#7 Sleeping at the airport was actually fun!

Transcript

Poshestation, Vendon. Poshestation, Vendon. Poshestation, Delivis.

I just turned on my little recorder in the airport, and pretty much immediately realized it's a little weird to use my recorder in the airport. It's pretty small, but it's got the little thing that looks like a troll doll's hair on the top for a windscreen. It's pretty obvious that it's a recorder. And if I'm just walking down the street and I just walk by somebody, sometimes people take a little glance, like, that's odd, what's that all about? But then, you know, I'm just walking along, so it's no biggie. So I was thinking, I don't know, maybe I should just record into my phone, even if the audio is a bit worse. Because it's not that weird to be talking into your phone. In fact, it's fine. It's totally normal.

But anyway, yeah, the episode started off with some sounds from the Montreal subway because I was really considering walking back to the airport. I'm like, I got all afternoon. I should just do it. But time always passes way too fast at the airport. I never feel like I have enough time. As soon as I get there, suddenly it's time to go. No matter how early I get there, it's never early enough. So that is going to be tested tonight when I get to Calgary. And I'll be there for 20 hours. And we'll see how fast that one goes by, but it might still. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. But I was figuring, by the time I got out of my Airbnb and got moving, it was almost 10 in the morning. My flight leaves at four o'clock or so. It's supposed to take three hours. So that would put me there at one in the afternoon. But last time it took four. So let's just assume it is going to take four. And then by then it's two in the afternoon. And then it's only two hours before my flight leaves, which is the recommended amount of time anyway. And I always try to get there earlier than that. Two hours is not enough. It's not enough if you want to have a calm life. If you don't want the airport to be a stressful experience, just get there so early. Like why not? What were you doing otherwise? You're just going to be hanging out somewhere else. So instead just hang out at the airport, man. They got everything you need here. It's fine. But as soon as I got up, I did also do the most walking I did any of the days in Montreal I did yesterday. So not the best timing. I'm glad I did, though. It was great. I went up to Mount Royal. Got to see the view. But pretty much as soon as I got going today, I figured, you know, since I wasn't recording my journey this time, I didn't have to wear my book bag. I could just put it in wheel mode and just drag it. But right away I had like a bit of a pain in my hip that I don't usually have ever since I became a standing person. That more or less went away, but it was back just a little bit, but more than none. Yeah, this is much less awkward talking into the phone. People are starting to come by and they're sort of near me, but I'm just talking into a phone. I could be talking to anybody. Not nearly as weird as talking into the recorder. Yeah, then my shoulders started to hurt like pretty much right away. And I was like, dude, three more hours of this for what? Why? And I was starting to feel that stress of like feels like I got all day, but one of my big, you know, things I really do try to do is get to the airport early. And this was not going to get me to the airport early. It would be right on time if even just a bad idea all around. So instead I went and bought the $11 day pass the ticket to get to the airport on the bus. But it was also a subway day pass. So I get to ride the subway and just those sounds I played at the start like I'm glad I at least took one ride on the subway because I just like the feeling of the Montreal Metro just feels good. And I think just having everything spoken in French, it's just nostalgic. It reminds me of my youth in French school, which is also kind of why I like Japan. I mean, just growing up with manga and video games, I just absorbed an awful lot of Japan stuff without realizing. I want to get in touch with my with my wayward youth French stuff and Japanese stuff are pretty much the best bets. I mean, also American stuff, but American stuff doesn't feel the same because it never went away. They still make Ninja Turtles movies. I never had time to forget my North American childhood. Pretty much anything that was popular in the 80s. They just won't let it go. It's just back again and again and again today. I feel no, no sparks, no joy. 5:00 I really don't feel any great kinship for any of the North American stuff I liked as a kid because it's just been just never it never stopped. But French and Japanese that stuff that brings me right back and so many people coughing just everywhere. I cannot believe I haven't gotten sick. It's fucking insane. I still feel like I'm going to arrive in Japan and realize I got sick at some point, which is fine. Again, that I made it this far, you know, that I only got two more days of airport life. Even if I start getting sick right now, it'll be fine, but I just can't believe it. Everyone is coughing everywhere. Was the world always like this? It's fucking gross. I got so used to just being on my own hiking through the woods in my hometown and stuff. Fucking germ bombs everywhere. So yes, since I had the subway day pass, I went to a food court place at like what's that called the Eden Center? And it does feel a little bit like Mad Max or something. Montreal is a bit creepy where like what's that other place? The Alexis Nihon Center, the entrance way that goes across the street from there, it is just taken over by homeless people. It's a bathroom. It was so gross. I'm like, I can't even, I can't use this thing. This is ridiculous. And you can see in the Eden Center that they're making sure that doesn't happen. It's like as you're just sitting there eating your stuff, I got like a veggie plate at a Middle Eastern place. I figured that's pretty healthy. That should be okay for traveling. But you'll just see the security guards walking around and it's like, yeah, that's why they're there. They're there because this is where the business people come to get lunch. And I was trying to keep all the homeless people out. It's creepy, man. I feel like in some fallout Mad Max world, someone's going to find all the old podcasts and all the old vlogs and stuff and just see us in our last moments before society collapsed or something. It's fucked up. But again, hey, similar to how I made it this far in the journey without getting sick, I made it this far in life without society collapsing. So I think I'm all right. If society collapsed now, whatever, I had a good run. I made it through most of my life. Yeah, I had that had a bottle of water and now my flight got delayed till like five o'clock right now it's one o'clock. So I'm dehydrating no more liquids because I want to see if I can sit through this whole four hour flight. I'm in a middle seat, unfortunately. Can I make it through the whole flight without having to bug my neighbor to get up to let me go to the bathroom? Probably not. But I want to at least make sure I only have to do that one time, not just the most annoying guy in the world. One thing that's helpful with that is a cough drops. I've got a bunch of cough drops. And in fact, I got some cough drop theory for why I think cough drops are really good to have on you while you travel. But I can get into that later because that's, you know, I got plenty of time at these airports. No hurry.

