2017
September 14 - Thursday
Everything went well on
departure day and I was able to get out of the house at 06:15 as planned.
I stopped for a quick breakfast at A&W which didn't take long. I had
one minor scare on the drive to the airport.
I had just come through Winfield onto the straight stretch where
everyone ramps their speed up. A pickup
flashed his lights so I thought it would be a good idea to slow down. As I passed the Holiday Park Resort,
I noticed a black SUV parked on the right side.
Just as I passed he flipped on the red & blue lights and pulled
out. My first thoughts were, “oh sh**,
I’m going to miss my flight.
Fortunately, it turned out that he was after a pickup truck behind
me. Whew.....
Valet
parking went quickly and I walked straight to the WestJet kiosks. A nice woman
employee helped me print my luggage tag and boarding passes, and I proceeded
right to security. Of course, as usual I
was selected for a “random screening” and had all my bags, my DSLR and my hands
swabbed. I must look awfully suspicious
as I get selected for "random" screening just about every time I go through security at
YLW.
I bought a water and a
coffee and sat down to wait. There was
an Air Canada flight attendant
sitting beside me and I had a short visit with her. She was heading to Vancouver first and would
then be working on a flight to Frankfurt.
I experienced a moment of nostalgia as I’ve made the flight to Frankfurt
many times, and in one sense I was wishing that I was heading back to Europe this year.
Finally it was time for
boarding and I hadn't bothered to pay extra for seat selection, so on this flight
I was assigned a window seat in the very last row (23A). Except for the fact that the set didn’t
recline, it wasn’t all that bad, despite being next to the galley and washroom. There was no one in the middle seat which was
great, so the guy in the outside seat and I had lots of elbow room. It
was cloudy during most of the flight so I wasn’t able to admire the magnificent
views of the prairies or Ontario. The flight to Toronto took about 3H:45M.
I didn’t sign up for the
inflight WestJet Internet service,
but I did try the Wi-Fi entertainment service using my iPhone and it worked
remarkably well.
I had previously
downloaded the WestJet app, so was
ready to go. The “new release” movies
they had were rather uninspiring and limited, so I didn’t bother with
those. However I did watch live news on
BBC and CNN and that was quite a novelty.
I suppose that’s going to be the “new normal” with air travel so that airlines can dispense with the movie equipment and seat back screens. The technology seems to have advanced a lot
since they first implemented this type of service and the live map display also
worked well. I’ve encountered an
increasing number of aircraft lately that have seat back AC and USB power, so leaving
the phone or tablet powered on for an extended flight isn’t a problem. I must remember to always pack at least a
charging cable in my carry on! For most
of the flight, I just listened to music on my phone.
It occurred to me during the
flight that as of today, it has been exactly one year to the day that I had my
surgery in Italy. It’s interesting to
reflect on that, and remember all that has transpired since that day last year,
and remember all the hard work that I’ve done to get my knee back to normal.
The flight arrived in
Toronto right on time and I had about two hours until the next flight. It was thankfully only a short walk to the
next gate. I was ready for lunch
so stopped at a food stand called Smashburger
and ordered a chicken burger. The
chicken tasted like it was boiled and it was bland and dreadful! At that point I was thinking the restaurant could more aptly be called “the
Toronto airport gag & puke”. There was a Chinese food place next to that,
but the food looked even worse! There
was a Timmy’s of course (isn’t there always at least one in every Canadian
airport?), and in hindsight that probably would have been the best choice.
Thankfully for the seating
on my next flight I had upgraded to the “Plus” seating with the lard ass wide
leather seats, an extra $50 charge.
There’s a shelf in the middle seat with a couple of small bottles of
water so it’s a good choice, especially as it includes free food (although I
didn’t take advantage of that as I was “between meals” on B.C. time and not
really hungry) and I believe free booze as well. The guy seated beside me took full advantage
of the free booze.
The flight was only about
two hours but for some reason it seemed longer and seemed to take forever. By the time the flight arrived in Halifax, it
was about 21:00 so was pitch black. My pack seemed to
take forever to appear on the carousel, but it eventually showed up in about 15
minutes, and I was sure to
affix the bright yellow Insight Tours
tag to the handle
I was hoping that the
pre-arranged transportation to the hotel would be well organized and easy, as I
was tired and starting to get very hungry. That turned out to not be the
case. I went outside to see if I could
spot a Shuttle but there was nothing apparent so I called the number listed on
the Voucher. The woman who answered said
that she was just inside the terminal a few feet, so I should come in and get
this sorted.
As it turned out, the
Shuttle had left at 20:15 and the next one wouldn’t be until 22:00 (by this
time it was just after 21:00). I was NOT
in the mood to put up with a long wait and then a 45 minute drive into Halifax,
so I decided to take a Cab. I hauled my
bags outside and a brand new white SUV pulled up within a minute or two. The usual flat rate charge for Taxis is $68,
but at that point I didn’t care what the cost was. The drive was uneventful but also took at
least 30 minutes. The airport seems to
be quite a way from the city centre.
Check in at the Prince George Hotel was quick and
easy. I handed them the pre-paid Voucher
and they handed me my room key. I asked
about any restaurants in the vicinity that were open for a small meal, and they
provided a couple of suggestions but also mentioned that their Bar does light
meals. I dropped my bags in the room and
then went down to the Bar.
One nice feature of the room was that there were outlets installed both on the side of the bedside table and the side of the desk. These included two AC outlets and two USB outlets. That's a very convenient feature!
There was a very pleasant
girl named Allie working and I decided on a Caesar salad with chicken, along
with a glass of Merlot. The salad was
rather dreadful, but at that point I was glad to get anything. There was no Kale with the Romaine (as
specified on the menu), and the cook must have applied the dressing with a
medicine dropper as there was virtually no dressing. The Romaine was soggy and the cook forgot the
cheese (Allie brought me a bowl of shaved Asiago so that helped). I finished that with my usual after dinner
coffee and then went back to my room to get organized.
It’s now after midnight
local time so I should probably get ready for bed so that I can get some
touring done tomorrow. The tour doesn’t
get started until Saturday afternoon, so I have some time to look around. My P&S Camera is ready
to go but I’ll have to re-assemble my DSLR and re-format the memory card in the
morning. So far I haven’t seen much of
Halifax as it’s dark, so it will be interesting to see the city in the daytime.
2025-02-16