YYC

Another trip means another blog post. This time our trip was business not pleasure, well, business for me, at least.

I had a 2 day training course and Reuben got some time off work to accompany me. We left on Tuesday evening around 6:30pm. The cool thing was that we boarded the same aircraft that my parents had just deplaned from (they were arriving home from Tampa). But we didn't actually meet up with them because they had to go through US Customs although we did see them through a window. Our flight was fairly uneventful, no turbulence and a bunch of interesting shows to watch on TV, although by the time we were landing I was getting pretty antsy.

We grabbed the shuttle to our hotel, the Country Inn & Suites and checked in without any troubles. Our room was quite nice, but upon arriving I realized that I would need to book a taxi for the next morning to get me to the training centre and when I called the front desk, the agent was really hesitant about actually being able to book one for me, which we both thought was sort of strange, I mean how hard can it be to book a taxi for a Wednesday morning. Well, about 20 agonizing minutes later, I get a call back that he had managed to book me a taxi so that was a sigh of relief. We promptly went to sleep. In the morning we partook of the obligatory continental breakfast. We had been quite happy recently with the development of "make your own" waffles at every hotel we had stayed at in the last half year. But although they provided this service, the taste was quite mediocre. How disappointing!

After breakfast, Reuben called the transit company and figured out which bus and train to take downtown and I climbed into my taxi and was off to training. The training was interesting. I met up with some old friends from back when I was working in Toronto for the Maintenance department and the trainer was quite engaging so all in all it wasn't a bad day. The only interesting bit was at lunchtime. They had told us we would be able to pick something up at Tim Hortons, which was just across the street. Well, it was a little further than just across the street and there was no sidewalk or lane to get there. We had to walk through a field and of course, it had been snowing since the night before and we were not wearing adequate footwear. I say "we" because there was another lady there from out of town who also had to purchase lunch. So, at least I didn't have to go alone. Our feet got quite wet!!

The training was done by 2pm so we hitched a ride back to the hotel and I hung out and watched TV till Reuben got back. We had agreed to meet at 5 but, fortunately, he came back around 3:30pm. So we watched some TV for a bit and then decided to head out for dinner. Not having a vehicle made our decision quite easy because there was only 1 restaurant within walking distance, Chili's. It's a Mexican Grill place. We walked around the block to get to it and then realized that there was actually a gate in the fence behind the hotel and we could've got out right into their parking lot from there. We did that on the way back home. Anyway, so it was a pretty nice place, quiet and they were playing the Senators hockey game. Reuben had a hamburger and I had this scrumptious garlic shrimp pasta dish. I had leftovers, which I thought would work out well for my training class the next day so we put it in a container we had and put it in our ice bucket full of ice to keep it chilled over night. That actually worked quite well.

The next day, I got a ride to the training with the other lady who was staying at the hotel. And Reuben took the bus/train downtown again. He went up the Calgary Tower. The training, again, was quite painless and I managed to score a ride to the airport after it was done. I met up with Reuben at the gate and we had an uneventful trip home even though there was crazy weather and it seemed like every other flight was delayed or canceled except ours!!!

So that was our trip. Stay tuned for the next one . . .