With Christmas over, and little or no news from Canada Soccer, I finally decided to fulfill a dream and travel to Africa in the New Year. Unfortunately, the trip began with a little too much adventure.

The journey began on 30th December when I arrived at Montreal's Dorval airport just before 4:00 pm. The plan was for me to fly to Nairobi, Kenya, with Raman, a family friend. We planned to meet up with his daughter Anjali, who used to be a good soccer player in Quebec, but she is now a well-known journalist. There were some big plans afoot for us to all get together for New Year's Eve there. I was really excited about getting this massive trip off with a bang, what better way than ringing in the New Year in Kenya?

Everything started very well. We arrived in plenty of time, passed through security on time, loaded up the plane on time, taxied to the runway on time .... then the Rhian curse and airline travel kicked in. An engine went. There was no bang, no change in noise, just the pilot coming on to tell us that there had been an issue with one of the engines and that we would have to go back to the gate.

My immediate reaction, and one that has still not changed, is to thank goodness that the crew discovered the issue before we were airborne. And, by the way, I don't need to hear from all the the know-it-alls about modern planes being able to fly on one engine. When I fly, I want ALL the engines working.

We were told right from the start that this was not going to be a short process, at least two hours. What we weren't expecting was the 5 plus hours we had to endure, locked in the airplane with no air-conditioning or fresh air, just stuck at the gate. My interest in government regulations to protect airline passengers is much more acute. Finally, the captain was forced to cancel the entire flight and to re-book us on the one for the following day which was scheduled to leave at 8:50 pm.

Unfortunately, if we took this flight, we would miss our connection to Nairobi from Amsterdam. In turn, this would mean that we would be two days late arriving, and so miss our departure for our big hike up Mount Kenya. We were given a piece of paper and told to call the number scrawled on it at 12 noon the following day and the airline would figure out new flight arrangements. Raman called immediately, and used his influence to find a new route - this time through Detroit, then Amsterdam, then on to Nairobi for the following day. The only snag was that the flight was scheduled to leave at 7:00 am.

WE arrived back in Baie d'Urfe, slept 3 hours, then took another taxi back to the airport. When I finally woke up I was less impressed with all the new bookings and the new schedule. We had a seven hour layover in Detroit. At least it was a chance to catch up on some sleep

Well, I am now in Amsterdam, having rung in the New Year somewhere over the Atlantic and with someone's kid's head on my lap ..... isn't the parent meant to do something about that? There was another kid in the row behind, kicking the back of the chair. My last note of interest is that the little kid sitting next to me turned out to be a Norwegian, and wouldn't you believe it, I was wearing a Norwegian sweater. As soon as the father greeted me in his native tongue. I turned red and wanted to flee. My Norwegian teacher would have been thoroughly embarrassed. All I could ask was his name, where he lived (and I already knew the answer), and I told him I could count to ten! I do actually know more of the language than this, but I could remember nothing. And I mean nothing. I ended up pretending to read my book for a couple hours, until they fell asleep, and of course then the kid's head fell on my lap anyway." The adventure begins - Happy New Year. Happy New Year

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