Welcome to Halifax!

So the last two weeks have seen my farewell to Vancouver, my return home and my introduction to Halifax. Let's rewind a little and cover the last week or so in Vancouver shall we. Basically the last couple of days from Thursday through to Saturday were used to say goodbyes to the group on Burnaby as some of them were moving home by Saturday and it was the last weekend that we would all have together. Thursday we went to a cheap student bar, Friday was a smaller club and then Saturday we made the mistake of heading out a little later again and had to queue up for a while to find ourselves in a hostel called the Cambie which was decent fun as it had tons of travellers and students from all walks of life. Day time was mostly spent recovering from and preparing for the following night.

Tuesday was intended as a day to visit anybody that I wanted to say goodbye to so I traveled into town and did some last minute shopping (had to fulfill a Yak-Trak order) and then would wait until 5pm so that everybody was off work and I could get most goodbyes out of the way. Unfortunately as has been wont to happen, my phone ran out of battery and so I wasn't able to get in contact with any body, and at this stage I had already been struggling to figure out how I would fit everything in.

On Tuesday night I had tried to pack some and while doing so I checked the British Airways website and it was asking me for an address in America before it would count me as checked-in. I couldn't figure it out for a while until I finally saw that there was now two return flights booked for me. One set from Dublin-Vancouver and another set from Dublin-Halifax. I has previous inquired about changing the flights and had been told that they would email me with any possible options... well I never got that email. So now I didn't know if I would be flying back to Vancouver or direct to Halifax and of course with all of the trouble in Heathrow BA were 100% unavailable and would not even put me on hold. So I stayed up most of the night to pack both a carry-on bag and my check-in baggage just in case.

So Wednesday morning came and I had had very few hours of sleep the night before. I spent the morning trying to get through to BA and again suffered no luck. At 12pm two of the house mate were going to head up to the mountains and go snowboarding. Tired, stressed out and panicking I decided the best move was to follow them. Once we got onto the mountain I was finally able to relax and forget about all the possible trouble ahead of me, there was much more immediate dangers in front of me! It was a much tougher day this time and there was no down time between falling and picking myself back up. I struggled for the first hour or so as I tried to get to grips with the steeper slops and longer runs but by the end of the day I was clearing the run without falling and generally doing reasonably well. I had one big fall towards the end of the day so called it off after that just in case I did manage to smash a coccyx.

Ready for the fall.

It had been a good day though and I was starving. Lucky there had been one final eating competition arranged and it was to find out who could eat a large pizza the fastest. We got home and as we arrived so did the 6 large pizzas. It was a close run competition but in about an hour one of the house mates had finished and he was crowned pizza eating champion. 2 slices behind him I was pretty happy with my performance. After this I made a dash into town to say a last goodbye to the Burnaby crowd. They went for food and then to the cinema but I skipped on the cinema as it was going to prove difficult to get home afterwards.

Thursday morning arrived and I was finally able to get through to BA and they told me that I was returning to Vancouver but they could offer me the Halifax route for $300. Had I not already had the flights booked to Halifax this would have been terrific and would have given me another day in Dublin too but everything had already been sorted and flying back to Vancouver would allow me to just take a carry-on to Dublin. So I knew what flights I was on, and everything in London was cleared to fly, things were looking good again! The only problem was the pain all over my body from the snowboarding but that wasn't such an issue, on top of this I hadn't been sleeping much/well for the last few days so had little recovery.

Thursday afternoon I spent with Sinead's friend Julie, we went for a sushi in town and then strolled around for a bit. After that it was back to the apartment to finish packing and say goodbye to the house mates and then on towards the airport for my glorious return home!

It all went well until I landed in Heathrow, again I was looking at my watch, looking at my departure time and then considering the logistics of a Heathrow terminal transfer. I was pretty sure I was going to very nearly miss the boarding time and so it was full steam ahead to try and get across the airport, through security and onto my plane. I got through everything with about 10 or 15 minutes to go until departure and finally took the time out to find a departures board that could tell me what gate I was to leave from. I found the board, found my flight and found my gate... "cancelled".

