Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Montreal Day One - A Very Long September the 9th

So it was an early start for me to get up and get ready in time for my 6am pickup by the airport transfer company. While I thought I would have plenty of time to get up, shower, breakfasted and dressed... it ended with me attempting to do my hair, put on my shoes and get out the door at the same time!!

Trip to the airport was relatively uneventful and we ended up at the airport with plenty of time to spare. In fact I think I was about 4th cab off the rank when the check in booths finally opened at 7:15ish. Bags checked in I spent the next 3 hours having a coffee, reading a book and doing a bit of window shopping.

Boarded the plane around about 9.20 – originally started out being in one of the side aisle seats next to a couple from new Zealand – however the flight was nowhere near booked out I got moved across to the middle to give everyone a lil bit more room for the 15 hour flight that lay ahead. There was actually another guy on the other side of the bank of seats, however he disappeared after to take off – never to return – and I therefore had the whole three seats to myself! Spent most of the flight watching TV/Movies – I saw Bones, CSI, House, Iron Man, Chronicles of Narina: Prince Caspian, and about 7/8th of Son of Rambow. I also attempted to sleep by lifting up all the arm rests - but I swear everything I tried we hit turbulence like 5 – 10 minutes later and that was the end of that... or they started to turn the lights on!! However, all in all it wasn’t as bad of a trip as I originally though!

Arrived to Vancouver at approx 7am on the 9th of September Vancouver time (~ 12am 10th of Sept in Sydney). For some reason I thought we had actually arrived at 8am... which had me very panicked as this was the boarding time for my next flight. After almost sprinting to the baggage carousel I realised what time it actually was a felt pretty stupid... I also felt like I desperately needed a shower! And in fact my first Canadian purchase was some moisturiser and deodorant!! Managed to get through customs and immigration with no problem before heading off to catch my domestic connection to Montreal.

Walked onto the plane to discover that someone else was sitting in my seat!! Turns out the man from 19A has sat in 20A, so the lady in 20A had sat in 20C... my seat – once worked out a quick exchange was made and there was nothing else to worry about.

The flight was pretty uneventful... spent most of it with my eyes closed... not sleeping (unfortunately) but just resting. Though we did have some great scenery – at one stage there was the carpet of clouds that seemed to stop at the snow capped mountain ranged. While another time we passed overhead miles and miles of flat/farmed land. I kinda wish know I took some photos but I was too tired to be bothered at the time.

We actually arrived into Montreal a lil earlier than expected – around about 4pm on the 9th local time (~6am on the 10th in Sydney). At Montreal airport I decided to save money by taking the L’AĆ©orbus shuttle, which unfortunately ended up dropping me off quite a distance from the hostel I am staying back... so I still ended up having to take a taxi to my hostel!! Though in saying that, it still cost me less than it would of it if I had just taken a taxi from the airport.

Had a few problems in the taxi as he seemed only to speak minimal English... or maybe it was just that I couldn’t hear him over the deafening African music he had blasting out of his stero... but it ended up okay as I got to where I was headed.

Exterior of the Hostel

Booked in around about 6pm absolutely bushed!! The hostel offers a bar tour on Tuesday nights however I decided to skip that for sleep instead. Went down to the bistro in the hostel and had some Quesadillas for dinner – they were pretty good actually (esp. for the price) and came with bean and normal salad. After that retired to my room and tried to stay awake for a few more hours... got till about 9pm (11am on 10th Sydney time) and then caved in and went to sleep!!

Views of my room

1 comment:

HH said...

You are a good blogger, I am a bad one, and you are always so much more interesting. I have one trump card in my most recent post however....Pleased to hear you got to Montreal safely!