The beginning of all things

I was so excited, the day I left Montreal, excited like I never been before. I've seen a couple of new faces right when I sat down at the waiting area, not sure of who it was and if we would be together for the 'stage' (since the whole groupe was separated in 2, one for the North and the other one for the South) Down at the airport, with my sore ankle, I was wondering if my foot would make it, luckily it wasn't so bad and I knew that I had 15 hours of sitting down. I didn't know exactly was to expect, I was up for the challenge and I was waiting for the flight (the best part about travelling, or at least in my top 3). Not knowing what would exactly happen is thrilling and this put in another unknown context adds up to the excitation. Some bit a fear was mixed also, I guess I feared to be disappointed, to find time wouldn't pass quickly and such... and most of all, not to have any real vacation. At one point, just above Beijing, a few moments before landing, I just told myself, Que sera sera... and that's what happened. But just before that I flew from Montreal to Vancouver and then headed to the Chinese Capital. And those were many hours to fill in with anything I had my hand on, like always I had a notebook, my MP3 and some good books to read (and movies to watch) So the lift off is done and I'm up to settle myself for the ride, I sit next to the alley and the two girls next to me are also from Laval and d0ing the 'stage', really nice girls (which I will met again later on and whom I will 'follow' around the first week at Tianjin. A couple of smiles here and there and I shut myself up to enjoy the few moments that I could have by myself (or so I thought, actually I did get some alone time, to keep myself sane), movies, food and a few conversation filled up the time, until we reached Vancouver. Then, a needed break to get back on foot and to have 'real' food at Vancouver's airport. Weird place, if I didn't know better I would have thought I had actually made it to China, the waitings room were filled with Chinese and the direction boards had chinese characters on them... Just WOW. Once we ate and all, we headed back to another plane to finalize our travel to Beijing. Another set of food, movie and writings followed. And then after many, many hours of plane riding, I finally arrived at Beijing's airport! Ohhh tthe joy and the nervousness collided, but I was with familiar faces (some who turned out to be friends after), we all got through and made our way to get to our luggage... and that's when it really started... mc