Westward Bound

It was heady days for our fair country. The official celebration year of our country's 125th anniversary. To celebrate, the government decided to do what it pretty much does all the time, spend money. Only this time I got to benefit from it.

One of the celebratory ideas, in co-operation with the national airline, was to send students on an exchange setup within the country to see the great land available to us. I thought that this was a fantastic idea and signed up to be a candidate, little did I know was going to be accepted. Alberta was chosen to be the next victim in my life of chaos and glee.

The exchange was set up with music departments from our school and theirs (yes ladies and gentlemen, I was a band geek, trumpet if you care). We were to spend 10 days in Calgary with them and then they would travel here later in the year. Things were packed, homework was "forgotten" at home, goodbyes were said and we headed for the airport. We had all been given the obligatory speech on how to behave, and were warned that we shouldn't get too cozy with the students from Calgary by our teachers, who ironically enough had met on a student exchange between the same two cities years ago and were now married to each other (I have often wondered if that was what they were try to warn us about).

Now I had flown twice before, but made a point of sitting next to a friend who hadn't. We had arranged for seats by the wing so we could have a good view. My friend, having never flown before, was a little nervous but I calmed him down and as we began to take off he noticed the tips of the wings rising and dropping with the wind shear. He seemed worried so I told him that the wings had to flap to generate lift like a bird. This seemed to calm him down, but I wonder to this day if he still thinks planes have to flap at takeoff.

The rest of the trip was uneventful except for one poor soul who decided to used his parents' "emergency" credit card in the air phone to let them know he was flying safely. We were all insanely jealous that he got to use the phone until his parents got the bill for the call. I think he's probably afraid of air phones to this day.

We descended into Calgary International Airport and proceeded to retrieve our luggage, which amazingly enough all made the trip. We began to worry when we looked out of the airport windows and saw nothing at all around us. He we been dropped at the wrong airport? Where did Calgary go? What was to become of us?