The upside of travelling with kids

Damn, people can be friendly when they see you travelling with human baggage.

From the Qantas check-in guy who re-seated Ella and I to a row of four empty seats, so we could set up our own inflight double bed (I love you!), to the lovely Canadian ladies who helped Ella overcome her first tangible sign of culture shock in not knowing how to flush the toilet (I was stranded at the bathroom entrance manning our considerable luggage), to the immigration clerk who told me that Canada is so desperate for police staff that if I ever get pulled over for speeding, just to tell them that I'm thinking of applying.

Yes, that's right, even though our journey had its cranky moments, for the most part Ella travelled beautifully. We were directed to faster queues, we were handed special kiddy treats on the plane (ehem, I mean Ella was, ehem) and we even got the unimaginable from customs officers: smiles.

Plus as a bonus, I've already learned a couple of things, for instance:

- how during turbulence, Qantas has that one thing that no other airlines has: Dustin Hoffman's voice in your head going 'Qantas never crash.'

- how Canada's inability to commit to the one national language has both pros and cons. Pros in that magazine writers only need to come up with half the material, given that it is then translated in french for the other half. Cons in that of my three hour flight from LA to Calgary, two hours and fifty-five minutes was the safety spiel.

This afternoon we're back to the airport to meet Tim and Caleb, then the four of us crazy campers are off on the bus to Banff. More soon!

PS Thanks everybody for your brilliant suggestions for renaming the Comic Mummy blog. I've got it down to shortlist and am just waiting until I get my banner re-done so I can launch it with the visual enhancement is so richly deserves.

If I were a rich man...