Achmed’s Last Flight, Day One

As a rule, I love to travel, but after only one night in Winnipeg I now realize why I have never spent any significant amount of time here. I have nothing against the place, the people are very friendly and the weather is better then we are getting back home on the island right now, but I spent a Saturday night lying around a hotel room watching the tube, which has to be an absolute first for me.

The trip here was pretty uneventful, except for the fact that by the time I got off the plane I was pretty much a walking zombie. I don’t sleep well the night before I fly on an early flight and I don’t sleep on planes. So by the time I checked into the hotel I was exhausted, managing on three hours of sleep in two days and it was only lunchtime when you factored in thethree-and-a-half hours time difference to the mountain zone. When I sat on the bed, I passed out while Mom was in mid-sentence to me talking about something… of which I have no idea what it was… sorry Mudder.

Another absolute first for me on this trip yesterday was going shopping with Mom. Not just any kind of shopping… BRA shopping! When I woke up from my two-hour nap, I was starving so we headed to the mall across the street to look around, and I figured I would grab a slice of pizza to hold me over until the big dinner that I was looking forward to… I love to eat! Mom says, “let’s go over to the mall across the street, I need to pick up a few things.”

Finding a slice of pizza proved to be a much bigger job than I had anticipated and we ended up settling for chicken salad at Wendy’s instead. Finding the bra section at Sears worked out to be a much easier task than I had hoped. I was getting some pretty strange looks as I leaned on a rack of lingerie, drinking my coffee and smiling at women picking out something nice to wear on their next big date. I believe security would have been by to escort me out if I hadn’t gone up to the cash-counter when Mom went to pay for her things and everyone realized that I was a ‘Momma’s boy’ spending the day shopping with her. No offence Mom, but the next time you need underwear, I am just going to wait in the car.

Another thing that has made this trip a little uncomfortable is that I was fighting a cold all week before I took off to come here and it seems that the lack of sleep for two days has let my resistance down enough for it to take hold. I am stuffed up and sneezing and that just doesn’t sound like a good combination for a tunnel of radiation. If I sneeze during the surgery, I have a feeling that could be a bad thing… maybe I will come back home with new spider senses!

And the ‘big dinner’ I was looking forward to last night turned into a club sandwich in the hotel restaurant, while my eyes were practically bleeding from lack of sleep and I was texting Matt (from 4-guy fame) back and forth on the updates from the Flames / Oilers game, which no doubt I would have been eating a steak in his kitchen if I was home for game night.

Anyway, today Mom and me are going to be tourists in Winnipeg, seeing how it is unlikely that either one of us will ever be back here, and the forced staying up and sleeping in today took care of the jetlag. Being full of piss and vinegar and I have no where to be until tomorrow when I meet the surgical team, we might as well go out and see what this city has to offer.

I see brunch in my very immediate future!

From Achmed and Me… Live Live!