Well, well, well.

Man, I just had deja vu, which makes no sense because I'm in the Calgary airport where I've never been before and it's midnight weird. Anyway, I felt better in my life. I guess let's pick up from where I left off. So I'm saying how I really, I don't know how much useful advice I have to impart about the world of traveling around. But the cough drop thing I think is very handy. I remember many years ago, I was on a flight where I had developed a cough and I don't know, I must have been going to Vancouver or something. It was a pretty long flight and the whole time I was just struggling not to cough. And it was like a, it was like a repetitive stress dream. AKA a nightmare, you know, just trying not to cough, trying not to be the coughing guy. But I really had to cough just all the time. And it was just so awful. So I think that's what got the idea in my head that I should try to keep cough drops on me as part of my travel gear. And they're always useful. Because I've had just like, I don't know, I haven't gotten full on sick. Although again, I still, it'll be a goddamn miracle. Here in this Calgary Airport, every person seems like they're coughing. Just everyone is coughing all the time. It's like fucking stop coughing. Fucking driving nuts. But yeah, I don't know, I have definitely had like a little, the little uncomfortableness in the throat going on.

And I had some fisherman's friend that I'm going to bring to Japan. God, shut the fuck up.

Okay, thank you.

All right, these chatty motherfuckers are finally leaving. Shut the fuck up, you dickhead. I'm in a bad mood. You can obviously tell. Yeah, I had some fisherman's friend to bring to Japan because that's like my hardcore. If I do get sick, it's super nuclear. Mega cough drops that they don't have there. But just for traveling, I went and got some halls, just the black halls. But there's like the bags you can get of like 30 cough drops. I got two of those and combined them into one mega bag. And not only is it nice just to stop any little tickles in your throat or if any kind of weird coughing situation sometimes just places make you cough. Remember, there was this one train by Naka Itabashi station. Every time I got on that train, I had to cough. I didn't have to cough before, I didn't have to cough after. So I would just pop a cough drop before I went in. But flying, it's additionally good because once the pressure starts hitting, I don't find that too bad on larger planes, on smaller planes though I have a very big problem with the air pressure changing. It really is uncomfortable. It hurts sometimes. So you know, you got to get your ears to pop and man, nothing is better for that than cough drops because they just make you salivate like crazy. And the other thing you can do is plug your nose and just blow out as hard as you can until you feel the pressure in your ears kind of push outward. And then today I did the slightly weird thing of not drinking water all day because I want to make it through this four hour flight without going to the washroom. And I did. Midway through, I started to regret it a little long. So I just still started to feel it, but I made it through the whole flight, which for me is like having a superpower. So I've got, I got like the one, two, three punch. I've got fast metabolism and I got an MRI once and my internal organs are smaller than normal. And on top of that, my bladder doesn't empty properly. I'm just designed to piss all the time. So yeah, then I made it through that whole thing. It was amazing. But cough drops also in that case, I was getting a pretty bad headache from a combination of not enough water and that I'm just a caffeine addict and I haven't had any coffee because that also makes me pee. But my mouth didn't feel dry because of the cough drops. So it's so useful. Keeps your saliva flowing, keeps your ears popping, keeps you from coughing. It's just the traveler's friend. I definitely recommend bringing cough drops. And I'll just buy like a little pack with eight of them. Get 60 of them. Get a big fucking bag. You won't regret it. You'll find, you'll find uses. Is this fucking guy coughing earlier? I wanted to just like throw some at him. Like here you go. Idiot face. Open your mouth and let me dump these in. You fucking coughing.

Fuck. So I made it through the flight relatively okay because I also as I mentioned before, but getting old, one of my big concerns was I've got this, I don't know, I got a cyst that like, it's like a kink in a garden hose if I sit normally. It's some, I don't know, fluid builds up and it makes a stinging pain happen in my abdomen. It's extremely brutally uncomfortable. But as long as I'm laying down, it's fine. If I'm standing, it's fine. So I just don't sit that often these days, which is probably better for my overall health anyway. But I was very concerned about flying because what do I do? Luckily, I mean I got a 10 hour flight tomorrow. So it's going to be a lot worse, but I mean it through the four hour flight and it wasn't that bad. Because there were enough little positions I could shift around in to keep that particular pain from building up, but unfortunately it means I can't sit up properly. I can't sit with normal posture because that makes it hurt. I have to try to stretch out as much as I can to try to make my leg not bend as much as possible. And I have long-ass, lanky legs, 188 centimeters, almost 6-2. There's just not enough room, and that's another thing I guess that would change if I became a super millionaire. The first class would be good for the legroom, but I should have a better seat tomorrow. I paid for the actual seat tomorrow, so I got one where on the aisle where I should be able to stretch out a little easier. But today it was like, yeah, pain and the knees, pain and the hips starting, pain in all these different other places because there's just not enough room. I just crammed into this thing. 15:00 So I've definitely hit the period in life now where flying is low-level torture. It is just having to tolerate pain, so that's unfortunate. But these sort of general generic aches are way better than the stinging cyst pain. That thing is like, that's the one, just gotta make sure that doesn't happen. But I think the 10 hour flight, I'm slightly optimistic now. I think it will be miserable, but I think it will not be torturous.

