Sunday, June 19, 2016

Portland, Dallas, Toronto, Collingwood. The night can feel the longest when you’re traveling across the country.

“I’m going to Canada,” I whispered to myself as I sat with my fellow blurry-eyed flyers who were also taking this red-eye flight. I checked my watch: midnight. My flight out of PDX should board any minute.

It takes three hours and some change to fly from Portland to the Dallas Fort Worth Airport. I could feel the humidity between exiting the plane and entering DFW. I had lost two hours already, and the late night was taking its toll. On the plane I had watched a movie and jealously eyed the guy next to me who slept soundly through the entire flight.

I was off the plane at 6:18 a.m. My connecting flight boarded at 6:30, and I was in the biggest airport in the United States, sleep-deprived, and drowsily carting my backpack, duffel bag, and an Oregon Duck pillow pet. I approached the first help desk I saw and handed the man my boarding pass. “Please, I’m just trying to get to Toronto,” I said.

“Are you up for a bit of a hike?” He asked me.

I eyed him warily. “Maybe.”

I hiked. The airport became a blur as I hightailed it past fellow flyers, Puddles my pillow pet bobbing in my backpack, only his head visible. I made it to my flight on time, sweaty and out of breath, I slept through the two hour flight, and I had arrived.

“I’m in Canada,” I said softly as I waited in line at customs. I was going to spend the next two-and-a-half months as an au pair for a family in Ontario. What an adventure.