Day 1 - June 16th

by Mariëlla, Henriëtte and BramJ

After months of preparations, contract researches and macro, meso and micro researches the Big Day finally arrived... the journey to Canada started! The 'day' began the 16th of June with the 'uitzwaaiborrel' at 16:00, Dutch time. It ended 34 hours later; the 17 of June at 20:00 Canadian time when we started to write this story.

To continue with the start of the day, the 'borrel' was very enjoyable and ended in a nice barbeque full of meat, after which there was time to make the last arrangements for the long journey. At 1:309, Dutch time, the whole fellowship of the study tour gathered at the Hogekamp. Some people were there to travel 3 or 5 weeks to Canada (and the USA), others to say goodbye to those dear and near to them.
At the trip to Schiphol in the bus we were joyfully surprised with a very funny movie made by the 76th board of Scintilla. In combination with the film there was a bag containing enough shizzle to make sure that we would at least survive the journey to schiphol.

When we arrived at Schiphol Airport the first waiting moment was only half an hour to check in. The second waiting moment lasted in contrary three and a half hours, in which the promenade-deck was not opened, neither the stores and so it was a very long and dull waiting moment. When we regrouped at the gate it was the first official time to buddy-check which we gladly did 6 or 7 times. The goal of the buddy-check was, of course, to check if every single participant was present.

The plane left the Dutch ground at 8 o'clock. 8 hours, gruesome portion of scrambles eggs, 3 films (the astronaut farmer, a night at the museum and casino royale), 1 tasty sandwich with a ridiculously thick layer of cheese and a little layer of turkey, and many friendly words from the stewardesses later we landed successfully at Toronto national airport.
Although some of you might think the day ended, for us it just started. And it became a day to remember as the day we made the first step (for the most of us at least) at the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
We found out that there are big temperature differences in Toronto; outside it is hot and everywhere inside the air conditioning was blowing at full power, even in the 27-kilometers long shopping mall when the shops were closed. Now we know witch country delivers a big contribution to the global warming process!

The afternoon was free time; a group checked the CN-tower in which we will have dinner in 3 weeks according to the travel guide, a group went to the old part of the city, some groups went shopping through the city in which they discovered a mega huge bookstore. The group that had to pick up our vans was less fortunate; they had to sign papers the whole afternoon and waited, waited and waited.
After the dinner by a Swiss Chalet (in which only Chinese people served typically American food) most of us went to sleep or played some games before nightfall.

In general it was an enjoyable (but long) nice day.