as i’m writing this i have to suffer due to lack of free wi-fi in microsoft’s backyard. yes, i’m in seattle as i’m writing this, in a txt document rather than right into the blog itself, drinking out of the tasteless un-sweet white chocolate mocha from ‘seattle’s best coffee’. you’ve probably seen my rants about free wifi and how every place should have at least one option to log onto the internet. yes, for cheap bastards as yours truly. nothing to be ashamed off, but if starbucks can reverse its decision and once again offer free wifi because of loss of customers, why can’t it be offered everywhere else. hospitals in vancouver offer free wi-fi (hopefully I won’t get into to much trouble for divulging this one), some restaurants have finally joined in (yes thank you sammy j peppers), and other various places.
the first thing i should probably explain is what the four letters stand for, but i won’t. it’s not important what the letters stand for, it’s more or less what they mean together, whispered in the appropriate order, at the right time. the journey started on the morning of the 14th of december. for the first time in ‘way to long to remember’, vancouver was hit with snow storms and temperatures under -5C at night. wasn’t much prettier in the morning, snow falling, freezing temperature and the requirement to bus from downtown vancouver to seatac international. all sounds rather good, decided to take ‘quick coach lines’. not a bad decision, at first considering they allowed me to change my departure time from 10am to 7:45am once the snow warnings were in effect and they offer, are you ready for this, free wi-fi on their buses. safe to say that helped with what was to follow.
make it to the bus early enough to make sure i don’t rush, and try not to stress. what would you know, the streets of vancouver are not all cleared. keep in mind, friday was the first snow storm. the snow fall for sunday morning was announced…however vancouver just doesn’t learn. clean the snow…make life safer on the roads. anyhow, as you’d expect due to the uncleaned snow on half the roads the bus arrived at the stop roughly 15 minutes later than expected. bus driver was pretty nice however, a bit slow, but nice. once everyone is on board, luggage placed inside…we’re off to the races. i’m thinking…it’s only 15-20 minutes…my plane leaves in roughly 10 hours…i’m good to go. we drive less than 2 km. my ipod is blasting away…and the bus stops. it’s probably a stop, i continue to pay attention to my laptop…then i see the driver walk through the bus and sort of try to explain something…by the time i take my headphones out…i hear “we’ll either get a replacement bus, which takes about 35 minutes, or they’ll come fix it which should take 20 minutes’. and he leaves…i figured…well at least i have 10 hours…half an hour passes…nothing…45 minutes pass…nothing…the door to the bus is left open…the bus is not on…and it’s getting rather cold in the bus…after all outside…it was only roughly -1C. eventually the second bus shows up. the luggage gets moved…the passengers move as well…and we’re on our way. only about 1.5 hours late. we make it to the boarder…everybody off the bus!!! grab your belongings and proceed to get inspected…good part, our bus was the only one there…so the inspection took almost an hour.
as we get back on the bus, everyone sort of sits wherever there’s space. of course, there’s at least one person that has to interrogate someone (me) if the space they’re sitting in is the same one prior to the border cross. at which point i’m essentially responding with…my seat was also taken plus there’s no assigned seating…i guess she thought she was already aboard her flight to the bahamas. we make it to seatac…in one piece and with an empty laptop battery. being early has its advantages…check-in started almost 4 hours prior to takeoff (that’s right 3pm). first in line, got my bags checked…made it through security…had to ‘undress’…take my shoes off, belt off…good thing i managed to keep my jeans on. and now i’m sitting waiting for boarding…with my laptop connected to one of the only plugs i managed to see. gotta charge it up…the flight…she’s a long one…
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