Chapter 69 – A Canadian in … Canada (imagine that)

April 8, 2004 (cont’d)
We were arriving at the *new* Terminal 1 (ooooooooooo), sort of. The plane parked in the middle of airstrip nowhere, and we took a bus to the terminal. We were on the bus for half an hour and people (myself included) were getting pretty irritated. The customs area was big and new…and the waits as long as ever (actually it was the longest I’ve ever had to wait at customs anywhere). When I finally got to the front, the customs officer confirmed something I’d been thinking about: I’d filled the landing card out wrong…because I’m not a resident of Canada…weird. I finally got through, got my luggage, and met my dad.

The awe of getting back to *real* highways was much less this time: the novelty of transatlantic flights is already wearing off. In fact, it felt like I had never left. I watched some TV (to not go to bed too early) and got to bed around 4:00am (my brain’s time) or 10:00pm according to the clock. I didn’t have much in the way of jet lag (other than waking up around 6:00am for the first several days) which was cool.

April 9, 2004
My original plan had been to show up at my friend Lesli’s work, in Toronto, to surprise her (I was back a week earlier than I had originally planned) but it was Good Friday…and she was running errands somewhere in Kitchener. Plan B; tracking down my friend Tanya (she had moved in January, but I didn’t know exactly where) who didn’t even know I was going to be in the country at all. I showed up at her dad’s unannounced (just in case she was there) and he gave me her new address and buzz code. When I got there, I called up saying that I was delivering something for her (using her first name and her fiancé’s last name to get her thinking about something other than whether or not she recognized the voice), only to find out from someone in the elevator that the buzz code was not the apartment number, so I had no idea where to go. I went back to the front door and buzzed up again saying I’d got the apartment number wrong. Paul (Tanya’s fiancé who had answered this time) told me, but forget to buzz open the door, so I had to call a third time, hoping there was no camera that residents could use to see who was in the lobby. Luckily, they still fell for it (sort of; they were expecting another friend, and thought it might be her messing with them). I was definitely not expected though, so it did work.

A while later, the friend that they were expecting showed up, and stopped dead at the door. She looked vaguely familiar, but some of you will say that I say that everyone looks familiar. After a few minutes, we finally figured out that she and I had taken grade 12 English together in night school at a high school in Burlington…and the world shrinks again.

I ended up staying all afternoon / evening, and was making my way home in the Justy, who was acting very strangely; the brakes didn’t feel very strong at all…but then neither did the clutch…I figured that I just needed time to get used to them again; clutches and brakes feel different in most cars, and I hadn’t driven the Justy in 9 months (plus European-made cars seem to have waaaaaay better brakes…good thing too, since French people like to put off braking until they absolutely have too). I told my dad about it when I got home, and he said he’d take it for a drive in the morning to check it out…

Chapter 68 – I swear, that vomit was there when we got here!

April, 2004
My mission (which I chose to accept): make it to my sister (Sasha)’s wedding in Ottawa April 17th.

After having the incredible good fortune of being able to move my trip up by 6 whole days (giving me 3 1/2 weeks in Canada instead of 2 1/2, thanks to stat holidays and over-planning of my courses) I was leaving April 8th, flying back April 29th/30th.

The trip started easily, since I was able to skip public transportation. First off, it was cheaper to fly from Mulhouse / Basel airport to whichever major airport I happened to be flying out of, not to mention a million times easier, as long as it was booked as a single trip, than the train. I am also ever-so-lucky with 3 offers for rides to the airport (one of which had been made even when I was supposed to be there at 4:00am…fortunately that was no longer the case).

So, having left my spare keys with another friend, and borrowing his to recuperate my stuff upon my return, I was ready to go. We headed out around 11:00, so I’d be there for (or well before) 12:00 for my 2:05 flight to Frankfurt. When I checked in, I was also able to check in for my Frankfurt-Toronto flight, more than 5 hours and many kms away. Frighteningly, there were already no more window seats to be had. Not a big deal, but a bad sign for how full the flight was going to be.
Here’s the brief journal entry I made while waiting for my flight:

April 8, 2004
Okay, the guy in the red-white-and-blue trucker baseball cap (with netting and all) from the 1984 Olympics in LA definitely warrants a note. He really couldn’t look much more redneck (long hair, although I don’t think it’s quite a mullet), scruffy beard, dirty jeans…but European shows…I actually think he’s German. Anyway, I’m thinking that taking a picture (while tempting) would be inappropriate, but I definitely had to mention him. I was right: he just picked up a German magazine (although he could also be Swiss).