Or it won't be, it won't be legitimately torturous. It will be tiny torture. Yeah, I got here to the Calgary Airport and just felt kind of fucked up. The headache was getting pretty bad. Just immediately came in and bought some food. I just got like manchu walk which is just fucking sodium and sugar and a bunch of water of course. But then I think eating a bunch too on like an empty stomach made me feel extra just like swimming. Not fully dizzy but I certainly didn't feel good as like I just need to lie down. Before I figure anything else out I just need to lie down. And I did go on where to sleep in airports.com. And there was this one place they recommended in particular in this airport. But it was the top you know recommended area and it did look pretty good. This little look like under an escalator. It seems very untrafficked. But it is the number one place on that site. There's pictures of it and everything. And it's like man if anyone else is using this site this is obviously the thing. But then also this is just you know a little confusing airports in general. I'm way out of the loop and I've never been to this one. But you know there's the land side and the air side. And air side is once you've already gone through security. And this place is on the land side. So I'd have to pass through security just to try to sleep at this place. And then tomorrow go through the security again. And I would just prefer not. It went pretty smooth with my little technique of bags within bags. It was pretty pretty handy. But I would prefer to stay on this side if I don't have to do all that again. Oh yeah I should mention too. My flight was actually pretty delayed. Which what do I care? I'm stuck here on light anyway. But because there's snow and Calgary these poor fuckers. It's not even Halloween yet as I record this. I definitely had some snowy Halloween says a kid but that's pretty rare. I can't think of that happening in the east coast for some time. But yeah as I was wandering around this place I'm in right now terminal A section A whatever this is. Just for whatever reason this is the one place where the lights are down a little bit. And it's like I just felt felt inviting. It's like yeah let me in there. It had a bunch of people in it all milling around coughing their faces off. But I was like hey whatever man the lights are low in here other people are laying down. I'm just doing it. So I've got these like rain sounds that it's like a half an hour of rain sound. Whatever I'll get into that. I just I just don't want to I just can't talk. I'm too tired. I could explain all about my rain sounds technique and how I play shit through headphones to block out sound. I'll get it to it. I'll get to it later. The point is I guess all these people were waiting for a flight to Nanaimo and they got on it and now it's pretty empty and yeah this still just seems like the best place. It's extra quiet now. Not as many people. It's dark. My flight doesn't leave for about 11 hours or something. I don't think I'll be able to get any proper sleeve but whatever whatever I can catch. Just nappy nappy. Probably just a nap for a bit. Go out to the water fountain. Hit the washroom. Come back and nap rinse and repeat till the morning is the plan. And then I guess tomorrow because I've got the aisle seat on the Japan flight I can drink some coffee. I still don't want to overdo it. I definitely want to try to get the coffee out of my system before I land in Japan because I got a long ways to go. I got at least two hours before I get to my Airbnb which reminds me that guy sent me a link. Some kind of complicated as process. I got a download an app or something to fuck you get into this. I don't know. I'll worry about it tomorrow. Fucking cares man. Fuck it.

So yeah I'm just gonna just gonna take a little nap now.

I'm a little grumpy baby boy. I want to go to sleep. Many of my one bag that is just my clothes. Perfect. As a pillow it's so perfect. So I'm going to use it right now to talk to you later.

