Our three week reprieve from our hectic, chaotic, and sometimes dysfunctional lives in Africa is coming to an end. We will be boarding flight Air France 209 to Paris in 42 minutes, and then on to our home (?) Conakry. I was anticipating a sad ride to the airport this morning, but that didn’t happen. There was anxiety, but not because I was going back to Africa, but because I was once again surrendering myself to a grueling 26 hour sentence to be served in a cylindrical metallic pressurized tube, 35000 feet in the air, tightly wedged in a seat designed for a dwarf, enjoying the company of 300 sneezing and coughing fellow travellers. I hate flying. What ever happened to the idea behind Beam me up, Scotty?
After an early morning farewell to Patrick (who got up at 5 AM to send us off...no small feat considering it was Saturday morning, and it was very very early Saturday morning, and Patrick is 21 years old, and 21 year old guys are not wired to get up early Saturday mornings, and he was getting up to say goodbye to his parents), our friend Kitt drove us to the airport.
Our three week plunge into Vancouver was everything I had anticipated it would be. Checked off almost everything on my “9 things I most wanted to do while in Vancouver” wish list (see three blogs past). Unfortunately, I did not experience the culinary delight of a chicken pot pie at Save-On-Foods, nor did I while away a few hours by myself in a Starbucks on a rainy Saturday afternoon, drinking coffee while reading the Saturday Sun. That’s ok, I’ll live, especially considering some of the other great things I did, such as being present at Patrick’s haircut, participating in the annual death defying Fontaine Extreme and Ultimate Gladiator Spoon Scrap, and of course, just spending time with family in an apartment in the West End. As I get ready to leave, I award these two trophies to the following events:
Trophy for Best Overall Memory would go to the playing of Settlers of Catan on New Years Eve with Madeleine, Nadine, and Patrick. I won the game at the stroke of midnight. It was the least I could do to redeem myself after not winning the 50 million Max the day before.
My short Christmas Eve shopping caper on Robson Street would definitely merit the trophy for Best Culture Shock Memory. Having lived the last 6 months in a world where people don’t spend money because they don’t have it to spend (makes sense, doesn’t it?), I had forgotten how easy it was to spend money in Canada. One can easily understand and appreciate my uneasiness on that afternoon as I was drastically plunged in the vile and vicious world of consumer spending, just for the sake of spending. That sweet young thing at the Lush Store on Robson Street comes to mind. How articulate and savvy this young girl of commerce was in trying to convince me to part with $62 for a bar of soap. After all, it was for my wife, and my wife deserved the best soap money can buy, and the soap did smell nice, and it was a big bar of soap, and it was Christmas Eve, and she could tell that I truly loved my wife, and that... Anyways, I ended up buying the $32 dollar gift basket of lotion, and Madeleine thought it smelled nice.
They just called my flight...will let you know how my transatlantic leap went once on the other side.
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