The flight across the big pond took about seven hours. Compared to my previous trans-Atlantic experiences, on board Iberia, Martinair, and Delta Airlines, the food was half-decent, but drinks were just as sporadic... maybe two espresso size cups of coffee, and four same-size cups of soft-drink, or whatever I was having.
The first meal was something with lamb and stringbeans, loaded with artificial flavors, because it did taste like food. Thanks to the gravy though, it did seem a bit like soup, but that's where the miniature bun came in. Later on during the flight there also were mini pizzas, and I must say for airline food they were goooodddd. Fantastic even.
The in-flight entertainment was also good, although I did ignore it for the most part. There was the CBC News, the movies X-Men, and Ice Age 2: the Meltdown, and an episode of the BBC series Dr. Who, although I didn't really get that latter show, as we are a year or so behind on Dutch TV, and the new Dr. Who shown in the series was only introduced on Dutch TV in late september, in the final episode of that season. It's one of very few series I sometimes enjoy watching.
About two hours before touchdown customs form were handed out, but because of the security measures there were only a handful pens on board. For some reason, one of the stewardesses decided I was the first passenger to get a pen. If she was flirting I didn't notice, but there was no logic in giving me that pen first. Logic would have suggested that it would be given to the passengers two rows ahead of me, as the plane seem neatly compartmentalized. Maybe it was because I was the only passenger in that section who spoke French to the flight attendants. Hey, I do write letters in French, but I seldom get the opportunity to speak the language. I will not speak English on a flight to Montreal!
Upon touchdown, I made for the passport control as fast as I could, but to no avail. With only six inspectors, and about 500 passengers before me, it took ages to come thru. After that I got to my baggage pretty quickly, and I also found the baggage drop off for my connecting flight pretty easily (although US airports have a much better system), but then I was told that my gate was closed, even though the plane was still on the ground. I was sent to ticketing without much of an explanation, so I could maybe buy a ticket to Winnipeg for the following day.
Fortunately at ticketing there was a man waiting for Air Canada passengers from London and the US, with cards with special phone numbers to get free tickets to our destination on the next available flight and for special hotel rates in the airport area. Calling the hotel number wasn't any good at that point, but I got a flight out at 9.10 the next morning.
At that point I was about to faint, because I hadn't slept in almost two whole days, and I hadn't quite had enough to drink. Before trying the hotel number again, I first bought a gallon of water, and gulped down two quarts before I went back to the payphones. The numbers I got were toll-free, but because I needed to call Marilyn first, to tell her I wasn't arriving that evening, I had to return to the shop where I got the water, to get some loose dollars. The calling rates to Manitoba were offensive. Four bucks bought me about three minutes, but that was enough. When the hotel number still couldn't provide any rooms in Montreal, I looked around me and saw a desk that did hotel reservations as well, and had them call around. They found me a room after three phone calls, with a good portion of the normal price knocked off.
I immediately rushed outside, to Post 8, a post where my hotel shuttle would pick me up. It wasn't due for fifteen more minutes. When I arrived at the post, immediately a van pulled up, the driver asking me if I was staying at the Hilton. I had a reservation for a Comfort Inn so I said no. Literally ten seconds after the van had left, a girl asked me if this was the right post to wait for the Hilton shuttle...
In the conversation that ensued, she told me that she had just arrived on a United Airlines flight from Mexico City, where demonstrations on behalf of the runner up in the presidential elections had caused bad delays on the airport, and she was stranded on her way to Toronto. As an Air Canada passenger, I had forty percent knocked of my hotel rate, while United had given her a free suite at the Hilton... Aaargh! Fortunately my shuttle was there in about ten minutes, while hers wouldn't arrive for another twenty.
My room at the Comfort Inn was the spitting image of my room at the Ibis, with the same triangular shape save for the bit where the window was to be found. According to the clock on the media set it was 10.15 when I finally went to bed. I did watch a bit of the Montreal Alouettes game that was on, by I soon grew tired of it. Why the hell can't they play some proper rugby in North America, instead of that padded version that lasts only 20 seconds at a time, for three hours.
After a short, but wonderful sleeping session, I woke up at about 3.30 AM. Since I was wide awake, I decided to took to the shower immediately and get dressed, although my shuttle to the airport was scheduled for 6.15. I killed the remaining two and a half hours by watching a Saskatchewan Roughriders football game. Boring, but way better than the same infomercials we get to see back home in Holland, when we wake up in the middle of the night.
While waiting in front of the hotel, I met four more people who were held up on their way from England to other places in Canada, plus one I had met the night before. In all, both at night and in the morning I must have met over 200 stranded passengers. Most of them were Americans, by the way, who traveled from Europe to the US, and because their flights to the US were a mess, a lot of them had decided to get as close to home as they could get, by flying via Canada. They all missed their connecting flights, but at least they got home the next day, while those insisting on flying to the US directly, were in trouble for a couple more days, hehe.
On the airport I discovered that Air Canada prefer their passengers to check in electronically, and then bring their baggage to a drop off counter. It took me at least twenty minutes to work it out, losing my airline ticket receipt in the process, which, since the introduction of E-tickets isn't much of a problem.
No, I haven't returned to MySpace. This acquaintance goes back eleven years.
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You are Sandusky, OH
Loser! You are boring, have no sense of adventure, no sense of humor, you have no friends, in fact you're no good to this world. You are definitely Sandusky, OH!
Famous Sandusky, Ohio, residents: probably a few hockey players, but no one worth a second glance
* Soraya