All right I think I found an area up skier enough that there's not a ton of people around that I can talk to myself that look like a weirdo. So I am shocked to report that that went fine. Sleeping at the airport was no problem at all. I mean I was in bed shape last night obviously but today I feel fine. That's fucking wild. I just presumed you know again I took this flight with this long layover because it was the cheapest one. I just assumed you know I started off the the journey kind of tired. Then I would get more tired and then more tired and more tired and by the time I arrived in Tokyo that last journey to my Airbnb which you know from Narita it's the place I'm staying is an hours walk from Yoyogi. So anyway I believe it's gonna take about two hours on transit. I was considering the Skyliner the expensive train from the airport but the Skyliner doesn't really get me all the way there. I don't think it'd necessarily be a ton faster and it's like half price if I don't take the Skyliner so that's that's my plan. But yeah let me tell you what I learned about sleeping in the airport. So yeah I can only tell you about my experience at the Calgary Airport which I was gonna say is a mid-level airport but only because I've been to that crazy one in Moscow. But this I mean it's a big airport. I'm gonna upgrade this to big because my international departure gate is like all the way at the end and it took me like 20 minutes to walk from A1 which is where I slept to D84. So sure it took 40 minutes to walk across the mosque at one and this one only took 20 but that's still a lot. I just kept walking and walking. It's like a joke. It's like this arrow now this arrow now this arrow and I was like are you where is the fucking gate? Are you high? This is insane. See I'd say this is a big airport. And the place where I slept is pretty unique. It's the only place I saw like that where it was like a great big dome that was very dim and I don't know if it was intentional because the corners of the room were brightly lit and the lighting was uniform throughout the whole room. There were the same number of lights in the middle it's just that the ceiling was way high up and it really felt like just an architectural mistake like they just didn't realize that those lights weren't going to be enough and that it was going to be dark in there because it was just a fully functional domestic gate. It did not have any semblance of being like a come relax here type of place. I really think the darkness was just an accident but it was great. I loved how dark it was in there. Nice and dim and I did notice afterward as I've been walking across this airport lots of places you could sleep like they're everywhere all kinds of places where it's like oh that'd be good that'd be good that'd be good. The irony is I did pass the relaxation lounge area that's specifically to just chill out but the chairs there aren't flat they're like these wavy chairs like you might see it at a beach or something and it's like yeah come sleep on the wavy chair come relax but you could never sleep on that thing like I can't sleep on my back and to try to sleep on your side on this thing that's got to occur of a big wave to it be like a spine-melter it would be horrible. I'm glad I didn't see that place because I bet I would have tried because it's so obviously the come relax here area and it's like the worst it's the worst area to try to sleep it would have been awful. So yeah what what I learned I guess is in an airport this size at least in the domestic terminal there weren't that many flights over the course of the night I think only two maybe three but yeah between about 11 p.m. and I think it was about a little before eight o'clock when I woke up for a reel and got up and got moving and the pattern that you just never really I never noticed before because I'm always just in you know I'm just somewhere waiting for a flight with everyone else but when you just when you don't leave you know there's a bunch of people all milling around 25:00 and then they do all the really loud announcements for like you know now the passengers in zone blah blah blah and then there's anyone who needs special assistance yeah dietta but then once that's all done it's just empty there's almost nobody there and it's dead fucking quiet there's no announcements anymore it's just quiet so most of the night it was extremely quiet in there however counterpoint at night is also when like the place I met now this whole international part of the airport is all hard floors but the domestic part had carpet and nighttime is clearly when they clean the carpet so there was a carpet cleaning machine person going around and it took forever it took at least an hour because it's this enormous big terminal room but I only really noticed it when they were really close to me and at that point it was extremely loud but at the end I'll talk about my ear plug slash white noise technique that made even that not a big problem sleep wise so I used my how inside my main book bag I've got a smaller pack that has all my clothes in it and it's packed to the gills right now because I've washed everything before I left it's as full as it can get and it was such a perfect pillow just perfect so I had that and I laid down and I didn't fully have enough space to stretch out unfortunately not quite I'm a little too tall almost but not quite so the one thing I did notice throughout the night is my knees hurt a bit I think just because I couldn't keep them stretched outright they were bent a little and I think again that's mainly because I ravaged them on the flight you know I just destroyed my poor knees trying to squeeze into the stupid little airplane chair for four and a half hours or whatever so my knees did hurt but I think I could have moved somewhere I could have stretched out more but it didn't hurt enough for me to uproot myself once I got laying down I always just have a little cap that I wear just you know stop the stop the sun getting your eyes stop the rain just handy to have a cap so I just put that over my eyes made way through the night one of my feet started hurting from my shoe which I don't know why because it's fine now it was fine all before that I've never had I've never felt like this shoe was too tight ever somehow though it was too tight on my foot made way through the night so I'd kick my shoes off but I mean I should have done that in the first place I just have just so exhausted and stuff I guess I kind of didn't want to look like I was just camping down for the night I don't know because I've just never done this before I'm not sure the etiquette so I just you know laid down I put all my stuff my big bag under the seat I was on laid down my smaller bag just just you know just calm down on it just laid down on to put my hat over my head and it's like hey this guy's not sleeping he's just it's just very tuckered just taking a little little rest