I was planning to write this last night, but by the time I finally found the B&B in Toronto, I was so shattered that I couldn't be bothered anymore. So, that's why I'm here, sitting in the lounge of my B&B at 7.20 in the morning.
So, back to yesterday. I've been looking forward to this trip for a few months now. It's my first proper holiday in many years and my first time on this side of the Atlantic. Normally when I go on a trip, I would start packing about 15 minutes before leaving. My reasoning is that everything I haven't packed within 15 minutes is either not necessary or something I could easily buy there. For this trip, I started packing 3 days in advance. That's how excited I was.
So, after having breakfast and a quick check to see if everything was switched off, I left for the bus to the station and from there to Schiphol Airport. Once arrived at the airport, I was told the flight was delayed by 2 hours, and as I arrived at the airport 3 hours before departure as recommended, I was in for a long wait. Finally, aroung 4.30 pm we were ready to board the plane. The flight was pretty uneventful. The most thrilling part was probably trying to eat dinner without spilling it all over the place. The seats were not exactly of the standard I expected for long haul flights. Trust me, you have wider seats and more legroom on Ryanair. Anyways, 8 hours later we arrived in Toronto. While waiting in line at immigration, I could see that the immigration officer in my line was a pleasant man. He was friendly, greeted everybody cheerfully, smiled a lot and had what seemed to be a nice chat with everybody. That was until it was my turn. His cheery smile disappeared and without saying a word, he grabbed my passport, looked intensely at my face and the photo and then started to interrogate me. Where do you come from? What are you here for? Where are you staying? With who are you staying? What is your friend doing for a job? What are you doing for a job? Does your boss know you're here? Are you going back? When? Finally he stamped my passport and said: "Have a good day, sir. Welcome to Canada". I was finally in. From there, it should be an hour before I got to the B&B. I just needed to take a bus into Toronto and another bus from there, followed by a short walk. Easy. Well, not really. First I had to find the bus station at the airport. There were signs pointing me to the buses, but at some point, those signs just disappeared. There were signs for everything else, but not for buses. When I finally found the bus, it got stuck in traffic. It was 9.30 pm on a Tuesday evening an it was as busy as full peak hour traffic in Europe. We literally moved a few feet per minute. When we finally got to the stop where I had to change, the problems weren't over yet. I was waiting there for the next bus to come, but it didn't. The annoying thing about Toronto bus stops is that none of them have a timetable or show which buses run there. What I also didn't know that when you're talking about something like Yonge and Sheppard, it's not just a bus stop but a junction and every bus stop near that junction is referred to that junction. So, while I was patiently waiting at Yonge and Sheppard for my ongoing bus, I was unaware that just around the corner there was another Yonge and Sheppard bus stop and that's the one I needed. When I finally got on that bus, I had good hopes I would be there soon. And I would have been if the driver didn't ignore my stop calls twice and finally stopped two stops after the one I needed. So now I had to trace back two stops, which wasn't that easy. It was dark and I didn't really pay attention in the bus. And I also get the impression that they don't believe in streetname signs here. But finally, at 11.15 pm (my flight landed at 7.00 pm) I finally arrived at my B&B.