Next notable note: on a 45-minute flight, Lufthansa served us a sandwich and a drink. Wow. On a 2-hour flight, I think SwissAir gave us a chocolate.

Arriving in Frankfurt, with no concerns about luggage (another advantage to booking things all together) I still had nearly 2 hours to kill. A walk through several duty free shops in the airport helped pass the time. At one I stopped to buy a few things, and almost forgot to pay, despite standing at the cash register. I was distracted because I had had to show my boarding card and passport to buy anything. For those wondering (as I was) why: because the EU borders are open, one of the implications on duties means that you can only get stuff duty free if you are entering or leaving the entire EU. Amusingly, where I live, I could probably still circumvent that by coming / going from the Swiss side of Mulhouse / Basel airport if I really wanted to (although I think I would have to get my tickets in Switzerland or something to do so). Not that it’s worth the effort, but it makes Switzerland’s neutrality (and proximity) potentially very handy. Anyway, had I not been leaving the EU, apparently the stuff I was buying would have cost nearly double. That’s just silly.

So, I went to the boarding area and killed some more time until my flight finally boarded. I was in the centre section in an aisle seat (word to future long-distance travellers; forget the window seats unless you really want to see the landscape; centre section aisle seats have the greatest potential for legroom – and more importantly sleeping space – since there are 3-4 seats in the middle section, and they fill from the sides of the plane in, so on non-busy flights, there is nobody in the middle 1 or 2 seats, and if you’re really lucky, you get the whole row). I ended up chatting with the guy in the other aisle seat, discussing our hopes that we wouldn’t get another passenger in between us. That extra seat makes all the difference in the world.

I sat back and observed the other people boarding. I suddenly got an unpleasant whiff of something. A few minutes later, the people a couple of rows up complained about vomit on one of their seats. After taking the whole seat cushion away, and bringing it back clean, the flight attendant asked if their child (there were two young ones) had been sick, to which the father got all indignant and said that it was there when they got there. Riiiiiiiight (clearly when they cleaned the plane between flights they somehow missed a seat covered in vomit) – it would have been a crime, of course, to admit it. Instead he just looked like an ass.

We got off the ground a little while later, and the 8 1/2 hour flight (during which we would re-gain 6 hours….ahhhh time zones) was fairly uneventful (no lightning strikes this time!) and we got to Toronto on time.

to be continued…

Chapter 67 – Making a long story short (well, maybe not that short after all)

March 7, 2004
Now, you may be asking, what actually happened on that trip to Prague? Is there a story? If you asked yourself that question, you don’t know me at all. Here’s a Coles’ Notes version of the stories (since I’m writing this nearly 3 months after the fact, it’s not surprising that details may have been lost to the depths of my sieve-like memory). Anywho…

We left off with the soldier leaving the train. He was replaced by 4 ladies and a girl my age-ish, so I lost all chance of getting a bit more sleep (at least comfortably, since the seats I had to myself had gone from a row of 3 to my actual seat) for the hour or two that was left until Prague. I did drift off for a little while, but hunched over my day-pack, and only for a few minutes…such comfort. Shortly before Prague, I tried attempting to pull my backpack out from under the seats…which involved much frustration and bothering the other two passengers in my row. They were very nice, but I hated to bug them. When we hit a station called Prague something-or-other (or Praha for those in the correcting mood) I was a little concerned, but it seemed like a pretty small station. On a hunch, I waited. As we slowed down for the next stop, and all the women started to get ready to leave, I asked the person I (correctly) guess would be most likely to speak some English (the girl) if this was the main station…it was. I then started really hoping that it was also the station that Dave was expecting me at.

