Day 2 - the journey across the Atlantic

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After a slightly restless night I woke to 3 emails from Air Canada informing me of delays. The most recent one citing a delay of 2 ¼ hours. Ah well, at least I can spend time comfortably in the lounge once I get to the airport. The journey on the Heathrow Hoppa went without any problem, although I did get a slightly later one than I’d planned. I sailed through check-in and security, then stopped briefly to complete a very easy Adventure Lab cache. After a bit of window shopping I walked the 15 or so minutes to the Maple Leaf lounge. Brekkie was yummy, and as I type this I only have another 2 ¾ hours to kill before the gate will be on the departures board.

I feel a glass of something might help...

Well, that was quite amusing! I asked for a Bucks Fizz and the waiter had no idea what I meant, and I think he thought I was swearing at him! When I described the drink he said,” Ah, Mimosa!” Same drink, different name; it tasted yummy regardless.

I won’t bore you with the story of the long wait at the gate, but we finally left British soil at 15:00. The plane was a Boeing 777, and very comfortable. The seats were in a 1-2-1 formation and I had a seat next to the window, so had privacy and a lovely view.

The Air Canada crew were lovely – friendly, helpful and entertaining. The food was delicious, and the choice of films broad and contemporary; I’d seen a few of them during my volunteer shifts at the Curzon. I chose Puss in Boots – The Last Wish which I enjoyed, then when that was finished I pressed the magic button which makes the seat into a bed and had a doze. Waking refreshed to a beautiful blue sky I watched Women Talking, a good film and worth a watch, but certainly less frivolous than PiB.

As we flew over the mainland I spotted snow on mountain tops – just a little, but definitely still snow. The land was dotted with farms and patchworked with fields of many hues of green. Toronto from the sky was very impressive with the blue of Lake Ontario framed in places by massive skyscrapers, and the huge spread of the many thousands of other buildings. It’s certainly an immense city!

The trip through customs was pretty easy. I had downloaded the ArriveCAN app and completed the online Canada Border Services Agency Declaration. This meant i could use the express lane at customs and whizz on through with the aid of modern technology. I did get questioned by the Border Agency representative though who wasn’t confident that the photo their machine had just taken was of the same person as the photo in my passport. My passport photo was taken when I had shoulder length wavy brown hair which IMHO made me look a lot older than my current coiffure. (Heather, note this!) Anyway, my answers must have reassured them that i wasn’t one of the bad guys, and they let me through.

At this point Susan was waiting in the arrival hall for me. I went to collect my luggage and after a wait of about 45 minutes where the luggage from a Montego Bay flight landing 20 minutes later than us had been delivered to the carousel, an announcement came over the tannoy that they were sending managers over to find out what the delay to our luggage was. A few minutes later another announcement told us that all the luggage was off the plane, but no one had brought it to the terminal; they were sending someone now and it should be with us in about 15 minutes. And it was! Not sure whether someone had decided to take a coffee break, or had simply clocked out and gone home, but there were a few annoyed peeps in a crowded and hot area. I took the advantage of the 15 minutes to have a comfort break and buy a Coke Zero (Diet Coke to those in the UK). I found out afterwards that Susan had bought herself some fries (chips to those in the UK) to fill that 15 minutes.

As I walked through the door to the arrival hall I was greeted by Susan’s lovely smile and a wave - at last I was here and with my friend!

After a short tour of the car park as we attempted to find our way out we drove onto the Toronto highway. A huge road with huge cars and trucks! I didn’t see any small cars like in the UK, everything just seemed to be scaled up a notch or two.

We made it out of the city with the help of Waze, a very helpful app similar to Google maps, which gives you info of crashes, vehicles on the shoulder and so on. Susan’s had an English accent.

Susan's home is in Cambridge, and we had to drive towards London to get there. I commented that I'd just come from London! Susan replied that since travelling, she's realised that very few of the place names in Canada are original. I guess we'll find out over the next few weeks!

We spend the evening in Susan’s lovely garden catching up with the help of gin (the drink), Cash and Sadie (her two lovely doggies) and Smudge and Albus (her two gorgeous pussy cats). A fantastic end to my day.

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