The adventure begins..

October 5th 2013,

Exactly in the same day, a year ago, I was In the plane, sitting next to my roommate in Pre Departure Training, Feby, heading to Doha, Qatar, to go to Canada in a mission, to change my life. I cannot barely close my eyes to fall asleep, cause I was thinking too much about what will I face in the new place, with new friends, far away from my family, and the most important thing that bothered me is, will my host family live in harmony with me? Is my counterpart a nice person, and the other silly paranoid question that appeared in my mind.

me and my roommate in Pre Departure Training, Feby

Today, the participant of the exchange for this year are busy to pack their belongings, because tonight they will depart from Indonesia, to go to Canada. I visited them last week, just for four days, and it was sad enough cause it reminds me of the time when we had pre Departure Training last year.

Let’s get back to the same day last year.

10.12 am Indonesia’s time. I was in the plane, from Doha, heading to Montreal, Canada. I sat next to Bea and Idho, my friend from Riau Archipelago and Banten. I still remember the smell of the air inside the plane, the excitement of every participant, the tight sensation of our formal attire, the comfortable sensation when we open the button of our blazer and stretch our back, the magenta seat, the meal, the pepper, the orchid butter, the socks, the lavatory, the luggage, everything. Too bad I did not take a lot of picture inside the plane.

When we arrived in Trudeau, Montreal, we were hanging around for a moment, and had our first Canadian fast food meal, Wendys and Canadian McDonald. Some of my friend were confused how to order and which one is halal, since muslims do not eat pork and alcohol. They were asking me about what is pork, ham, and bacon. Soon after we ate, we were busy looking for internet access, then there he is, the man who work with Canada World Youth (I forgot his name), offered us his internet access from his smart phone. Suddenly most of the participant were busy with their own gadget, updating their status, updating their location, and so on. I just sat there and enjoy the scenery of my friends, cause my smart phone and my ipod were ran out of batteries. Soon, we will depart to Halifax, it took about two and a half hours to go to Halifax. The plane that we took to get to Halifax is not as comfortable as the one that bring us from Doha to Montreal, but still, we were excited to go outside of airport building, to inhale the cold air of Halifax.

Halifax, after the baggage claimed, then we went outside, took some picture of our steamed breath, and we were picked by taxy to go to the hotel. It was me, Tika, Dima and Dea to get to the Taxy for the first time, we shared the taxy with a Canadian family. When we arrived in Quality Hotel, Halifax, I set my watch to the local time, it was early day, 01.something am.

WELCOME to Quality Hotel, kid!

I shared the room with Tika, Dea, and Dima. After we got our room, which was filled with four participants, we went outside of our room to have some tea or coffee, and then we met Katrina, the first Canadian participant that we know. Then we went back to our room, had some leftover fries from Montreal, and some Indonesian instant noodle called Mie Gelas, took shower and a little girly chit chat, we fell asleep.