I tried my cell phone, but was not overly surprised when it didn’t work. When I found a pay phone, I weighed my options and started looking around for a bank machine (since I was still hesitant to exchange money with any of the random booths around the station). I decided to make a trip to the platform and back, in case Dave was there, and it was then that I heard my name. What a relief. He took me back to his place, showed me where everything was, and headed to work, while I crawled into bed for a much-needed nap. It was mid-afternoon by the time I had lazily made my way to Dave’s work. He finished up early, and took me downtown, mostly around the Lower Town, and Wenceslas Square. We settled on a good Czech restaurant bar for dinner…which was sooooooo good. It was called the Rope Maker’s Wife, and the menu (available in English or Czech) was complete with the legend of the place. It was really cool.

The highlight of the next day (Thursday) was my self-guided tour of the city. I crossed the river a good ways away from Charles’ Bridge, and headed towards the hill that was in front of me. I walked up some stairs that were embedded in the base of the hill, and headed straight for the wall that I’d seen from a distance, that seem to serve no real purpose at all. I thought the wall was pretty cool, so I went through a doorway in it, only to find an older wall. I continued up the hill to another doorway, bringing me back to the original side, and struggled to climb my way up the hill next to it. I was incredibly disappointed when I arrived at a road, that had clearly come from the base of the hill, and woven it’s way back and forth up to (and beyond) the point I had reached. Determined to get past where just anyone could go, I kept climbing…until I hit another part of the same road. I was very disappointed, but getting pretty tired from climbing, so I followed the road for a bit (since it clearly went where I was going anyway, if less directly). The next time I passed through the wall I was even more disappointed to find more roads, cars, and people walking through a man-made park. So much for discovering something. I followed the wall, going in and out the doorways that I came to, and eventually found myself heading downhill, not far from the castle. I stopped at a little café for a (really really good) hot chocolate, and headed to the castle. A short tour around, and some photos of the gates, the cathedral etc, and I was back on my way into town (I should probably note that this was several hours of walking and hiking). I found my way back to Wenceslas Square as it was starting to get dark. I did a tour of some shops, and stopped in a book store for a while, where I found some really cool kids’ books about the history of the region, the city, and the castle (available in German, Czech, English, Italian, French…). I read for a bit, and then headed back to Dave’s work. We went for Thai that night, and dessert, which I couldn’t resist, was called Hot Love (I forget what was in it besides strawberries, ice cream, and chocolate sauce, but it was really really good).

Friday was a fairly lazy day. I hung out at Dave’s work for a while, while he did some work (imagine that). We made an attempt to locate the Hard Rock Cafe (I had tried the day before too, finding only a small bar with a name bearing a close resemblance, but by no means one of the chain) so that I could add to my shot glass collection (which consists of shot glasses from all over, but started at the Hard Rock Café in Washington, DC, when I was in high school, so there’s a certain bonus to having glasses from there…even though the one from DC broke when I moved into residence in first year university.). On our numerous trips in and out of souvenir shops (I really like checking out what they’re selling) a Hard Rock shirt caught my eye, right around the end of the day, when I’d pretty much given up on that. The guy in the shop told us vaguely where it was (a fair distance out of downtown…in the suburbs or something) and Dave and I decided to reserve that for Saturday.

My last day in Prague had me back in Lower Town, but only after a delicious brunch at Red Hot & Chili’s, for some day-time pictures of the things I’d seen the evening of the day I’d arrived, and some shopping. Before leaving for town we had gone back to Dave’s work to try and find the exact location of the Hard Rock…which apparently didn’t exist (at least according to the corporate website), so I don’t know if that guy was just messing with us, or if it had once been there, but had since closed. I instead bought a shot glass from a tourist shop. We found ourselves at a mall, and decided to take in a movie (like most countries, and unlike France, showing in original version, with subtitles). Amusingly, we ended up settling on a French comedy called Tais Toi! Funny, since most of the movies I see in France are American (and dubbed into French, unless I’m lucky enough to find a good one playing at the one-screen theatre near my house that plays movies only in original version). After the movie, we did a tour of the grocery store (I LOVE grocery shopping in different countries. It’s so interesting seeing the different things) where I picked up some food for the train ride home early the next morning.

…and that’s about it…next chapter: I skip forward a month to my next trip…across the ocean…