A typical boring trip by air

Toronto Union Station

When I was a kid I loved air travel. I didn’t even mind the obligatory suit and tie. I relished being one of the 20 or so passengers in an unpreasurized DC3 rumbling along at 160 mph as much as 8,000 feet in above the crowd. Train travel was the venue of bankers and movie stars. Plebians rode Greyhound or Continental railways. Today I reluctantly climbed aboard an A320 with 150 or so other benighted souls to fly some 1,500 miles, to take a train journey, not that different from those taken by bankers and movie stars of my youth. Hopefully, unlike air travel, rail travel has not

The day started with an early morning trip to the airport, then a pratfall at the TSA baggage check, followed by a walk from DFW gate C3 all the way to gate C38, to discover the gate had changed to A13! So I caught a tram to the DFW Skytrain terminal, schlepped my bags up a l-o-n-g escalator, caught a Skytrain past three stops, took another l-o-n-g escalator down and had the best surprise of the day. The Skytrain port is next door to gate A13!

I parked myself in the A13 lounge in the midst of a group of Eastern Europeans (Ukranians?) carrying on a loud conversation in their native tongue. They were nice, but vociferous. We boarded on time, pushed back 5 minutes late an hour later had reached the taxiway. It took another twenty minutes to reach the runway. With all that delay we landed five minutes late in Toronto. I shudder to think how much was spent on jet fuel before takeoff.

When we reached Toronto we walked from one end of that terminal to the extreme far end going through all of the customs hoops only to find the pre-arranged transportation was at the end of terminal where we debarked but down one floor. AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH! I hadn’t counted on walking to Toronto.

The car service from the airport was excellent and comfortable. I am struck by the changes since I was last here. Both sides of he road from the airport are lined with mid-rise apartment buildings that appear to be very nice, but all built using the same blueprints. Dissappointing in a city with a core of beautiful older buildings.

I am now ensconced on the eleventh floor of the Fairmont York Plaza in a room overlooking the Toronto railroad station where I will board The Canadian in the morning. Dinner at the 360 at the top of the CN tower (full TSA style security check fo entry). As you nan see from the images it was literally above the clouds. My knee objected strenuously to all the walking and in addition I was running out of breath ever fifty yards, so I grabbed a pedicab back to the hotel.

Tommorow: breakfast, lunch, and dinner on The Canadian. For some reason text messages aren’t working. I am trying to puzzle that out.