I made it.
It wasn't easy.
Got up at 05:30, left home at 06:30.
Five minutes later, thanks to include, I was at the airport.
So far, so good.
08:20 I leave Portugal, landing in Heathrow (London) about an hour and a half later.
So there I am, in London, at about 11:00, with my connection schedulled for 15:10.
It's already 15:00, and we still haven't started boarding... There's clearly something wrong, because the gate was supposed to close at 14:30...
And then they announce it: "There's been a technical problem, the flight is delayed."
For a while, no one had any idea of how long it would be delayed for, but then they told us: "17:00".
17:00 and we start boarding, but to a different plane, at a different gate.
18:00 and we're still in the ground.
At this point I'm thinking "OK, so 10 hours passed already, and I still have another 10 or so to go..."
A little before we take off, the captain decides to explain what had happened: "We apologize for the delay, but we had to change planes, as the one we were going to use got struck by lightning on the way in."
Er...
Not exactly the proper way to calm people down, uh? :-)
So finally we take off.
Apart from the crying, screaming, weird noises and kicks on my back, all courtesy of the five little kids travelling behind me, the flight was OK.
Travelling with British Airways, I had a personal screen, on which I could watch any of 18 channels (plus the world map), so I watched "Ocean's Twelve" and "Constantine".
None of them is very good, unfortunately :-)
We finally arrived in Toronto.
A bunch of questions from lots of people ("Why have you come here", "When are you leaving", "Where are you staying", etc).
First thing I did was to widthraw some money.
I mean... I tried... but I wasn't successful.
Fortunately, I had euros with me, so I went to one of those places where they change currency and came back with 60 something canadian dollars for 50 euros.
I got on the Airport Express and off we go.
First sight of the city.
Wonderful :-) Lots of lights :-)
I finally get to the hotel, where Kiran was still waiting for me (he was supposed to arrive an hour after me, but it went the other way around).
We went out for dinner. We went to a place called Sheraton Centre, where we enjoyed a bit of jazz while eating and trying to understand each other with all the noise.
Back to the hotel to get some sleep.
Canadian toilets are weird. Either that or that one is broken :-)
The system on the shower is weird too. I can select the temperature, but not the water pressure. Perhaps I just haven't found the right knob.
I still have to find a way to widthraw some money.
I also have to find a way post this on my journal O:-)
Oh, and I do have a power adaptor, but in Heathrow.
It refused to work in the beginning...
You wouldn't believe what a little bit of brute force can do O:-)
That's a pressure balancing faucet, quite common in the US and Canada. They sense changes in water pressure in the hot and cold lines to keep the temperature (relatively) constant. That way you don't get scalded when the person next door flushes the toilet.The system on the shower is weird too. I can select the temperature, but not the water pressure. Perhaps I just haven't found the right knob.
