Powell River, Day 1

Beginning of the trip I have been looking forward to.

It's time for me to escape from reality for a bit - given my life has been chaotic for quite a while. I still had to play in an accompaniment gig this morning. :-P

Before I hit Powell River, I had to first pass by Vancouver because there is no direct flight to PR from Calgary (of course not!). It's nice to look at Vancouver once again. I miss this place.

Hauling luggages is always a pain in the butt for a percussionist like me because we have more to carry than anybody else in the orchestra. This time I have two suitcases (1 with clothes, 1 with mallets), a snare drum and a laptop ... Yikes. Thank God there are shuttle buses connecting between the Main Terminal and the South Terminal (where I take my flight to PR), which makes my luggage carrying a little less exhausting.

When I checked in at the South Terminal, the lady charged me for an extra luggage. She claimed that my snare drum wouldn't fit under the seat and therefore I couldn't carry it as a carry-on baggage. I wasn't impressed at first, but later I found out why. The plane was SMALL - you had to crawl your back in order to get in, and the plane can seat maybe 20 people at max. The PR airport was of course very small too and very primitive looking.

Originally SOAP says we'd be picked up by bus. And you know what - bus means people's cars. The staff from SOAP came pick us up. They drove us to our accommodations and helped us check in. By the way, my hotel is right beside A&W. :-P

When I finally arrived at my hotel (with my heavy luggages - phew!), there was an envelope on the desk which included the schedule, information on PR, and money for dinner tonight. It feels like being in a high school band camp again - when all your needs are well taken care of by the chaperones. As much as I want to be pampered, I am already not used to it ... haha.

Anyways, tomorrow is when the real camp starts. I am totally inconfident about the placement audition because I haven't practiced as intensely as I was when I was still a student. But it doesn't matter - I don't care if I'm placed last ...

(P.S. I went to DQ for dinner. I had a chicken strip basket, which included fries. I left 2/3 of the fries uneaten. I can't eat that much fried stuff anymore ...)