After months of preparation we finally left Nanton at 5:00pm on the Nanton Community Bus to Calgary International Airport to catch our flight to Heathrow International Airport near London.  The bus ride (which included people from Fort Macleod, Claresholm and Nanton) was amazingly short.  People suggested that this was because  Carl was driving, but I think that it was actually because we (most anyway) were so excited to be going. After arriving at the Calgary airport, we waited for several hours while the person behind the desk slowly checked our baggage (which was all marked with flagging tape for ease of retrieval later.)  With that finally done we made a brief stop at the food court before heading through security.  As usual I did not buy anything, since I am too cheap and I didn't have any Canadian money with me anyway.

    Going through security I was stopped either because of the metal on my boots, or the metal zipper on my money pouch.  It may have been a combination, but the wand pointed to the zipper, so I showed them.  I arrived at the gate and after a ten-minute wait boarding started.  Our plane was a Boeing 767.  My assigned seat was beside Rennie and no one wanted to trade, so I ended sitting beside him all the way to England.  Shea was also supposed to sit in that row of seats, but he traded with someone so that he could sit beside Brad.  The captain did not always follow the protocol 100% as is shown by the fact that he did not always announce when he was turning the seat belt symbol on or off.

    The movies on the flight were not exceptional and I wish I had slept instead of watching them.  They were "Waking Ned Divine" – a very comic Irish movie, and "The Red Violin" – a movie that told the history of a violin.  Someone was not paying good attention to his/her job, because in between movies a screen saying “System not available, please select another channel.” was displayed.  Finally at about 2:00am Mountain Standard Time I fell asleep, but only for a bit.
 
 

    Because of the uncomfortable conditions on the plane, I did not get a good sleep.  The landing in London was a little rough, but it was fine.  After meeting in one of the halls, we took the moving sidewalk to the bus stop, where we took a bus to another terminal where we took off, bound for Nice.  The ride felt strange, being on the other side of the road.  Alana was saying she was scared we were going to hit something, but I said “ what, don't you trust the driver” which caused the driver to smile.  The terminal from which we took off had a huge food court and many stores.  Instead of heading to the food court (I had no £), I went directly to find where our gate was.

    Having done this and knowing we still had several hours to wait, I returned to find my friends.  But I had to go through security to get from the gate area into the food court, which I found rather odd, because one did not have to do so to get into the gate area of that terminal.  From the complaining my friends did, I could tell that the Coke they drank was not Coca-Cola Classic, but the new Coke.  The pop cans were less that half the size, but cost roughly the same amount as they do at home.

    The British Midland Flight to Nice was cramped and uncomfortable.  Our plane was a Boeing 737 with no TVs so the attendants had to demonstrate how the safety equipment works.  As we waited for take-off, Mike watched as his bag was taken near to the plane, then taken away.  He asked the stewardess about it, and she guaranteed him that his bag would be on the plane.

    Our landing in Nice was smooth, and once we had our baggage we headed out to the tour bus that we would be using while in France.  After a long wait, we found out that Mike's bag had not been put on the plane, and he didn't have it.  On the way to the hotel several things were pointed out to us as being the sights of Nice.  This included «La Promenade des Anglais» and some of the gardens downtown.

    We were dropped off at our hotel, where we placed our bags in the lobby, then walked over to «Hôtel Frank Zurich.»  Because we were a bit late, we lost our reservation for supper and had to come back in about half an hour or more.  So we went back to «Hôtel Elizabeth» and were assigned our rooms.  Mike and I were put in the same room (on the fourth floor) and I asked him what he thought about his bag being misplaced.  He said that he thought it was funny, but he was a little peeved at the flight attendant who told him not to worry, that his bag would be on the plane.

    We went back to the other hotel for supper, which was spaghetti.  I sat with Alana, Laura, and Jo at a table in a small room off to the side where we were told we could sit, but the clumsy waiters (who broke something every night) did not realize that we were part of the same group.  So we weren't served until we talked to Mr. Hall who got the waiter to serve us.   The meal consisted of salad, spaghetti, and applesauce (for dessert.)  When the girls ordered beer the waiter asked «dans un can?» and I had to listen to her repeat it three times before I understood it to mean “in the can/bottle”.  After supper we went back to the hotel and sat in our room and Matt, Scott, and Victor's room until we went to bed, which was fairly early France time (when compared to some other nights after we had recovered from jet lag).