139 THE FINAL DAY

Well today is it, my last full day here.  I didn’t do anything today, well that’s not quite true, I just didn’t go anywhere to do it.  I had to pack and figured it would be an easy thing with all the room I had left on the way down here.  All I added was a couple of t-shirts, a sweatshirt, hat and jacket and then the Harry Potter wand and stand.  I think the big difference is that I decided to put my heavy leather jacket in the suitcase instead of carrying it and kept the light one out.

I packed and repacked it 3 times and finally managed to get it zipped shut.  I guess that’s the advantage of a soft side suitcase rather than a hard-shell.  There’s a bit of stretch room.  Unfortunately, after doing that, I discovered a few things left out.  My sweatshirt and sweatpants that I’m wearing and my toiletries and case.  I’m hoping I can squeeze them into my camera case or backpack.  Otherwise, I’m pulling the leather jacket out.

I’d rather not as it’s big and bulky to carry and on the way down here I was sweating like crazy trying to wear it in the airports.  It would be nice when I get home as I’ve been told it’s below 0 in temperature and has snowed slightly.  I’ll do what I can to avoid it, but, oh well.

I also went down to the front desk to confirm my transport to the airport tomorrow.  I’m told I will be picked up at 7:45 AM, which is a bit of a pain as my flight doesn’t leave until 12:20 PM and Air Canada says to check in by 10:20 AM.  Oh well, like on the way down, I’ll hang out in the Maple Leaf Lounge until boarding.

I’m in a quandary.  Do I eat my usual breakfast at the hotel, or do I wait until I get to the lounge and eat there for free?  That will be the likely option I take.  I think I’ve spent enough on meals.  The other thing that has me wondering, is the trepidation over the miserable flights down.  Should I take a Gravol, prophylactically after boarding the first flight, or wait to see if I start feeling bad.

The advantage to doing it right away is that it will prevent me getting sick and the drowsiness should be out of my system by Toronto.  I’d rather not take it before landing in Vancouver as I have a long drive home after, especially if it snows again before I get there.

The biggest difference between now and the first flight is that I was sick before starting and so far, I’m not here.  I do have butterflies a bit, which is really early.  I usually don’t get those until the morning of departure and that’s even when I’m just driving up to the lake.  I’ll figure it out tomorrow.

I checked in with Air Canada and got that out of the way, then I went around and said goodbye to various staff members I got to know.  I acquired quite a few of them as Instagram followers.  They all treated me well while I’ve been here, and it has been a great time.

Three weeks is a long time for a trip, but I got a lot done and took a ton of photos.  I have them all edited, except last night’s night shots at Hogwarts.  I’ll have to do those when I get home.  I’m taking precautions to avoid potential disaster.  I’m in the process of uploading every shot to my Dropbox account, just in case.  I’ll also carry the drive in a separate bag from the laptop.  That way, if disaster strike in the form of a theft, I’ll still have the pics.

I’ve been so busy, that I haven’t had a chance to feel remotely lonely.  Staying in touch with Tamara, Caitlin, Karl and Trevor by text helps, but also the friendships I have built with a lot of the staff members here.  I know it’s their jobs and all, but they all seem to relate more to me than other patrons I’ve seen them with.  I’m done and ready to get home, but I’m also sad to be leaving in a fashion.

The only things I didn’t get done, the primary one that I ad planned for was to witness a launch that was scheduled for when I was here, to suddenly getting moved to February 9, 4 days after I get home.  I suspect it was due to the government shutdown.  I wanted to eat at Mel’s Drive In, but I didn’t even know it existed until I stumbled across it one night, so not a big deal.  I didn’t go to any water parks like Volcano Bay or the hotel pools.  But even though, I brought my swimsuit, I’m not a public pool swimmer, and my body is too banged up for water slides.

The last thing I didn’t do and didn’t really plan to was go to Epcot Center.  The sad part about that is that I bought a 4 park Disney pass for just under $500 CAN and only used three of them.  I would have gone back to Animal Kingdom, but you aren’t allowed to go to the same park twice.  By contrast, I paid just under $250 CAN for a Universal all park passes and when I got here the told me I could upgrade to an all park year pass that gave me unlimited access to them all.  I went to Universal, roughly 7 times.