US / Canada / French Canada Tour 09

Amazingly - we have been into this holiday for a week and a half now and we have, today, had our first early morn start. We had plane tixs from Boston to Toronto and the plane was due to leave about 10am-ish - so we had to set an alarm (with that hideous Sony Ericsson "Pop piano" ringtone thing) for 6ish.

I thought we were functioning quite well considering we had been rather sloth like for most part of the holiday. Hey - we never left the Boston hotel before midday previously.

We headed back to the Hospital for our breakfast. Thankfully - Ant had spotted porridge (aka oatmeal) the other day - so I had a bowl of porridge.. ahem oatmeal instead of all that sugary muffin crap - which hit the spot.

We went back to Hooker Central (aka Doubletree Hotel) - grabbed our bags, checked out and were on our way to America's most terrorised airport - Logan International. It was good because you could get a $2.50 subway ticket to a stop near the airport - then catch a complementary shuttle to the airport - probably the cheapest airport transport I've seen for a while. No wonder Al'qaeda choose Logan...

Anyhows - we checked in for our American Eagle flight (apparently it is like Qantas Link - eg: cheaper nastier version of AA if that was possible). After a fairly underwhelming security search (not surprising because it is America's most terrorised airport) - we made our way to the Admirals Lounge where we made use of the free internet (finally made a new entry to this blog) and had to hostage negotiate us some free drinks at the bar.

Despite the flight being run by American Eagle - it wasn't too bad - we did manage to get a whole can of tomato juice. Pity it didn't come with something to eat...

Arrival to Toronto was sort of weird - because we were let onto the Tarmac to our own devices (well almost), we let ourselves into the airport, and had to open (ourselves) the door into the customs area. It all felt random. Speaking of random was the Immigration into Canada. Ant walked up to one immigration person - who just asked Ant about the Ashes and whether he follows the Rugby. He got through no probs. I on the other hand - managed to pick Ms Grumpy Pants - who instead of asking me irreverent questions about irreverent Australian sports, started asking me 20 questions about my life, my job, my intent of coming to Canada, my previous visit to Canada... blah blah blah. She then did some sort of "colouring-in work of art with a highlight" all over my customs/immigration form and handed it back to me and let me pass through.

Ant and I then walked down a corridor to another immigration woman. Ant handed in his form - he got through. I handed in my highlighted form - and was ushered into another room (sin Ant) which was full of other immigration officers. High-five... Secondary screening. Anyhows - another woman saw me (one who wasn't Ms Grumpy Pants and had a bit more common sense) and she does the whole 20 questions routine. She wanted to vet whether I was a valid tourist and asked for an itinerary... Unfortunately - Ant organises this and carries all of info in his purple bible folder (...I just rock up). Anyhows - after a couple of minutes - I think she realises that Ms Grumpy Pants wasn't really onto anything with me - and they let me through. It's a bit bizarre. I've been to loads of places (and I've seen Border Security a bit as well) - and I've never had any problems like this before. It's also a bit annoying that Ant was AOK without the 20 questions - yet I'm subjected to all of this crap. Thank you for coming to Canada...

XOXO...