but then as I sat there longer so I kicked my shoes off put them under under the chair and also I started getting a little bit cold just on my neck so I grabbed one of my I've got a bunch of layers because uh I'm hoping I have enough layers to get me through uh Tokyo winter and this was kind of an accident but it was so perfect I've got this one hoodie that's got a really fluffy inside so it just feels like a nice blanket anyway but this was totally inadvertent but I can't believe how useful this was this was awesome is in each pocket of that hoodie I also have a thermal shirt in each pocket that I then just zippered up because again I just want to cheat on how much stuff I have in my book bag just ways to bring stuff without taking up space in my book bag so I've got these two thermal shirts hidden away in the pockets and when I used this hoodie as a blanket the weight of having these balled up thermal shirts they're not heavy but they're heavy enough that they made it into like a little bit of a weighted blanket just to keep it from falling off of me because you know I was sleeping on a bench so there's a back on one side but not on the other it's a perfect opportunity for whatever you're using as a blanket to just slide off but the weight of the shirt against the back of the seat kept it held on and I just sort of tucked the other one just as a little I don't know a little thing to hold on to I guess maybe if I wasn't so tired and I wasn't so delirious I guess I could have put them both on the one side on the back side to kind of just anchor anchor my thing there but it worked so well like this thing didn't fall off even once during the night so at that point she was kicked off a little blanket on my little pillow my hat over my eyes I mean just so good just so perfect and these things they've got a little bit of cushioning just enough cushioning that felt real good and the vibe was kind of good too of just being in this big weird place sleeping in this big weird dome in an airport I was surprised how much I didn't 30:00 mind it where I've been watching some videos on YouTube lately of hikers and I'm surprised how how much I can take from hiking videos because how I live my life is essentially the same you know still just got my one bag it's just that I'm hiking through cities not hiking through the woods so instead of a sleeping pad and a tent instead I've got a laptop and a electric razor you know that that's the space that I've used but other than that it's pretty similar a lot of the same equipment a lot of the same philosophy obviously what I'm doing is a lot easier because I also have a bank card and stores everywhere and I can just stop in wherever but one thing I heard somebody bring up that I thought was interesting is you know how I mentioned right at the start of this podcast that I definitely I don't want to complain about stuff overly but I don't want to paint traveling like it's just the greatest thing in the world because they find that incredibly disingenuous it's very hard very stressful very wearing on you but it's worth it overall and they have a thing like that with hiking too they're like man people who don't hike they kind of see it in this way of like oh must just be the best day you just go hike through nature but it's super fun where the reality is tons of it is not fun but the term that this one person used that I liked was type 2 fun Where Type 2 Fun is something that is actually not fun at the time, like trudging through rain, like if it just won't stop raining on your hike and everything is wet and you've got to force yourself to focus on your surroundings and appreciate where you are because the actual moment to moment is kind of miserable. But Type 2 Fun is the thing that's not fun now but it's fun later. Later you'll look back and be glad you did that. You'll feel accomplished and proud and it'll be worth it. I thought maybe this airport adventure would be Type 2 Fun. You know, be fucking miserable while I'm doing it but later I'd be like, hey, remember when I did that? But it's not. This is just fun fun. Just being asleep in that place, it reminded me of when I was a kid. I didn't do very much summer camp stuff just like for the weekend, you know? None of this whole summer stuff. But there was this place called Yoho Lake in New Brunswick with a big lodge and I went there, I don't know, two or three times for like a weekend. And yeah, just that feeling of sleeping in a big lodge. With a bunch of just randos that I didn't really know. It's just a weird environment but it's just kind of different and kind of cool and kind of fun. That's how it felt to sleep in the airport terminal. It's like, I don't hate this at all. This is fine. And I think it helps too that I'm not a good sleeper. Which I mean if I could trade that in, I would. If I could just be a better sleeper. I do think it would improve my life significantly. But at this point it ain't going to happen. I've had sleep problems since I was a tiny child. And they've just remained ever since. It's not going to change. I just got used to it. But the good thing about that is I'm used to, like when I wake up in the morning I don't feel refreshed. I don't feel like I got a good night's sleep forever. 99.99% of the time I got to get moving. I got to drink some coffee. I got to shake it off. But the good thing about that is I'm used to it. So this was no worse than last night's sleep at the Airbnb. This is no worse than the last four years in my hometown. This is no worse than I normally sleep at all. Maybe a little worse. I mean I did get woken up several times in the night because announcements would start or the cleaner. The only though for real for real like I actually felt like I woke all the way up instead of just slightly waking up between like midnight and 5.30 in the morning. I just slept, which for me that's fine. That's pretty good. Some guy coughed right near me. Great big loud cough. And I know I'm complaining about the coughing a lot. But I swear we've learned fucking nothing from COVID. Nobody's trying to stifle their coughs. Nobody's trying to cover their mouths. No one's trying to just like go off somewhere in the corner. Get away from people. Do anything. It's just a loud crazy open mouth. Spue your germs everywhere cough. Like all the time everywhere. I am highly disappointed in you Canada. What the fuck is wrong with you? What is wrong with this country that we're just coughing everywhere. Fuck off. Do something. I do see some people still wearing masks. So that's nice. At least not everybody abandoned it. But man if you got a cold wear a mask. Wear a mask you stupid fuck. Don't just open mouth cough. It's like you know I mean children do that all the time. You kind of expect it from children. But the adults are doing it. It's just like God. That's the one thing that I'm fully annoyed by so far in this traveling is just how many people have just coughed.

