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I've finished editing my travel journal but since it is so long I can't upload it to my blog. So it will unfortunately have to be uploaded in several segments. This is not a literary masterpiece but simply how I saw things and recorded them the best I could. Please excuse all typos and grammatical errors - there are likely several! My writing style is likley rather pendantic. I tended to be rather factual with describing things and really didn't write in terms of content much considering my trip was nine weeks long.

MY ADVENTURE

I kept a fairly detailed diary of my nine-week trip abroad in the spring of 2000. I recently read my grandfather’s travel journal of his and my grandmother’s trip to Britain. It was very interesting so I thought that I should “publish” my travel journal as well. I dedicate this to my great aunt Grace who passed away in July 1999. Her inheritance money gave me the unique opportunity to take this trip. I began planning an overseas trip in the fall of 1999 and I spent many weeks deciding where to go. It seemed logical that I would take the trip soon after I finished library school. There was a window of about two months from when I finished classes until I needed to be in Chicago and attend the American Library Association’s annual conference and job fair. Luckily the University of Alberta’s Student Travel Center was able to help me out in selecting the tour companies, various tour packages, and finding the best student airfare rates.
Other pre-planning included getting vaccination shots, obtaining a passport and mailing it to various consulates in Ottawa to have it stamped. I was afraid that I would obtain all the passport stamps in time so I had to shell out a lot of money to get a private FedEx account. April 2000 was the most hectic month of my life. I had just starting seeing my girlfriend Darcy, organizing the library school’s graduation ball, finishing up classes, packing up my apartment and organizing my big trip and smaller trips to Spokane and Chicago in July. My last day of class was April 13 and one week later I was on a 747 bound for Egypt! Here is my humble story…

April 13, 2000
It’s 12:30 pm and am sitting in the car in a parking lot waiting for Darcy. Been a very hectic week…More later! (Darcy was approaching my car so I could no longer write). Now 5:25 pm and it’s been a very emotional day. Haven’t been this emotionally distraught in a long time. Hard to believe it’s April 20 D-Day! School is done and all my stuff is in storage. I have an empty feeling of sadness now with leaving everyone behind. Hopefully this will change once I get on the 747 bound for London. The last month was incredibly busy but meeting Darcy lightened things a bit. We did some fun things together with me drawing her for being a highlight. We seemed to click well as a couple for the brief time that we were together. Here we go!!! (747 takes off). Goodbye Edmonton…hello to the exciting unknown…

8:30 pm
Feels a bit more relaxed and rested. Slept through most of the flight to Vancouver. Mountains here are gorgeous!! Long layover of over three hours but that’s okay. Gives me a chance to reflect on things – school moving from Edmonton and Darcy. Our future is obviously uncertain but luckily we’ll have time together before August rolls around.

April 21 – 3:30 pm
I’m sitting by Gate 1B at Heathrow Airport and is probably the largest airport I’ve seen with many expensive duty free stores and shops. But exchange rate makes it unrealistic to buy anything! The sky is grey with rain clouds. I just heard the boarding call…

posted by Michael at 10:12 AM