You seem like an intelligent, friendly, polite country.
So, how did you end up with such fascist buffoons in Immigration.
BTW our unemployment is half yours so there is no fucking way I am here to look for work. Canada has many attractions but the employment market is not one of them!
I didn't even know my 'swiss' brother was home until I answered his loud banging on the door. His bulky frame was unmistakeable. So was my smiling, blond SIL.
I had that horrible feeling all week, like the loneliest person in the world. I was a stuttering 10 year old walking to school on a cold morning. The teacher with the stick was waiting on me.
I was spattered with paint. The floors of my house were covered with old newspaper and there were blue blotches everywhere. He and I cleared up the painting debris and she hoovered. Then brother and I crammed the ripped, old mattress into her car and she and I drove to the dump. On the way back, we stopped at the bank and I changed money.'Brownbacks' she called them, the ex Bostonian. We did a few other little jobs. I made some small purchases while she had keys copied.
Arrived home to find that he had taken delivery of the new mattress, renewed the fridge (literally: it looks like it just came out of the shop) and our nephew gurgling and kicking his legs in the corner.
I had calmed down, for the first time in a week. Even before taking the tourists to the airport on Tuesday at 2.30 in the morning, I was not right with myself, constantly mulling over the thousand petty things that needed to be done, the 'to do' list on my wall, hanging over me like the sword of damocles.
I looked and felt like I hadn't eaten in a week so we had a cup of tea and ate something small. After they had gone, I cycled my bike to SIL's. Only after returning did I begin to feel optimistic.
I generally begin packing, after a fashion, a month before departure. Over the weeks, I throw everything I might possibly need on a bed or in a corner. Then, in the last few days, sift through everything, separating what I need from what I don't need.
I rejoiced when my trusty swiss army knife turned up. Bought it 20 years ago in London, companion of many travels, it has seen me down many a long road. I'm surprised by how few misgivings I have had on leaving my backpack behind. Bought it in Canal st, NY in 91 and it has been everywhere since. It has fallen off overpacked minibuses in the Middle East and still has the Persian used to mark it on one such journey. It was with me when I traversed the highways and byways of South America and caused no little resentment at the smudge it left on a fellow traveller's jeans in St. Petersburg.
But, I have too much to take this time and only a suitcase (gift from SIL) will do. I many have just outgrown Ruck Sack.
Purchased travel insurance over the phone yesterday. I babysit for SIL tonight and will cycle the horsemobile down there to leave it in their garden shed for the next 12 months.
Implemented all the agency's recommendations re. house. Put a cover on the couch, repainted the kitchen. And after 10.30 tomorrow morning it will be empty. One friend advised removing the calendar, fridge magnets, everything which might make the newcomer feel like an intruder. Another advised air freshener; "to make the house pleasing to as many senses as possible". Whatever.
Then G., an old aquaintance from my days in Chile got in touch through Facebook. She has started asking friends of friends in Quebec City if they know anyone who has a room to rent out.
We live in amazing times. And I want to make the most of it. I want the year in Quebec, the photographs, the memories, the stories, the extra language.
I type this to Alphaville's 'Forever Young'.
Frightened. But ready.
Is this a last minute test sent to deprive me of the little sleep I would have gotten?
Property managent genius has just told it will be very difficult to find tenants for my house unless I get new furniture in the next 72 hours...
...AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
One week from today.
I had that ominous feeling on seeing their flight details...Berlin Schoenefeld, probably at least a few Ossies among them.
And it got worse, some were extremely badly dressed, faded holdalls and beat-up converted boxes instead of the usual prim suitcases that Germans bring with them.
John, my driver, almost did his back in, loading the suitcases. 'Jayzuz, must be a dead body in there', he muttered.
This was the first tour ever where no-one wanted a lunch stop, not a problem as we ate while they were in the castle.
The scond day, we stopped to eat at a particular restaurant. Two who spoke a little English protested but I sent him packing, explaining the legal entitlement to a lunch break etc. They tried it on with John with even less success ("Wha?...C'mere to me; d'ye want to tie a f***in' nose-bag around me while ye're at it?!?").
Strolling up the corridor after counting, I discovered the reason for the heavy suitcases: they were all drinking cheap beer and munching salami that they had brought with them. I just hope the airline fried them for excess baggage...
There was a fitness centre in one of the hotels and while on my way to use the treadmill, I noticed a married couple from my group engaged in a frenzied debate over whether or not to buy a swimming cap for 3€; I subsequently discovered they bought one between them and then swam one after the other.
John was in a state of shock on receiving his tip at the end of the week, 50 cent per person for the entire week but I managed to console him.
'Write it off, John, just dump them at the airport and get on with he rest of your life.'
There was a couple humping each other to kingdom come in the next room of the hotel last night and I didn't sleep a wink. They might at least move the headboard of the bed away from the wall so that it didn'tclap against it everytime(!)
...falling to pieces.
In one week, I lost my cell phone charger, two toothbrushes one after the other, an umbrella, a shoe...
...even lost my swiss army knife...one of my most prized possessions!
I was in a tank, head protruding from one of the hatches out front, steering it around, getting fired on by other, bigger tanks.
Then, the other night, my baby nephew urned into a caterpiller in my arms, crawled into a crack in the pavement and couldn't be found again.
Anyone got a cure for last minute travel nerves?
I'm falling to pieces here.
Two friends have wanted to arrange some sort of a send of but I just want to slip quietly away.
Pace the room on my sleepless nights. Having terrible nightmares.
...than a beautiful, intelligent, witty and friendly woman sitting opposite.
Who suddenly lights up a cigarette.
Now, who can get me a ticket to the hurling final on Sunday?
I've been calling people I was in kindergarten with...