All over me at every fucking turn. I still can't believe I've said it before but it's true. I cannot believe I'm not sick. It's absolutely crazy. But anyway okay back to sleeping. The other thing it's funny how you just kind of forget about these things. But another reason why maybe why sleeping on this little what do you call it? It's not a bench. Just like this line of seats next to each other bench. No I just said it's not a bench. 35:00 I don't know whatever. But there's actually been many times in my life that I've kind of slept this way also. I mean like these Airbnb's always have proper beds. I guess this apartment I had for the last like three years in my hometown it had a bed but it's just because there happens to be a bed around. If there's not a bed around I don't mind sleeping on a couch. And for like the first year I was back in my hometown and I think about it I did this also for several years in Toronto. So as I just made a bed out of couch cushions like when there's spare couch cushions around you can take the couch cushions put them on the floor and you got to wrap them really tightly in a sheet so they don't drift apart from each other. But the nice thing is you can lay enough in a row that even if you're a tall gentleman like me you can have enough to cover your whole body. And it's a little bit thin is the only problem. It's a little narrow I mean you can't really roll around. But I slept like that for ages like in Toronto I don't know it was dumb. Because I guess I'm always in the mindset of I'm just passing through. So I do not want to pay for a bed. I cannot believe how expensive beds are it's exorbitant. It's absurd. So I just thought like yeah you know if a mattress comes along if a spare bed comes along because a lot of times people do just have these things then I'll take it sure. In the meantime I'll just sleep on the little couch cushions for now and I ended up doing it for several years. It's just like oh shit but whatever just get used to it and again I mean I know people people always say like hey if you want to sleep better get a proper bed get a proper routine cut down the caffeine I've tried it I've tried it all it doesn't help it doesn't matter where I sleep or how I sleep. It's like the blessing in the curse is it's gonna suck no matter what I could have the the king's bed made of the finest goose down feathers and it doesn't fucking make any difference doesn't matter so I can just sleep on couch cushions and it's fine. So along those lines this setup was kind of better than the couch cushions because I guess I would put the couch cushions kind of against the wall just so they could only shift around on the floor in one direction. This way I just had the wall built in I had this nice little wall against my back it just laid there slept all night really not bad I didn't hate it at all. But the final piece of the puzzle this is the most important part and this is what made the whole thing possible is the white noise. So how this came about is you know I realized as I advanced in age probably by my late 20s that it's like I I don't know maybe it was like when I was in New York and the girl I dated she lived right by the JMZ train. You can just hear the train go by all the time and I was like this is fucking insane I don't know how people are sleeping through this but I'm not. So I started wearing ear plugs and I was like ah this is the best I love this I just started wearing ear plugs every night and I did that for several years but it did reach a point where it's like I wish I had better ear plugs. These are good but they're not quite good enough I just had the little foam ones you know that you pinch and you roll them and then you put them in your ear and they expand in your ear. Not bad but you know still still noises getting through. Then as a separate thing I had this period in like 2015 or so when I was at the end of living in Toronto before I finally got my shit together I moved to Vancouver again. But things were just going real bad I was really messing up I really made waves in my friend group just by being a fucking idiot things were just not going well. I haven't my midlife crisis in my mid 30s luckily at all more or less worked out in the end and everyone forgave me for the troubles I caused them. I won't get into details but I'm just I was just being annoying it's just just being sucky I was like kind of freaked out of like out man. What do I do with my life like I've been in Toronto all these years everybody I know is in Toronto but I just feel like I'm spinning my wheels now I got to move again but it's I'm anxious I'm at Branson I don't want to leave. How can I stay what can I do just being a pain in everyone's ass. So to try to calm myself down and be a cooler human I started looking into meditation and it really did help but the only problem is I just don't have the patience to do meditation stuff when my life is kind of going okay I really got to be down on the dumps and really kind of depressed then I'm willing to put the time in but if things are more or less okay I just don't do it unfortunately. But for that winter I did do it I would just sit down every day and just the standards sit down cross your legs. 40:00 I mean I guess the idea is you're supposed to try to still your mind and stop your thoughts I didn't try to do that. I let my mind race I let my mind go crazy but I still just sat there with my eyes closed not moving for like half an hour a day and it was remarkable how much it does help you just sort of sort out your thoughts or just let everything calm down in general it did make me feel better but it's so hard to do it's one of those ironic things that technically it's the easiest thing to do just to sit there and close your eyes and do nothing for half an hour should be easy to do but the mental wherewith all it takes to actually do that every day is incredible. It's way easier to sort of neurotically and anxiously do work than it is to just sit still and do nothing way fucking easier. Getting work done is highly overrated anybody can get work done anybody can be a workaholic anybody can just put their nose to the grindstone day after day every day and never look up. I know people are proud of doing that but it's not hard that is not hard to do. Stopping is fucking impossible it's so hard to do I only managed to do it for that one winter because I just felt like I was I just needed to to fucking chill I needed to calm down I needed to center myself and it worked. Then I moved to Vancouver and continued my adventures in life but some guy showed up with his baby and he's just sitting close enough that I just feel like I might bother him if I keep talking. I'm just going to put my book bag on my back and I'm almost done here. I'll just take a little stroll while I finish this up. Oh there's a Starbucks. I think I had a big coffee for breakfast but I think I'm going to get one more coffee for today. And then maybe a coffee or two on the plane. I'm just going to get coffees like crazy. I'm fucking cares. I'm mostly just concerned about like that journey once I get to Tokyo because caffeine makes me a pea machine. But I'm going to be on the subways. There's washrooms. It's Japan. It'll be fine. So as I was doing this meditation stuff I just needed something to let me know that I'd