DAY ONE

Post One - Leaving Home sometime around 7:00 your time and who knows when my time ...

Do you ever know what a trip is going to hold before you leave? The anticipation only fosters dreams that leave you restless in the morning and expectations you aren't sure will be fulfilled. Though this may seem like I am looking for the negative in the positive but I have practiced not holding expectations for the trips that I have taken in my life. I seem only to get excited once I pull my luggage through those sliding doors of the airport and take in the scene before me.

What other facility in the world ships around human beings from every location in the world like they are a valued fed-ex package? The airport, more than the trip itself always seems to excite me, it's in the airport that my expectations and dreams for my trip are created through imagining where people in the airport are from, what they do, who they have left behind or what they are running to or from. Take this morning for example, a man in a wheelchair was speeding around the terminal, pushing his luggage cart better than my what might have seemed as drunken attempt to push my cart with the one wobbly wheel that had a personal mission statement to run me into everything but open space.

But, here I am now, sitting in Aisle 24, seat C beside one of the most interesting dudes I have ever met. But let's rewind this story a bit. The plane took off, a new one for that matter, Air Canada decided to step their game up a whole lot. In front of me now is a tiny 7 inch screen where I can watch anything from CBC News to Slumdog Millionaire, which I watched in Korean for ten minutes for kicks, have to admit brown people speaking english off time to the Korean voice is probably the most entertaining ten minutes I have had in 2009 so far.

Beside me is an amazing dude, Miles, for those of you people who like to know everyones name. Miles was born in England, grew up in Vancouver and has been to 60 countries - this dude is living my dream! His story only gets better though, his job is to train tourism employees (like Flight Centre employees) by taking them to some of the sketchiest countries this little world has to offer. How does he get the training to do this? Easy - he backpacks through these countries by himself and learns what to do, who not to talk to, what not to drink and what to drink, what to travel with and what not to travel with (apparently my camera is a death warrant in certain countries ... )

So, those of you that know me, you KNOW I love networking, so I ask for his card, I receive it with promises of beers when I am back in Toronto and some mad discounts if I ever want to travel with him to countries like Bosnia, Iceland, Uganda, Russia, Nigeria, Iran, Ethiopia ... should I keep going or are you jealous yet?!? Thailand, Dubai, Osaka ...

So that brings all of you lovely readers up to date with me -- INTERUPTION -- Miles just leaned over to inform me that if I take my shoes off then my 7 hour and 20 minute flight will be way more enjoyable. News update, I feel like a new man due to that tip, I just went from being uncomfortable to baaaaaallllliiiin <--- that was a subliminal shout-out to J McPherson (love ya bro). But I am going to leave you all now and return to Jim Carrey and Yes Man, I just NEED to know if he is going to get the girl in the end ... Expect a new entry if not multiple ... entries every day and I guarantee a Jason Matos edited photo every day or else I will bring EVERYONE Swiss chocolate as my personal apolgoy. Much love - miss everyone already, now excuse me while I remove this snoring lady to my right off my shoulder ....

Update - 4:02 am Switza-time

I finished Yes, Man and Jim Carrey dies. <-- that was a spoiler alert and now that I think of it spoiler alerts should come at the beginning of the sentence, my bad. So on the plane, as I mentioned, there are these tiny screens that entertain you during the flight and one of the thuper-duper features they have is this interactive map that follows your flight and the whole thing is touch-screen. Those of you who know me, know how stupid little things can bug me a lot - lemme explain to you how I almost went Chris Brown on the screen. To activate the general menu you have to press the menu button a.k.a but-tin <-- big inside joke about how I pronounce words properly and everyone else totally slacks --> anyways, the but-tin is located at the bottom left of the screen about a cm from the bottom. The calibration of my screen is off by a cm, meaning that I cannot click the friggin but-tin, I am TIRED, I am CRAMPED, I am so full of energy at the same time and I can't press this button because for those of you who know, touch screens are controlled through the heat from your skin, and I run out of room and skin to be able to press the button before I hit the plastic around the screen ... so I'm stuck looking at this little animated plane moving agonizingly slow across the large-freaking expanse of blue that is the ocean ... props to Air Canada hahaha.

By the way, everyone should go download/youtube/buy the song Knock You Down by Keri Hilson feat ... wait for it ... Kanye West, that's right ... I danced all the way to the washroom, even busted out the shopping cart move for a few feet, that's a true story, even received a wink from an older lady around the age of 70, little creeped out but I'll be alright. I'll leave you with a verse from the song, here we go:

Keep rockin & keep knockin / Whether you Louie Vuitton it up or Reebok'in /
You see that hate that they servin' on a platter / So what we gonna have? Dessert or **bassy-distorted-voice-that-I-can't-understand**

Update - 8:30 am Swiss time & 2:30 am your time

So we have arrived at the airport in Zurich after a long flight. Have you ever seen a sunrise from 38,000 feet?? I just did and it beats the hell out of a sunrise from the height of Waterdown. Differences in culture are already evident here - LADIES pay attention, it's widely known that Europe is a year or two ahead of us in fashion, so guess what boots are going to be coming into style?! High heeled leather boots that flip down an inch or two at the top and go anywhere from mid-shin to an inch or two below the knee cap. Hurry and order some off eBay or something, you all know you wanna be the hottest thing walking around! I just gave you the inside scoop to be ahead of the game in Canada, don't disappoint, I want to see all of you looking hott in those boots!

Right now, my sister and I are just chillin on a super uncomfortable metal couch apparatus waiting for our car that is about 3 feet longer than a smart car for a three hour drive to Huemoz (WAY-MOS (mos rhymes with toes) which is a village of 200 people.

The main languages in Switzerland are German, French and Italian (EYE-TALIAN <-- another word I say "correctly") and what I have seen out of the airport windows so far is an absolutely incredible view of architecture and SO much green! (trees people, trees)