The Road to London

The Adventure Begins – London by Way of Calgary

I have always enjoyed travelling, but, until late 2005, I had never ventured outside of North America. Luckily, my English friend, Paul, invited me to visit England with him. Just getting there was an adventure.

First, the Air Canada equipment at San Francisco International had mechanical difficulties that delayed the flight around three hours. When we finally arrived in Calgary, it was a race to get through customs, pick up and recheck our bags, and get to the gate before the flight to London departed. If we missed the flight, we would have to wait even longer to get there. Luckily, we made it to the gate as our transatlantic flight was boarding.

During takeoff, we had to deal with the remnants of a storm that was passing through the Calgary area. It felt like we were on a roller coaster. I had never been on such a long flight before. Since we were in coach, it got cramped pretty quickly, but we were finally on our way…