On November 7th I boarded a plane to Ottawa, my country’s capital for a week at Terry Fox center, with the student program “Encounters with Canada”. Little did I know that my plane ride there would be so fun, I could write a whole blog about it. From the moment I passed security in Kelowna people starting stopping me and asking me what my title was all about. I passed people and I would hear the echo from behind me saying “She’s Miss Teen Galaxy Canada”!! I was traveling with a good friend of mine Stephanie and we had miscalculated the length of the security line and we almost missed our first plane, :). The plane ride to Calgary was very peaceful and quick, a mere 35 minutes. We had a 2 hour lay over in Calgary which was fun. Walking through the airport people would take sneaky pictures of me as I walked by and West Jet staff would stop to talk to us, it was so cool. Boarding our second plane many of the other teens on board were also heading to “Encounters with Canada” so we got to meet some of them early.

Welcome to Ottawa

Then we were off, the second we could see the lights of the Capital the whole plane went silent for a second, it was　such an outstanding view. I had never seen a bigger city. And with all the lights it was beautiful. I ended up having a wonderful conversation with the woman seated next to me who’s daughter had competed in pageantry. She seemed really happy to sit near me and asked if she could have a photo with me. She was very interesting and told us stories of several awesome sounding places to visit in Ottawa, which was really cool to hear about. When we landed we said good bye and Stephanie and I tried to find our “Pick up”. We got our luggage found the people from EWC and we were off. When we arrived at Terry Fox center it was past midnight and people were sleeping, even when we went up to our dorms, which it was really just one big room with bunks that we all slept in, Stephanie was down stairs and I was up stairs so we separated.

The next day was amazing; we had a free day, which meant that we stayed at the compound and hung out. I met so many cool and amazing people. After breakfast myself and some friends I made went down to the “Theatre” room and watched “Mean Girls”, by the end of the movie about 40 teens were stuffed in a tiny room watching the show. Although we didn’t go anywhere that day, it was still a blast to meet everyone. After supper we participated in some really fun ice breaker games where we had to put puzzle pieces together WITHOUT talking. LOL. It was during this game that I first met the friend I spent my whole week with. We also signed up for Monday night activities I got Mini Golf, which you’ll hear about in another blog, but the line up was hectic for that!! After that was lights and it was hard going to sleep knowing that the next day was when all the fun would start…We would get to tour the parliament building!! But you’ll hear about that in the next blog!!