...!*!*$*&!####@@*****!!!

I had had no sense of any trouble until now, and was sure everything was running smoothly. It had been snowing in Dublin and so all flight in and out were suffering. I got put on standby for the next flight as there were no solid seats for any flights and made my way gingerly towards the gates used for Aer Lingus flights. We were treated to a food voucher and some floor space as all the seats had been occupied at this stage. Thankfully I had bought a book before I left Vancouver so I settled down to read that for the day. This was at about 3-4pm.

More and more people arrived, and flights were being delayed and cancelled all over the place. Eventually three flights were rescheduled and people were put out onto the planes. As they were out there an announcement was made on the tannoy that Dublin would be closed for the next hour at least. Following that another announcement; Dublin would be closed for the night. Three plane-loads of people came storming back from the gate area and things were looking bleak. We were escorted back to baggage claim and thankfully I had just my back pack so went to the Aer Lingus customer desk directly. I queued there for another hour only to be told that I could standby tomorrow from 6am and that they would reimburse any accommodation I needed. I booked the closest hotel and put my head to rest.

Up at 4am I made my way back over to the airport and went straight to the gates we had been at the day before. I still have yet to quite figure out why but I was the first person at the gates. I don't know where the mass of people from the day before had dispersed to but I was in little mood to care. (I guess that some had just refunded and others had made their way by train/boat, but that's all I can figure)

Abandoned luggage in Heathrow.

The first flight came at about 8 or 9 and those of us that had been signed up for standby were called to follow the service rep from the desk to the boarding gate. Things might have worked out to our favor only there was a slight hitch; The plane due to fly the route had not arrived from Dublin the previous day and so they had to sub in a plane, a plane with 20 fewer capacity. Thus anybody that was booked onto that flight got priority.

After this we had to go back to the desk and sign up again for standby. A flight for Cork opened up at about half 10 but I let it slide as I was feeling pretty good about getting on a Dublin flight at this stage, I had been first here and even now there were not very many people about. Then the Dublin flight began boarding and after 15 minutes the standbys had still not been called. I walked up to the desk to find out if there was any update.

"There are no seats on the Dublin flight, but I have one on the Cork route if you would like that?"

"Em, gimme gimme gimme!"

The seat had been put on hold I think as someone tried to see if they could get on the Dublin flight but one call and the seat was un-held and I swept it up. I think it was someone who I'd befriended in our struggle to find a flight home who had asked for the seat to be held but I guess sometimes you just gotta look out for yourself. The girl behind me (who had very nearly skipped in front of me) asked if that was the last seat on the Cork flight and was informed that it was. I had been wondering as I waited what sort of system they were using to decide who got flights and this had pretty much clarified it for me. There was no system. First-come-first-served? No. Once you say you want standby they put you up for any subsequent flights? No. People-who-had-been-delayed-longest-go-first? No. It was every man for themselves and luck was your greatest friend. They had at least 5 or 6 tickets there for people that wanted to be put on flights. People that has explicitly and multiple times stated that they would be OK with any flight into Ireland and yet the reps had just sat there with empty seats at their fingertips. Had I not just secured a flight home I'd have been pretty agitated.

I flew to Cork and by a stroke of luck Michael was coming to Dublin from Cork and so I hitched a ride with him all the way back to Palmerstown. It had been a zig-zag over Dublin for 2 days but finally I was home; A day late, but home. It's still strange how normal everything is once you're home. It feels like you have never gone away, as soon as you recognise the scenery, drive into the estate, walk through the door; it seems the most normal thing in the world. Of course everything was covered in a layer of snow this time but that was inconsequential.

Snow fort



Palmerstown snow.

The Christmas break was terrific. A day with both sets of family, surrounded by my family at all times, getting to celebrate Sandra's birthday with her and plenty of time with her outside of that. The time she was in work gave me a chance to be around the family and most time outside of that was spent with her. It all went much to fast and my near-constant exhaustion didn't help very much but I'm delighted I got to go back for even the small amount of time and was grateful that I didn't get stranded for the entire thing.

