Sunday, January 14, 2007

I'm going to die!!! (or so I thought)

On Jan. 3, I had to fly over to Nanaimo for work. I don't know if you remember, but that week we had some pretty bad rain and wind storms, so I was a little scared to fly. Ok, maybe "a little scared" is an understatement. When they told me I had a choice of flying or taking the ferry, I had to decide if I wanted to say, "I'm going to be sick," for 2 hours on the ferry or "I'm going to die," for 20 minutes on the plane. I decided that the flight was the lesser of two evils. I said my goodbyes to my co-workers in case the flight took my oh-too-young life and made a VERY short will out. Jennie asked for my flip flops and Bren would get my U2 collection (not much else to my name). :) The morning of my flight, I woke up early and saw that it was raining. Not a good start. As I was getting ready at 5:20 am, my phone beeped letting me know that I had a text message. "Who would be text messaging me this early in the morning?" I thought. Well, obviously Jennie sensed how scared I was and her oh-so-sweet text message said, "I am praying for you and will continue throughout the day." Now that's a true friend. Ok, I found out later that she didn't get up especially to send me that text, but her daughter woke her up and she looked at the clock and remembered that I would be up early that morning and took the time to send me that text. It really did help me to know someone was praying. When I got to the terminal which was ON THE WATER (yes, that's freaky to me) right next to Canada Place, I looked around and everyone was just sitting there reading their papers and chatting like everything was normal. People! We are about to fly over the water, it's raining and windy. Does no one else see this? There was even a little girl there and she didn't look scared. What's wrong with these people? 12 people boarded the plane (the little girl said goodbye to her mom and got on by herself ... HERSELF ... and still didn't look scared). Almost as soon as we took off, it stopped raining and the skies cleared! I was soooooo happy, but I must say that the 2 bumps we had on the way over (yes, I counted them) sure do feel a lot bigger in a tiny plane than any turbulance I've encountered on the big planes. They took my bag from me on the way over, so I didn't have my camera, so these pics are from my flight back.

This is the plane ... I know, scary, hey?

Tight fit, but there were 12 of us, plus the pilot inside.

I was on the wrong side of the plane to get really good pictures of the downed trees in Stanley Park, but this is the one that I did get. Very sad.

Lion's Gate Bridge


Landing in Vancouver Harbour
It turned out to be a really great experience. If you're going over to the Island and you don't need a vehicle once you get to the other side, flying is the way to go!

Well, 4 posts in one day. I'm pretty tired, so I'm going to go home now and leave Jennie alone.

3 comments:

Rachel said...

I took my very first flight two years ago to Mexico. I am definitely not a good flyer. Next time I am going to take drugs...lots of drugs.

Jennie said...

I am very glad you made it safe and sound...a little sad - no flip flops - I would have thought of you every time I wore them but happy you are alive! :)

Anonymous said...

Three words for you....Ad A VAN!
I'm all for not remembering a thing about a flight except getting on and off. :)