Wrap up

I got home around 8 last night. Of course, I’m awake ridiculously early today. Luckily I’m off work until tomorrow, so I can spend today doing such things as grocery shopping and laundry.

But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.

My sister and I were on the same flight from Rome to Toronto, then different flights to our respective cities. Back when we booked the tickets, we made sure that we were sitting beside each other.

Naturally, Air Canada moved her. My seat was unchanged, but I was sitting in an aisle seat beside a stranger.

When we dropped off our bags, I asked if they had seats beside each other. They didn’t, but I managed to change so that I was in a window seat. We were in the same aisle, but on opposite sides of the plane. The woman at the counter suggested that we check at the gate to see if they could seat us together.

We went to the lounge in Rome (which was pretty pathetic), then went to the gate and asked if they could seat us together. They didn’t have any seats, so my plan was to ask the person beside me if they’d switch seats with Camille. Worst case, they’d say no.

However, just before boarding, the guy at the desk waved us over. He had two seats together in the middle part of the plane – did we want them? We took them, and then boarded in the priority boarding lane.

I was sitting in the middle of three seats. We were in the row just in front of the bathrooms, so no one was directly behind us. Once everyone was on the plane, it was apparent that no one would be sitting in the third seat. I decided to move over to the aisle seat after take-off. However, just before take-off, the flight attendant found a suitcase that the man on the other side of the aisle had placed behind the seat. She put it in the space under the seat in front of the empty seat. Now I wasn’t so sure I wanted to move over, as leg room was pretty scarce with the bag under the seat.

Anyway, after about ½ an hour, the man whose bag was under the seat asked if he could move over there, as there was air hitting him in his other seat. He lasted about ½ an hour, then moved back to his seat.

Five minutes later another woman asked if she could sit there. She lasted about an hour.

As soon as she left, I moved over there, just to stop the musical chairs game. It was a little ridiculous – it’s not like it was next to an empty seat.

The flight was 9.5 hours. Somehow I had it in my mind that it was an 8 hour flight, so I found it long. Luckily, I’d bought a book in Rome that lasted 3 or 4 hours, so I wasn’t too crazy bored for the first little while.

Once we landed in Toronto, we cleared customs and then went to clear security at the connections gate. I walked to the normal security line, showed them my boarding pass, and immediately got redirected to the “priority” security line – which was a little silly, since the regular line was hardly packed.

It’s kind of funny how being considered a frequent flier affects the behaviour of people in the airports.

We went to the lounge and grabbed some food before my flight. Finally, it was time for the short 1-hour flight to Ottawa & home.

Overall, it was a good vacation.

I’m glad we had a cabin with a window. It was a bit odd being on an American cruise ship – the pros were that the currency on board was US dollars (not Euros) and everyone spoke English. The downside was that the food wasn’t as interesting or good as on Costa, and it felt less foreign overall.

I took around 700 pictures. I have uploaded 20 or so to facebook, but haven’t done so here yet (basically due to laziness). If I know you (either in person or via the internet) & you’re on facebook, send me an e-mail or friend request & you can see them there. I will probably upload them here as well eventually, but I’m still pretty jet-lagged and I go back to work tomorrow, so I’m not sure when.