whole way and tried to keep me from a state of panic. We land in Calgary to pick up passengers and re-fuel, a process which was supposed to only take one hour. Well, the power went out on the plane. The pilot came on to say that the truck that supplies the power to the airplane while it's sitting there had a power outtage and as a result, they had to re-check everything on the plane (computer stuff), before they could take off. Finally, after two and a half hours of sitting on the plane, we're ready to take off again. And I was a nervous wreck, thinking the power on the plane was going to go out somewhere over Greenland and I was never gonna make it to England.

Shortly after take-off, I buy my headset ($5.00 rip-off), plug it in and watch Message in a Bottle with Kevin Costner and Robin Wright Penn. Not a bad movie, I'm sure it would have been a lot better if I hadn't been 33,000 feet in the air!! Meals are served (what the hell is that they want me to eat??), I have a glass of wine, push the food around with my fork, eat the pieces I could identify and then try to read my book. I check the time and see that I still have 6 1/2 hours to go!!!!! I WANT MY DIVA GIRLFRIEND TESS WITH ME, I think to myself and then I fell asleep. I wake up, ask the guy next to me what time it was, and a whole 20 minutes had passed by!! I try forcing myself to sleep by closing my eyes and thinking happy thoughts instead of "oh my god, we're gonna crash" thoughts, with no success. I watch the second movie (it was so good, I can't remember what it was), and I managed to drift off to sleep a few times but for no more than 15-20 mins at a time. The pilot finally announces that we'll be landing in 30 minutes..... I brush my hair, have a drink of water and sit back waiting for my stomach to do flip flops while the plane decends.

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