Not content with a pain-free flight home I screwed up the online check-in for my return flight (at least I'm 90% sure I did.) and so when I got to Dublin airport they only gave me my flight to London and told me I would have to sort the other flight out once I got there. Not exactly how I wanted to spend the last few minutes with my dad and Sandra as we wondered just how badly I had screwed up but eventually we relaxed enough to say our goodbyes.

I got to London and again was running around Heathrow trying to figure out how to get my ticket on that side but it was not too complicated, that was until I got to the desk and the woman said "Oh yes, that's perfect Mr.Fearon just one moment though as there are no seats on that plane"... !***!@@####! ... "OK, what we can do is give you an upgrade, is that OK?" ... Wahoo! So my suggestion to everyone is not to check in until 30minutes before your flight and you shall be rewarded for your risk! The flight would have gone without incident only for a toddler that had just learned the optimal frequency to scream at in order to get the most attention.

The journey back to the house was a little bizarre especially as I walked to the house and realised that in the morning I had been in Dublin and now here I was at 8pm and I was half way across the world. A little weird. The house greeted me with rapturous joy and chinese takeaway arrived not 10minutes after I had walked in the door, perfect. We had a small secret santa afterwards and watched some TV before I retired to packing and bed.

In the morning I went on the hunt for a cheap suitcase as I had been checking the flight details (paranoia) for my flight to Halifax and there was some special offer on which allowed people travelling before January 11th to check in two bags. This saved me a ton of bother as I had planned on leaving a lot of books left behind me and shipping them later but if I could get a 2nd checked bag then I was laughing. A walk around town lead me to a thrift store where I picked up a 2nd hand suitcase for $5.

Once everything was packed at home I had a decision to make; do I send my bags to the airport now, store them there and then go out tonight or would I stay in the house for the night and bring the bags to the airport in the morning. I feel asleep from about 4-7pm and so that pretty much sealed the deal, I would stay in for the night and just concentrate on the flight. Trying to save more heartache I plugged in all sorts of printers around the house but they were out of ink, then I traveled into the village (and transport was free to try and dissuade drink-driving, great idea) to try internet cafes but they were all closed. Ugh, guess I'd just have to check-in in the morning.

2 of the house mates were going out and invited me but I wasn't feeling in the mood so had to decline, the rest of us spent the night drinking some drinks in the house and just chatting. 12 rolled around and we said a little hurrah but nothing serious, we went to bed by about 3 and I slept by 4 having finally put everything where it needed to be. I was up at 6am to hear the other two housemates come in the door (who'd said they would be home early and that it would be grand), well I was relieved that I had stuck to my guns and not gone out, I can only imagine the panic I would have been in as they had been trying to get a taxi since 2am. I said goodbye to everyone in the house, was given a lift to the airport by the Irish couple in the house, printed everything OK at the airport and awaited my flights.

Packed up and ready to go.

$5 suitcase. Bling bling.

Apart from a small delay for the Ottawa to Halifax leg due to a late flight from Montreal everything went as smooth as I could ask. The plane from Ottawa to Halifax was a small little thing and I had to hunch over the move down the carriage but we got there in one piece. I got a taxi to the apartment and stayed up for an hour or so chatting to my new room mate.

Today I was up at about 7am and left the house by half 8 to have a look around. The city is much smaller than any others that I have stayed in which is both good and bad, it means everything is within walking distance and easily reachable but then there just isn't as much going on around as I am used to. Especially today on a Sunday as even though it was the 2nd of January it still felt unusually quiet and I think this is because they just take Sunday's very easily around here. Most shops seem to close every Sunday and the streets were quiet for my entire walk with the exception of the morning runners. I had covered most of the major parts of town by 12. Work is about a 2 minute walk from the front door and there is a supermarket right across the road from work, all in all it seems pretty good and I'm looking forward to getting stuck into work come Tuesday.

Park around the corner from the apartment. And at the end of that park?

Work!



























Home away from home.