Well the adventure has well and truly begun. Mum and I are off on our Canada and American tour. Our first day has been a long one indeed – we started at Melbourne airport at 8.30am on Monday morning 28 October. This is an hour earlier than the needed three hours before our flight at 12.30pm on Virgin to LA but as my father used to say, “I’d rather be an hour early than 2 minutes late.” We are waiting at our gate to be informed the flight is delayed by 2 and 1/2 hours and is now set for 3pm. This means we are going to miss our connecting flight in LA for Toronto so I ring my travel agent and she says that they will rearrange flights for us and she will let the pick up company at Toronto know to expect us at a different time.
On the flight we are informed we have been moved to a flight 4 hours later leaving from LA at 3.40pm rather than 11.40am. So after long 13 hour flight we arrive in LA and like every other tourist – regardless of being in transit or whatever – we have to go through border security check – takes more than an hour and is frustrating but is the price paid by travellers to keep America Safe again. While waiting at our gate we learn that our original flight from LA to Toronto has been cancelled and if we hadn’t been changed to another flight due to a late departure in Melbourne – we would have been staying an extra day in LA because our new flight was fully booked and there were no flights til Tuesday for Toronto!
The only problem with our new flight was we both had to sit in the middle seats. For those of you who know me well I am a large lad so this wasn’t going to be a pleasant 4 and 1/2 hour flight but it turned out ok. We arrive in Toronto at 11.30pm – go through customs by midnight and are in our chauffeur driven car to our hotel in downtown Toronto to check in at 1am local time – 4pm Tuesday Melbourne time – almost 32 hours on the go – but we are here safe and sound if a little weary and leg sore. Off to Niagara Falls on 8.20am train tomorrow.
Father Shane's Observations and Travels 