Canadia - The Land of Niceness

So despite the terrorists trying really really hard to stop me .... i finally managed to arrive in toronto on saturday night ... albeit several hours late .... but despite having been travelling for almost two days without a break .... like the trooper i am ... i still managed to go out for late drinks with my lovely friend Jay's fiancee (the very lovely and beautiful Bindee) .... just to acclimatise of course you understand ...

And so i was introduced to this land of utter niceness .... everyone here is nice to the point where you think something MUST be wrong ... the cabbies don't speed and give way to pedestrians .... no one crosses the road when they shouldn't ... and everyone goes out of their way to help you ... they apologise if they knock into you ... and everyone smiles - all the time .... they are all so nice - it can't be natural .... either that or there's something to that maple syrup ....

Sunday was spent preparing for a week at the AIDS conference .... mimosa brunch .... shopping for shoes and bags (BCBG dahling) ... and then many yummy martinis on sunshine-y patios .... yes - its a hard life this saving the world lark ..... so its obviously vital to have fabulous accessories as one does it ....

Heathrow Hell

A few months ago - on my way back from the epic Jamaican-Greek-Punjabi-Yankee wedding extravaganza ..... i had my worst-to-date travel experience .... hungover (actually still drunk) ... late to the airport ... invalid ticket .... delayed ... lost luggage .... and shitty seats (next to golhar) ... and it was all made only a little bit better by the fact i was travelling with shashank .... although given he managed to leave his laptop in a security check in heathrow - i don't think he found the whole 40 hours of travel too much fun either .... for two people who globe trot for a living - in general our performance was pretty poor ...

however - that trip now seems almost easy (well - especially since i threw a tantrum for the second part of that aforementioned trip and got myself upgraded from london to jobourg ... it was my first ever business class experience .... and it was just incredible .... there's a reason they draw that curtain across to divide it from cattle class ... they know they'd have a riot of people knew how good it was up there) .... as compared to my latest trip from SA to Canadia this weekend ....

I was travelling to Toronto for the big AIDS conference jamboree here ... and had to travel via London so that i could spend a few hours en famille ... and basically to eat my mum's food .... but unfortunately evil terrorists have no sympathy for a poor child wanting home food after many months away helping to save the world ...

After 4 hours delay in cape town .... a 12 hour flight to london .... and then the ignominy of having all my hand luggage and presents and mobile phone (oh god - separation from my phone) snatched away from me by the airport nazis (sorry i know you're only doing your job) ... i was feeling pretty peeved .... thankfully mum and dad came to the airport to collect my stuff (including all the wine that i'd been ferrying to canadia as presents) .... and brought the mythic-much-dreamed-of food (indian mothers are GODDESSES) which we ate true indian family style as a picnic by the car (only this time in the car park and not motorway-side as per my fond childhood memories .... did anyone else grow up with the M6 as their formative picnic experience?) ....

And then shock horror .... we walked to the next terminal .... and found the queue to enter the departure zone .... which snaked all the way out of the terminal .... to the carpark .... and then around the multistorey for two levels .... un-bloody-believable ....

What was amazing however was the complete calm-ness and chirpiness of the Brits .... i can see how that stiff-upper-lip-thing led to them ruling the world .... there's nothing like a crisis to bring out the best and the stoic in the english .... but truly what was even more incredible and completely to the brits' credit - was that there was no tension whatsoever between the general delayed masses and the many muslim families also standing in line .... it could so easily have been nasty and have got ugly .... and i remember what many muslims (and many other people of colour) went through post-9-11 .... and i'm dead proud of my country-people ....

Although i have to admit .... that i (albeit after a good 24 hours travelling non stop) did lose it when an arab bloke (and his three wives) tried to cut in the line in front of me .... as he held up his hands and tried to protest that he'd also been waiting (in a chair) etc etc .... i fixed him with my iciest most snooty stare and said in the poshest accent i could muster "This is England - and in England - sir -We Queue"