Spring Break in Canada

Okay... So it's not spring, and the lows here are below zero, but let's not get picky. 

We are in Canada, scoping it out in case the election goes badly. Just kidding... Sort of. Dan has wanted to return to Quebec since he took a bunch of CBHS French students here back in the 80s, so here we are. 

Travel is not as fun as it used to be. It started with the nazi TSA officers at the Memphis airport. We must be on an elevated terrorist alert. Or it could be that it was 4:30 in the morning and they were pissed that they were at work. Either way, I - a fat, middle-aged, white woman - got a "back pat down, which involved a large woman rubbing my lower back. I was tempted to ask her to put a little knuckle into it. The good news is that there were actually people - customers - in the Memphis airport. 

So we got to NYC and started circling. Having built in 90 minutes between flights, I was not too worried about making our connection. There was snow - but this is north of the Mason-Dixon, so they should be prepared for this. As we were taxiing to our gate, the pilot told us that LaGuardia is really not very efficient about de-icing, that our gate was occupied, and we would just be driving around for a while. He was right about the efficiency part; they seem to have one person de-icing. Here he is. 

Having sat in the runway for over an hour, we missed our connecting flight by 5 minutes. Now comes the fun part. The next flight to Montreal was booked. I told them that we'd ride in the bathrooms, but no go. The next best thing would be to fly to DC and catch a flight to Montreal on another carrier. What about our luggage, we asked? No problem. Grab it in DC and re-check it. 😜 So we get our boarding passes and get in line for the shuttle, and less than two minutes after leaving the gate where we got our new arrangement made, I get an alert from the app that the flight  get to DC has been cancelled. 

Returning to the gate, I notify the gate agent that the flights on which he just booked us showed as cancelled. And so they were. He turned us over to another agent who, after what seemed like an hour, was able to get us booked on a DC flight that left in <30 minutes from another terminal. Back to the shuttle and to the gate, which was the wrong gate but the pilots were told the wrong gate as well, so we just stalked them to find out where to go. 

All of this time, let me say that Dan and I were seated next to each other, but he consistently got priority boarding. WTH is that about?

By the time we finally got to Montreal, it was 6 pm, and we had no idea whether our luggage was still in DC (the DC people said that it should be in Montreal, but who really knows, since it was being transferred from American Airlines to Air Canada?), and everyone who had threatened to come to Canada seemed to be going through customs. But they let us in (even Dan), so we were off to find a way to the B&B, food (none since Memphis), and cash. We found all three and were tucked in by 9 pm. 

Today, we are touring the ice wine country. We are not driving. Need I say more?