so, on my second business trip for my newish-job [2 1/2 months in] it wasnt quite as nice as my first trip. this first trip will be chronicled sometime later, cuz it was awesome. but since my second trip is more congnitively salient, i shall talk about this one first.
wednesday july 13th, 2005: wake up at 4:30am. take a shower, get dressed [in a suit] and pick up my tote bag with pyxis mobile [http://www.pyxismobile.com] marketing materials to take with me on my flight. dont forget my passport. that was clutch. also, bring along the iPod shuffle. 120 songs and small enough to conceal in places that airport security couldnt find if they wanted to. and it was free. but that is a trophy from business trip #1 of which we will not discuss right now. back on track: get to the airport by 5:30, and get my ticket. plane to toronto leaves at 6:30, and its on time. meet my director, we board the plane, and this sets the stage for my first trip to canada ever.
canada: everyone who goes up there says its pretty damn cool. toronto is supposed to be very european, people are nice, and there are strip clubs and nudie bars beyond belief. i, however, did not get to experience toronto. in fact, the only thing in toronto i got was some second-hand smoke and jet-fuel exposure. oh yeah, and an airport seat for about 30 hours. but we'll talk more about that later.
so i sleep for the entire 2 hour and 14 minutes of my flight up to canada. i miss the complimentary snack and orange juice and/or coffee. needless to say, im huckin' fungry. so after choosing between a pontiac grand am or a chrysler seabring [not convertable], we get on the road and head to the metropolis that is Waterloo, ON. "ON" stands for ontario. its a providence in canada. seriously. you should know that. for reals, yo. so, i choose the grand am cuz its brand new and GM cars always have kick-ass air conditioning systems. "but michael," you ask, "isnt canada supposed to be cool and not humid?" fuck yeah its supposed to be; but apparently because i happen to be visiting they have heat warnings for record highs and its so humid you have to push the air aside to walk through it. great. not that sweat stains on business shirts arent a great way of saying "partner with us" but uh... well, theyre not.
so we're driving in our american car and blasting the AC like its nobodys business. and im hungry, so we decide to pull off at an exit and get coffee and something to eat at "tim horton's". now, all canadians rave about tim horton's coffee and how good it is. this seems like a logical choice then. cuz mcdonald's coffee sucks balls. lemme tell you something: tim horton's coffee BLOWS. so i order one soon-to-be-recognized-as-shit-coffee and also a cheese crossiant. hey, we're in friggin' canada; they should have good crossiants. they're practically french [although thats not ontario, but whatever. same thing]. well, lets hear it for half-cooked crap crossiants!!! first off, timmy H does a good job of throwing off unsuspecting americans because the line for this place was redonkulously long and the inside was all nice and shit. very classy, san diego. not "sit-down restaraunt" classy, but classy enough for me to not get that "oh crap, i am going to get stabbed" feeling like i get at most dunkin' donuts. so then i take a bite of this crapssiant and im like "holy crap. what tastes like poo?" then, to wash it down i attempt to sip my 150762 degree celcius coffee. and they werent even curteous enough to give you one of them coffee sleeve thingies that reduce the nerve pain associated with second degree burns. nice. so i burn my tounge. awesome.
we get to waterloo. basically a town with RIM's [research in motion -- they make blackberrys] campus. its a bunch of buildings that RIM owns and develops their devices and software in. pretty nice. so we have a few meetings. nothing special. i shake some hands, pass out business cards, the usual. shall we get some lunch? alright. some RIM guys take me and my director out to a pub, where nobody orders a beer. im last to order my drink, and [being the new guy] im too big of a pussy to break the beer barrier. in hindsight, probably a good call. its "wing special" day, so they order 20 or so wings and then we get lunch. i had a chicken wrap thingy with some ranch-sauce dressing. why is this important? well, we'll get to that.
we drop the guys back off at RIM, snatch a free wi-fi blackberry, then head on our way back to the airport. our flight is at 8:30pm. its around 1:30pm. the drive takes an hour. so, maybe we'll head into toronto for a drink. one of ours salesguys was in town and he called us to get us to go out and party with him. awesome. right about that time, thats when it hits me; why the HELL does my stomach feel like its about to karate-chop me to death??? we pull over [at a tim horton's, no less] and i spend the next 15 minutes throwing up and/or hmmm... how do i put this...spending "quality time" in le toilette. after thats over, we decide to try and catch an earlier flight home. so we head to the airport. where upon i take another two trips to le toilette. and also find out that, of course, we cannot get on any earlier flight because they are all over-sold.
awesome.
so i spend the next 5 and 1/2 hours in the airport. sick. hot. pissed off. and not at a strip club. with no internet access. and no cell phone coverage [because umm... oh yeah. verizon doesnt work up in canada]. waiting to get home at 11pm at night. so, what IS the point of all this bitching?
canada sucks. i hate canada. im sure its great, but what did i get out of it besides the ebola virus? jack shit. and french canadian are worse. which is a good thing, because Q [ultimate team] know they are our bitches. thats right, Q. you will never beat the noise. fuck you canada. you suck. so i fly home and go to bed. thank you usa for your awesome fast food and air conditioning.
"i'll be your number one with a bullet. a loaded god complex, cock it and pull it"
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