From December 14th to December 18th, Knight Crier staff writer Dillin Bett visited Burlington, Ontario, Canada to visit his family, an annual vacation that he and his family take just before Christmas. Take a look at the journal he kept of his five days spent in Canada last week:

Day 1: December 14, 2016

Like any good trip it starts at the airport and not in the hot car stuffed with siblings, luggage and your parents, but of course because I’m Dillin Bett something has to go wrong. Every year my family travels up to Burlington, Ontario, Canada to visit family just before Christmas. In recent years, we have being taking a plane to Buffalo and driving the rest of the way home. The plane was scheduled to leave at 1:40pm and, accordingly, we left home at 11:00am in order to be an hour early for the flight. Again, being me, I wasn’t finished packing, and as I showered and what not, I cut myself shaving.

We left late for the airport, but by some act of God, we still arrived at the airport an hour early. Once we arrived, we whizzed through TSA pre-check and went to get lunch (I didn’t have time to get breakfast) and coffee. Getting to the terminal after that was smooth sailing, until our flight got canceled due to weather conditions about 20 minutes before it was supposed to depart.

3:36 PM

Finally, I’m sitting in the Admiral’s Club, a lounge for Advanced American Airlines card holding members. Since the last time I checked in, I’ve walked nearly 5 miles from terminal F to terminal A and back just to kill time. After my initial flight was canceled, there was another flight to Buffalo at 4:00pm, but of course that flight was canceled as well. Instead there are 2 flights to Toronto, one at 6:00pm and another at 8:40pm. At this point, we are on standby for the first and have tickets set in stone for the second.

Back to the topic of the Admiral’s club. It is SUCH a scam! How it works is there are levels to the card holding members. If you are a high level, you can get right into the Admiral’s club, but if you aren’t, you can only get in basically for impossible circumstances. Otherwise, you have to pay $56 per person and people in my case will do it, because it has free food, comfy chairs, and free wifi. But I digress, it was a good choice, because I can charge my phone and write.

5:00 PM

We got the seats on the 6:00pm plane to Toronto! Bless!

6:53 PM

I was just about to take off when they realized there was a steering (aka a braking) problem with the plane, and we had to return to the gate.

6:59 PM

There is debris on the runway, and we can’t return to the gate, but I’m not mad.

7:18 PM

We got a new plane. I remain a sceptic hopeful.

8:12 PM

Finally, we boarded the new plane and are going to take off soon with zero problems (hopefully).

10:02 PM

Finally, I landed in Toronto after a long day of canceled flights, mishaps, and finsta posts. I am so glad to finally be in my city. I have loved it well and dearly, but for now I am ready to go to my grandparents’ house and sleep.

Day 2: December 15, 2016

Day 2 was a lot more low-key compared to the series of unfortunate events that was yesterday. I got out of bed at around 9:50am and cousin Erin (mid-thirties) and her friend came over to my grandparent’s house to visit with us a little later this morning. Once they left to go to Costco, my parents and I went to the Mapleview Mall; specifically to Roots, a clothing store exclusive to Canada.

Roots has been on list of must dos when I come home for years. They make THE best comfy and warm sweatshirts, leather products, and other winter articles. As well as dropping a couple hundred dollars at Roots, I got poutine (another one of my Canadian must haves) for lunch at the food court.

Poutine, to the average American may sound digesting, but I can tell you this combination of fries, cheese curds, and thick brown gravy is the “food baby” to be one could ever put in their body. But there is also an art to poutine that so many American “dupes” and some Canadian individuals’ attempts at this edible gold fall flat on. The fries are the easy part; any fresh-cut fry will do, but the cheese and gravy is what people get tripped up on. Cheese curds are the required ingredient! Shredded cheese or cheese wiz will simply not do! And the gravy- the gravy NEEDS to be thick and brown; even if the cheese isn’t up to snuff the gravy can save the dish.

After our trip to Mapleview, we just hung out at my grandparents’ house. Later around dinnertime we went to visit my mom’s maid of honour and college roommate, Mrs. Marcia.

Today was mostly low-key, but again I’m still running on about 5 hours of sleep, so I’m going to try and get to bed at a decent hour tonight as I’m going to Toronto tomorrow!!

Day 3: December 16, 2016

Finally, I go back to Toronto today. We went down at about 10:30am, and it took us about an hour to get there. Every year we go out to lunch with my parents’ friends from high school and their kids, who are roughly 17-18. We ate at this place called the Loose Moose. It was good, but only in Canada can you find a restaurant with such a punny name. Lunch mostly consisted of discussing colleges and future plans, when you’re about as unsure of what you want for lunch, yet alone what you wanna do for the rest of your life!

