Greetings from the Nation's Capital!

Well folks, here I am :)

Travel by plane is SO sureal-all of a sudden, after a drive to Halifax and a short plane ride, I'm 593km away and coming down an escalator to see a wall fountain emblazoned with the word OTTAWA. Buzzy.

What a trip. Drive and check in was OK (found a new place to park and fly...they give a government discount too, BTW)and then I get to the departures area. So I put my stuff through the machine only to be told, "I am going to open your bag". Uh, OK. No Prob. Just try to imagine my horror when she pulls out my jacknife! You see, it was in my briefcase because I use it during the course of my work and I had totally forgotten it was in there. She didn't seem to believe me when I was explaining this as she was escorting me back out to the main area (she did give me the option to mail it to myself...but I had to go out to do this). They gave me some very funny deja vu looks when I came back 10 minutes later.

And then I am waiting to board the plane and I casually flip over my boarding pass to pass the time and Hello! The sticker that came from the ticket they put on my bag when I checked it read TO:CALGARY. Great. I went to the desk and they said, "You are going to Ottawa? It says here you are going to Calgary. Duh. The brilliant check-in person signed me in as another passenger with the same last name! The attendant called the baggage folks and they said, "too late-the container for Calgary has been sealed and is on the plane". Thank God I had thought to put a pair undies in my carry-on!

Onward to Ottawa. Nice flight...read the script for the play I am in this winter...had a tomatoe juice (ps-they don't even give you pretzels anymore). I arrive in Ottawa and sure enough, my bag is not there. I got in line to report it and when I got to the counter, the guy started to enter in my info and all of a sudden he says, "hold on" and goes out back. SEEMS MY BAG DIDN'T MAKE THE CONNECTION! Yippee! And he was such a nice guy. And they say Air Canada is tough...they were all very nice to me.

I went to call the hotel to get the free shuttle and the desk person says, "Oh we don't have the shuttle on Sunday nights". I went to get a cab, and even managed to share one with a fellow who had been in-line for the baggage reports. He works for the Dept. of Justice and came from Nfld. So I met a nice fellow public servant with a good handshake and saved a bit of cash!

All is well that ends well...nice hotel...I have a room with a balcony right on the river...had a nice meal (butternut squash soup, salad with braised fennel and smoked chicken and a glass of wine) and now that I have documented my adventures, I am off to the land of nod to rest up for my first day at Camelot (no kidding-the office is on Camelot drive...people refer to it as Camelot).

Stay tuned for more adventures. I am sorry, Myleta...there won't be any pics until I get home...my gov't issue laptop won't let me load the camera software on it!