Our First View of Home
Trip Start
Jul 10, 2007
1
46
Trip End
Mar 11, 2008
Ottawa,
Ontario,
Canada
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
March 10th, 2007
Boys?
"Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to smile from ear to ear and ooze as much charm as possible when we get to the Air Canada counter. We once had a chance to be in First class, maybe it could happen again."
THAT didn't work! Ty's imitation of George Clooney seems to require more practice. We were given seats in front of the plane but evidently not close enough to the pilot. The wait for our flight out of Lima was delayed by 2 hours; we left at 2:00 am with too many interruptions to have our passports checked over and over again. How I hate red-eyes; they hurt
Air Canada flight from Lima
.The plane attendants obviously don't like them either nor did they enjoy what they were doing. They could easily have been members of Attila the Hun's gang with its famous leader sarcastically answering questions and telling off the passengers. Between his continuous rants and impatient soliloquies, the babies crying and trying to sleep in a cramped space, I was beginning to question life. To top it all off, the projector did not work...no movies, arghh!
Early in the morning, the first sign of Canada was waiting for us in the sky. Seeing the CN tower poke its needle nose through the clouds brought about a tremendous comfort. Don't quite know how we managed it, with a huge delay in Lima, but we did manage to make our connection in Toronto with a good 6 minutes to spare. We arrived safely in Ottawa after their latest snow dump (54cm) from an record breaking snow fall winter. What I still can't believe is that out of the 28 flights we had, we have retrieved our luggage 28 times and can still locate our passports. Mamie and Pappie were waiting for us at the airport...Mamie with flowers and Pappie circling the area in his car as he hates to pay for parking.
I am overwhelmed by the fact that I am back
Canada-first proof
. I am happy to see my family, my friends, my cats and my home. What I have missed the most from home was being able to grab a glass of water out of the tap. My bed will be very comfortable tonight. I am heartbroken because I will not have my boys with me for 24 hours a day. This was such a precious gift. I don't want to send my babies back to school. I will miss my daily adventures.I know that the world has taught us many lessons and that we will be forever re-evaluating everything we do. This is a life-altering experience. More answers to our many questions will come to us later I am sure. It will take us time to understand and process everything we have seen. I will enjoy these moments.
We have been gone 8 months and have visited Beijing, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Peru and Ecuador with footprints in Mongolia, Paraguay and Zimbabwe. All of these countries have touched us.
The top of the top highlights have to be the Great Wall, Angkor Wat, Ha Long Bay, Cape Town, the Namib Desert, the cheetahs licking our hands, the safaris, Machu Picchu and the animals in the Galapagos Islands
Toronto in the snow
. I thank profusely my family and friends who have supported us during this trip. Anytime I needed to consult someone at home, my inquiries were answered so quickly and with much caring and comfort. I have also benefited from the positive comments about my blog and advice (sister...awesome traveler) from friends. I have received much encouragement which helped tremendously during the times I "just had to go home" when the boys needed medical attention and for some crazy odd reason, I would choose to worry.
I am home again, planning for our next trip.
Thanks for reading!
Marie-Josée LeBlanc
