Flying all the way from Doha to Calgary was a real chore. A 9-hour red-eye to Heathrow followed by a 7-hour layover (which turned into 8 due to a delay) followed by another 9-hour flight to Calgary. That’s 26 bloody hours! The flight to Heathrow was okay and I managed to catch a few hours sleep but I was exhausted and ‘slept’ a few more hours on the floor of the Quiet Room at Heathrow. Maybe it was because I looked like a zombie when I got to the gate to board the flight to Calgary but when I got there the attendant taking tickets asked me to wait as they needed to reprint my seat assignment as the flight was full. I was like ?huh? but then she came back and said magic words I’ll remember forever:
“You’ve been upgraded to Club World.”
[cue heavenly music]
That’s business class for those of you unfamiliar with British Airways. And an amazing business class it is. Club World seats allow you to lie completely flat! Wow! They also do great food service: ordering off a menu, port/brandy with dessert and so forth. This amazing upgrade, the first upgrade in my life, allowed me to get some decent sleep. Good thing too as unbeknownst to me my family and I were heading to an Ukranian dinner (prepared by family friends) as soon as I landed.
It was nice to relax in Calgary with my family. The weather was generally decent, only one or two days were in the -20s. I seem to get lucky with that every year, every time I visit the weather is generally mild (+5 to -5) making it pleasant to walk around and do some shopping.
For those of you who don’t know my family ‘tradition’ we have our Christmas gift exchange in January. A number of years back, when I was in Bermuda, I was unable to get the Christmas holidays off so my Mother decided that the family would postpone Christmas until January when I could get to Canada. It turned out to work really well: flights were cheap, it was easy for everyone to get time off, airports and malls weren’t crowded, things were on sale, and my brother and his wife didn’t have to go through that whole “whose parents do we spend Christmas with this year” hassle. We liked it so much we’ve done it ever since. This year Christmas was on January 13.
By the way we do the whole ‘Christmas’ thing: the tree, presents, turkey dinner and so forth, just like we would have on Christmas day. If you’re family is not too religious you may want to consider a Christmas in January.
More blog to come in a few days, I’m off to Kuwait for the weekend so can’t post until Sunday.
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