Reading thousands of books and traveling thousands of miles means reading more books while connecting reality.“读万卷书，行万里路”,意在多多读书接触实际，开阔眼界增进见识。时而想着写这么一个故事，这个故事的主线也在脑中回响着，可是仍在寻找合适的落笔点。该怎么写呢？故事开头也许是主人公从乡下来到城市，又从地球这一边到了那一边。他总是随着时光列车跑啊跑啊！因为从乡下走来，走了很远的路，他总是在赶最后一班车......一路上，他遇上了她，还有很多好人。在这一过程中，他学会了朝着一定目标前行。有了坚持坚守，他成就了自己的成长故事。编发这一跨国在线“走遍世界”英文系列，希望对于当下思索着尤其仍在成长着的朋友有所启迪启发。
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Travel towards the Globe Series (I)
“走向世界”系列之一
Road to Brazil (1): Ottawa to TorontoI look at my watch. It is now the time pointed to about noon, while getting the American Airlines at the Toronto Airport. It has finally been setup going to Sao Paulo by going to Miami at 2:45 p.m. today. Outside it seems that everything is quite to welcome three of us who experienced a complicated and hard time because of overbooking seats in the reserved airline going to Brazil. Sitting down at the waiting place at Gate A11, the long story with the adventures on the launching of this travel is recalled.About 7:00 p.m., Ottawa’s sky was still sunny, although it was getting sunset. With Emily’s driving, we were starting the travel to Brazil by going to the airport. There was normally a short way for us to go. However, it was under construction. So we had not to go to the airport as usually for about 15 minutes. We arrived in the airport finally. Emily hugged her heart for a goodbye, and then we went to the boarding desk to check in. At the Airport, we were, with a chance, checking-in by a nice lady able to speak Mandarin, which we felt happy and unforgettable. I thought that this might give us some good luck to go. While thinking about this, the lady smiled to tell us that our names for reservations did not match from the passports. Both Alice's and my first names became the family names. Also the friend with us is a Mister, while the original reservation was a Mrs. We found these mistakes when seeing the reservations from the Brazilian colleagues who did. If this situation was not handled appropriately, we were not only disallowed to take the flights, but also the customs would definitely not pass us. Although the staff was nice, she was not at the level to handle this. Therefore, we were directed to the manager-level staff to consider the next steps. The manager-level staff was a gentleman with a whole white hair for an age between 45 and 50. We thought that we would need to be polite to handle this with the airport staff. So I said “hello” to the staff. It was unfortunate that the gentleman did not have reaction to us. The friend told that the gentleman was concentrating on looking at our case. We would not bother him. So we were just waiting for the gentleman’s handling. This was being processed for at least thirty minutes, which allowed us to wait with worrying. During the waiting, we were pleased to see a staff Elane who helped us in the last Christmas holiday when I was sending a friend’s two kids to China. Elane also recognized us, and she even helped to find Gloria’s air mile numbers, and gave to the gentleman to add the points. After about 30 minutes, we were told that another issue was coming out: all three reservations of us did not have seats. The nice lady came to us inquiring about the situation at that moment. We told her that we all did not have seats. The nice lady went back to her desk, and helped check and advised us that the Air Canada oversold 17 tickets. In this unexpected circumstance, if we went to Toronto by taking the reserved international airline, it could be a great risk to Sao Paulo with a seat.![]()
By any means, the gentleman issued the boarding passes for us to go to Toronto from Ottawa. As for the boarding for the Toronto to Sao Paulo, the boarding passes gave an obvious mark without seats. This meant that we could only continue the trip unless the flight had extra seats for us when arrived in Toronto. This was really starting a risked adventure. However, we did not have other choice except for going to try the luck.The flight to Toronto was quite smooth. It was even less that one hour as usual to arrive. We started from about 9:40 p.m. and arrived in about 10:30 p.m.. On the flight, I felt easy and fast getting in Toronto, which I thought that it would be a good sign for the trip with hopes.