been sitting there for half an hour. Because if you just leave it up to yourself I don't know I just wouldn't do it long enough. I just wanted to confirm that I'd been sitting there for the whole half hour. So I got this thing called hollow sink. I don't know I dug this up online somewhere I've just had the files for years I don't know where I got them from. But it's supposed to be binaural beats they're called. Like the fifth Pearl Jam album. Binaural, sixth Pearl Jam album. Binaural. So the idea was it was just these files. The only two I've got left is there's a rain one that I use almost all the time and just a the sound of the shore that I use sometimes. But underneath supposedly are these alpha waves beta waves. I don't know what the fuck they are. But these things that are supposed to subconsciously calm you down or help you relax, help you study whatever. I don't know if that works or not. It doesn't really matter. The important part is that there's just half an hour of shore noises or rain noises. So I just whenever I get a new phone or something I always just transfer those files over just so I'd have them. In case I wanted half an hour of rain sounds. So fast forward to the Airbnb I mentioned in Toronto that was this super packed in apartment. It was so crazy. It was just this like two bedroom apartment that had bunk beds set up all through it for like 20 people. So I was in one of the rooms upstairs. And I came in late one night because I always let everybody else fall asleep before I rolled in just to keep the place sort of from getting gummed up and jammed up. So I could just do all my washroom stuff when everyone else was asleep. But I came in that night and the bedroom door was closed and locked which had never happened before. Just somebody must have inadvertently done that when they went in. But it was late at night and the guy who ran the place he was this older guy who definitely had a drinking problem. It was very nice though. I like the guy a lot. But he was asleep so I didn't want to wake him up. And there was a spare bunk downstairs because downstairs there was a little sort of foyer and a kitchen. And in the foyer were even more bunk beds. And a little divider and then the main guy slept behind the divider. So one of the bunk beds was free so I was just like whatever. I'm just going to go crash in the bunk bed. However, that guy who ran the place who was asleep, he snored like crazy. He was one of those people. 45:00 You know when you hear stories about like people who break records with how loud they snore? Or like poor, poor old ladies who were like partially deaf in one year? Because they slept next to their chainsaw snoring husband for fucking 50 years? He was one of these guys. Absolutely out of control. How fucking loud this guy's goddamn snoring was. I don't know how, how anybody sleeps through that. It's crazy. Actually here it's pretty quiet here. I'll just sit down over here now. So this guy was one of those snores and I was like what am I supposed to do? I'm losing my mind. So I had my little earbud headphones in because they're kind of like ear plugs. By themselves they're probably not as good as the foam ear plugs but they're not too bad. But then I had the idea what if I turn on the rain sounds? So I did that and the rain sounds were playing and I just turned it up and turned it up and turned it up. Basically like the program I use for phones to play stuff is the MX Media Player. So the volume goes up to 15. Basically what I learned is what I, because now I do this every night, literally every night I fall asleep by putting in my ear buds and playing this rain stuff. And if I put it at a 2, that's just like if everything's calm and I don't actually need to block out any sound, a 2, it's just nice little rain sound. And because I'm such a light sleeper and I get like a little anxious about worrying that I'm going to get woken up. You know like if a loud car drives by outside I might get woken up and if I think that's going to happen, I can turn it up to a 3 and it just helps ease my anxiety a little of if a noise like that happens in the distance. I'm not really going to hear it through the rain. And 4 would be when there's active noise happening all around me like probably like in that air, in the airport lounge, lobby, terminal, just general noise happening all around. 4 is pretty loud, 4 can get in there. And then 5 is when there's actual noise. You know there's like announcements happening over the PA and there's the floor cleaner going around cleaning stuff. I don't know if I ever went to 6, it's possible, but really 5 is about enough because 5 is pretty loud. I've got like rain kind of blasting in my ears. And when stuff's really loud like that, like airport announcements or carpet cleaner, you can't block it out. You're still going to hear it, but it's amazing how much it helps because with this guy in his snoring, I was on a 5 for sure. That's how loud this guy snoring was. But instead of this horrifying snoring that's right there that's making you lose your mind, instead. Actually, I remember specifically that night I was using the shoreline sounds instead of the rain sounds, because I just remember I was laying there. I was very exhausted. And in my mind, it felt like I'm just walking along the beach, I'm walking along the shore. And somewhere down the shore is a guy snoring. Unquestionably, somebody down there on the beach is snoring. But he's just mixed in with these other sounds, and it's just not offensive anymore. It's just like, ah, that's not so bad. And I fell asleep, and it just blew my mind. It changed everything. Now I sleep with the headphones in every night, because it's just miraculous how it just blends in outside noises. So even here, it's like, ah, the rain. Rain's coming down pretty heavy. Oh, final boarding call for blah, blah, blah. You know, you can hear it. It's very clear. You can't not hear it. Oh, the cleaning person is really near me. But it's all mixed in. I'm working with the rain, and it's remarkable. I fucking love it. Now I sleep every night with my little ear buds in, and the rain sounds playing. And the trickiest part about it is that I got to sleep on my side. It's really the only way I can sleep. And the little ear buds are, you know, they're pretty small, but they're a lot harder than a foam ear plug. You know, they do push in. They can be pretty uncomfortable where they kind of push into your head. So at first, I kind of trained myself. I just put two pillows together, and I put my head in the area between the two pillows. So I'd have a little leeway just to kind of train myself and get used to it. And then I got pretty good at just sleeping on a normal pillow with this thing pushing into my ear. And most of the time, it was okay. Every once in a while, I would wake up because something got shifted, and I was feeling some pain in my ear. But I got pretty good at it. But the final piece of the puzzle is so awesome, as I just had a neck warmer. Just a neck warmer I bought from the dollar store. They're really common in Canada. I don't know how common they are everywhere else, but they're just like a hat with no top, just like a, or like a little tiny scarf that's just connected, just a little loop. 50:00 So you can put it over your head around your neck just to