Luckily, my friend (I guess you could call her, although I see her once a year), Loren, came to lunch with her mum as well. Loren is 18, smart, “worldly”, and I see myself in her or maybe what I strive to be, at least a little. Anyways, we get along incredibly well, and she made lunch bearable. We even got coffee later, while our parents were talking.

After lunch, we visited Sport Chek, a store in Maple Leaf square, located next to the Air Canada Centre (where the Toronto Maple Leafs play for you non-hockey fans). There I had the realization my accent and more so my parents’ accents had changed or reverted to more of an Ontario native’s. O’s here are more drawn out like the word “Oh”. As well as, the speech patterns and behaviour toward others are definitely more polite than Lansdale/Philly/PA/the US. Loren, who has been to the US for hockey many times, made a joking comment to me as we entered Starbucks – “make sure you hold the door!”. And we both laughed, knowing we have had doors shut in our face because of careless or impolite Americans. Heck! Every morning at North Penn that happens to me! Well, I digress.

Finally, we left Toronto at about 3:30pm and went to my Aunt and Uncle’s house in North York, about 20 minutes out of the city limits. Let me just say I LOVE their house!! It looks small from the outside but it’s huge on the inside with 3 floors, a pool, wine cellar, updated kitchen, skylight, hardwood floors, and all within view of the lights of Toronto off their back porch. At my Aunt and Uncle’s, the kids, my cousins Arden, Avery, Callum, and I, opened presents. By now, my family in Canada never knows what to get me because I’m, of course, in this awkward phase between kid and adult, so they just give me money. Also, because my birthday is in November, I get a present for that as well, so I end up making bank by the end of the trip.

We hung at their house til about 8:30pm, and now we are on our way back to my grandparents’ place. In all, it was a good day. I rarely get to see my little cousins, which even this heartless demon child, feels guilt for missing them grow up. Seeing Loren again made my day as I never expect to have a deep conversation when I return to Canada. Usually, all my conversations up here revolve around my school or hockey achievements. If I hear the questions: “Are you still playing hockey?” or “How are you doing in school?” or “Where are you going to go for university?” I am going to throw a chair at a wall.

Well, tomorrow will at least be interesting; all my dad’s side of the family, my aunts, uncles, and cousins, are coming over for a Christmas dinner of sorts, and Loren invited me to hang out later that night if I’m up for it.

Well, all there’s left to do today is to speed down Guelph Line and SLEEP!!

Day 4: December 17, 2016

Today was extremely low-key. I got up late at about noon, took a shower, and binged watched a new show on Netflix called the OA. But while I was watching Netflix, I overheard the playful bickering of my grandparents. For over 60 years they have been together, and I feel they share something greater than love: a deep and utter respect that transcends the word of love that so easy can be mistaken for lust these days.

My grandmother is bed ridden most of the time, near death I must say, and she yells for my “Papa” – “Charlie Boy!” she yells in jest, as well as in urgency for her deep down confusion of onsetting dementia see knows each moment could be that last time she sees him. A sad, sad love story on its last, broken legs, but there’s something to say about sticking around this long with the same face, personality, being, for so, so long. A feat I admit I could never accomplish.

Later today my aunt and uncle, my cousin and her kids, of my paternal branch came over. The new generation (the kids) are all under the age of 12; I love them, yet loath them, in a sense. All the years in a sense that they will get to live in as youths, agitates, and astounds me. I envy them and their youth.

Dinner was brilliant: a mock Christmas dinner of sorts, a visitation with the family. All the family I only get to see once a year cost more than my away from them at home. I missed them grow up and grow old. Canada was amazing as always, a recharge away from the drama of Lansdale. Admittedly, I wish I could live here, amidst my heritage. Sadly, all there is to do is to pack and pray for Christmas and the coming Florida diaries!

Day 5: December 18, 2016

Today was the day I returned home, and I wasn’t ready. No, literally and figuratively I wasn’t ready. I was mostly packed, but I still had a good bit to do and didn’t know how I was going to fit the rest of my clothes into my suitcase. A couple of nights before, I had found about 9 plastic containers, each about 7 inches long, filled with old Kodak slides – negatives taken in the late 50s and early 60s. Those had taken up a good amount of space, but eventually I fit everything in. An adverse effect of my childhood adventures, always seeming to find space for tons of useless souvenirs.

We left my grandparent’s house at about 11am, leaving enough time to cross the border and catch our flight back to Philly. The line was short at the border and only took about 20 minutes, and our flight was delayed about an hour but everything went smoothly. I arrived home a little before 6 and almost immediately went for sushi with friends. It’s such a strange feeling, as you are placed back in your everyday life, knowing that a few hours ago you were miles away in a different life than where you are at that moment, as if you were a different person such a short time ago. Well, all there is to do now is to wait; wait for Monday morning, so I can make up the work I missed and wait for winter break to begin.