One aspect of air travel these days is that the processes
you need and have to go through at airports is not pleasant or easy to handle.
Making sure you wear trousers that are not dependent on a belt to hold them up,
making sure you can get your laptop, e-reader, etc, out easily to put
separately in the trays at security, getting as much metal off your person
before going through the scanner, is all part of the mini drama we have to take
with a certain amount of toleration and humour. It has to be done and sometimes
it works very smoothly, sometimes not, and occasionally causes shocked
hilarity, like when I was once asked if I wanted to take out my teeth so the
metalwork would not ping the scanner, as they are crowned I declined. This time
no problem thankfully, and then time to kill prior to the gate declaration and
then flight. Wandering around I notice firstly that I was in section A of the
terminal, and then that all the Air Canada lounges and declared flight gates
were in section B. So I made my way there down two long escalators, so ending
up deep underground, along a long underground passage with travellators to
speed the process, and then up two long escalators ending up in section B.
Still no gate declaration for my flight I went into the loos’ toilets,
washrooms, whatever, to put on my flight socks. See I can be prepared and act
for the benefit of my continued good health. Emerging from there and feeling
ready for the flight I was just a tad unhappy to see that my flight was not
leaving from section B but A. No escalators down that I could see, so I was
transformed from excited to pretty annoyed and that was my saving expression as
a passing motorized buggy driver asked what the problem was and then drove me
back to section A.
Normally I try to take overnight flights across the Atlantic
as it maximises the daylight time for the days at either end, it also avoids
early morning flights out of airports and all the added hassles of getting up
and to the airport at some challenging time in the morning. But this flight was
a daytime flight and was fine, arriving in Halifax in the early afternoon. When
trying to work out what to pack for a month long trip to a country I had no
real idea about, in terms of climate and weather expectations so, despite
checking suitable web sites, I packed for an English spring with the likelihood
of warm and cold weather, hence imagine my surprise, on stepping out of the
aircraft in Halifax which is a well-known windblown location, to be almost
muffled in a heat wave of blinding sunlight. It was 28C apparently, not exactly
unheard of but one heck of a surprise as I thought I was heading to a cooler
north not a substantially hotter south. So here I was in the almost mythical,
to me, Canada, a place to visit so long stored up that I was in a numb
expectancy.
Halifax airport is in a very sparse landscape, even standing
waiting for the bus with long views over the surrounding area, you can see that
everything is spread out in, to a London born and bred boy, a place with so
much space that boundaries look meaningless. The airport facilities are spread
out, there are few people about, it has a quiet semi deserted feel. The bus
arrives, I get on and, having been previously tutored and made sure that I had
it, give the exact change, and we leave for Halifax city on the first real leg
of the adventure, travelling through a sparse landscape of trees, lakes, trees,
rock, and trees. Long lightly trafficked roads, occasionally small numbers of
people getting on and off the bus, small settlements peeking out from this vast
treed landscape, a world I was so not used to.
The bus stops in Halifax at yet another stop on a street and
with everybody else getting off the bus, I realise I must be “there.” Just a
nondescript pavement, no sense of arrival, and after a few questions, a
struggle uphill, round a corner and down to a taxi stand, then a ride and
discussion about house prices and I was at the hotel by Chocolate Lake, not a
lake of chocolate. From my room I looked out over Chocolate Lake and saw that
an imitation beach on the other side was crowded and people were in the water
swimming and playing and they continued till 9pm that night. This was just not
what I expected of Halifax, this was more like southern France. I had five
nights staying in Halifax and the long wished for Canadian adventure was
properly underway with days exploring the town and surrounding area as best I
could. Distances and space means something quite different to the parts of the
UK I know, and so getting about in those North American spaces is a very
different set of issues and experiences. There is of course the whole
orientation business we all go through going to a new place, especially towns
and cities, where knowing where you are which direction to go in to get to
where you want to are crucial. So grid pattern road systems in places should be
an aid, but are often disorientating when the conventions of
north/south/east/west are not reflected in the grid pattern. Halifax also does
not have what I would call a dense core but is strung out along the shore line
with the city scattered along the streets behind that. It seems a city enjoying
its location by the sea rather than a city that happens to be by the sea.
Since I was young and had the chance to explore London by
just wandering around parts of it through the decades that has strongly
influenced the way I explore the places I visit on such adventures. But there
is a another strong influence/desire, especially when I travel on my own as I
was for this adventure, and that was the irrepressible desire to talk to
people, to take the initiative, even provoke a response. Sometimes that does
not work and, in the UK, is often a difficult thing to bring off successfully,
but I needed to step up to the plate if I was to get beneath the skin of
Canada. And it happened, right from the start in Halifax, with the waiters in
the hotel, and in a restaurant in town, a volunteer at the Maritime Museum,
stall holders in The Farmer’s Market. The museum volunteer spoke of one aspect,
in my chat with him that brought out the part I knew I needed to play. He said
he had a quirky reputation in Halifax for walking around reading books. I was already
earning a reputation for writing up my travel log in restaurants and coffee shops
as well as reading books when occasion allowed. I even heard someone walking
past me say to a companion “look he is writing” as though I were performing
some obscure ritual. It not just got me noticed but encouraged questions and
conversations, “what are you writing,” “are you a writer,” “nice penmanship,”
etc. So my innocent little quirks broke through my and anyone else’s reserves
to achieve what I needed, contact with the people I was mixing with.
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