keep the wind out in the middle of the horrible winter. Or you could, I guess, like, head warmers, right? I guess you guys have those in the States, even, if you're in a 1980s aerobics enthusiast, that you can just put around your head. So it covers your ears, but it keeps the top of your head open. I just had one of those around. And I realized since it's a loop and it's soft, I could just put that on top of my pillow. And it gives just enough of a difference between the rest of my head, where it's being supported by the neck warmer. And just enough of a little opening in the middle for my ear, that I don't feel like I'm sleeping on something weird and lumpy, but it gives just enough leeway that there's less pressure on my ear and it's easier to sleep with the headphones in and not notice them. So now every night I put in the headphones, I turn up the fucking rain sound again, usually just a two. Oh yeah, and also I should say since this thing's half an hour, I just said it to play the one time for the half an hour. And that's generally enough for me to fall asleep, and then it just turns off on its own and I just sleep. But in extreme situations like the snoring guy or being in the airport, I just put it on loop. So at the end of the half hour, there is a brief period where it fades out and then it starts to play again. So there's like 30 seconds where I'm without rain sounds, but it just fades out and fades back in over and over the whole night. And it helps me sleep like crazy. I remember my cousin saying that I would crash on his couch and do this. Normally, again, I'm just the guy. You make any noise, you shift something in the kitchen and I'm going to wake up where this just night and day, where he would say like, hey, do you awake? And I wouldn't respond because I didn't hear him. And it's like, again, like a superpower. Amazing. Like I sang out dehydrating myself. I won't pee on a flight, feels like a superpower. This feels like a sleep superpower. It's like, oh, this is like what other people feel like. When they are asleep, they are asleep. They don't hear every fucking thing. And now neither do I. It's the best. So I guess you have to have a certain amount of faith that nobody at the Calgary airport is going to come stab you in the kidney. But again, I'm behind the security already. I'm not even in the public part of the airport. You know, I did have some weird little thoughts of like, should I take one of my extra jackets and just like tie the arms together around the zipper of my bag so nobody could open it or tie or thinking like tie one of the arms of a jacket to my bag and the other arm of it to my to my arm. So if somebody messed with my bag, I'd feel them pulling on it. Just all this shit. But again, I was so exhausted and tired last night. These are just vague thoughts that I just couldn't be bothered dealing with. So I just went to bed and you know, again, it's just it's fine. Nothing's going to fucking happen. I'm not saying nothing ever has happened to people at an airport, but nothing's going to happen. The world is not that crazy. You can just sleep in an airport. No one fucking cares. No one cares about you. So yeah, it was great. It was great. I feel so good right now. I feel awesome. And again, it's not like I got a ton of sleep. And I probably got a solid. But I got like a solid. Again, a good solid five hours. And then I went back to bed and I didn't get up properly till a little before eight. So I'm not sure how the time zones have changed. I know they have. I'm not I'm not going to bother learning what time zone I'm in in Calgary. Because who cares? I'm going to be in a different one tomorrow. I'm going to be upside down tomorrow. I'm going to be literally Tokyo and my home province, New Brunswick, are 12 hours apart. Perfectly as far apart as you can get. So yeah, my sleep was no worse than usual. And in some ways a little better. And just just again, fun and exciting and weird. Kind of good to know. It's like, yeah, I can throw this into the fucking mix. Like I remember the first time I flew to Japan, just the pure idea of a 10 hour flight made me a little nervous because I'd never been on a flight that long. And just like, I don't know what's going to happen. Am I going to go stir crazy? I'm going to lose my mind. I didn't. It was fine. Everything was fine. I haven't had a lot of opportunities for these weird layovers because I haven't taken a ton of really long flights. But I've definitely, you know, tried to avoid them. Now it's like, yeah, I don't care. I don't give a good god damn. I don't give a fuck. I stay in an airport as long as you want. My theory that airports are fun and that I like airports, it turns out it's true. I like airports. It feels good. I like being here. I got up in the morning. I got like one of the A and W fast food breakfasts, but it's really not that bad. I know I got scrambled eggs and toast and bacon and sausage and big coffee. It's like, thank you. Thank you very much. This rules. This is great. And still my other idea. Because I'm always shocked how fast time is eating up at the airport that I think I'm going to get a bunch of stuff done 55:00 and I never do. That's held true too. No matter how early you get to the airport because like once I got here last night it pretty much just went straight to bed. And let's see. Local time. It is. That's only 1130. That's not so bad. But my flight leaves at like three o'clock. And I haven't even opened my laptop yet. That's my next plan. Go open the laptop. Try to actually do something useful, but but I really only got a couple hours before we're going to start the embarkment process. Good stuff. Thumbs up. I cannot believe this airport adventure went so well. I just can't believe it. I thought I was just walking into my own doom. Instead it was like, yeah, that was no, that was great. That was fun. I'll double down on that idea that things are less stressful. The earlier you get to the airport turns out you can you can extend that all the way out to a whole day. If you get here a whole day early, fuck it. It's like a free room and board. I got free lodging for the night. I had as good of a sleep as I ever do. And everything you could ever need is in the airport, dude. It's all here. Internet, food, washrooms. I mean, that's sort of life at this point. That's the whole world. Man, too, this thing where my flight got delayed yesterday because of snow and Calgary. Now that it's daytime and I can see outside. Geez, yeah, it's pretty snowy, dude. Pretty snowy. It's minus 12 degrees Celsius, which that's pretty fucking cold. I don't know how to describe that for Fahrenheit people. It's, uh, what is freezing for you guys? It's 32 degrees. So for us, freezing is zero. So we're significantly below freezing. I know our systems are the same at about negative 40. So it's only negative 12, you know. It's not the dough worst. It doesn't start getting like dangerous outside until you get up to negative 20 or so. But it's wildly fucking uncomfortable out there, I bet. You know, I don't feel too bad that I'm just stuck in the airport. And now, I guess, technically, I've been to Calgary the same way. I've technically been to Moscow and I've technically been to Taipei. Because I've been to the airport. Doesn't really count. Maybe someday, Calgary. We'll see.