A long weekend. What to do????

As those who have read any of this blog or if you are a relation or if you know Julie and Bruce Frost at all you will realise that a quiet lazy weekend just doesn't happen. And a LONG WEEKEND means that the thought of relaxation goes straight out the window.

Now this long weekend was called the "Family Day" weekend and to acknowledge Family Day we decided that there was nowhere better to go than Nova Scotia which according to Google Maps is 27,308km from Narooma (normally home). So it wasn't really Family Day trip but it was a trip to see friends and also an opportunity to see a bit more of Nova Scotia and Halifax in particular.

So how do we get there, well not by train or or by car so that meant a drive to Toronto and a flight. We managed to negotiate Toronto's afternoon traffic bedlam without tooo much difficulty. This time we didn't have an obvious place to park the CuRVy so we took some advice from friendly natives and chose the Park'n'Fly budget option. 

Hmmmmmm you park your car and wait for a minibus and it's -10C and snowing.... I wasn't fancying using the famous Oates quotation while we waited but, luckily, the wait wasn't too long. The driver got us to Lester Pearson with plenty of time to spare. Baggage was booked in and we were left with an hour before our flight to find something to eat. There were all the regular airport meal options but we did find a noodle place where the food was cooked for us while we waited, and we weren't thirsty enough to pay the ransom that was required for a glass of wine so we settled on water. All good.

On our way to the final check in gate the PA asked for a Bruce Frost to come to the gate. What had I done?? Was I going to be deported??? Had the fact that I am an Oiler fan amongst a sea of Maple Leafs been discovered???? Or was the one of the Magpie Army working for Air Canada?????

No it was simple they had realised that I had not checked in correctly and had to have a different seat allocated. I'm not reallly good at the self check in thingo, and well to be honest, I'm not all that great with a lot of technology. It turned out that I'd be sitting right behind Julie so that wasn't too bad I could have been on a separate flight. And with a bit of juggling we were able to end up sitting together. Nice people these Canadians!

I don't know about the people reading this blog but when the First Officer (Pilot I guess), after welcoming us and giving the details of the flight, goes on to say that we are expecting some turbulence I, for one, am not overjoyed. My hope was that he was exaggerating. Unfortunately he wasn't! The girl we were sitting next to worked for the Canadian Air Force and she was even jumpier than me so my confidence wasn't great!!

Watching the flight didn't make it any shorter but it was giving encouragement that were making ground. I realised that the Scotties Tournament of Hearts was on one of the television stations so to put it a nutshell that took my mind off the flight and made the trip fly by, lol!!

Our First Officer managed to get the plane on the ground with a minimum of fuss and only a few bounces and let us know that the temperature was 0C and there was a light fog. Oh well it was good to be there.

Next stop the desk of the rental car company which we made just in time, as they were just about to close. The first comment was that they were unable to provide the car we expected and we had been upgraded. But I don't think we had ever got the car we expected when had rented in the past and in the end it didn't really matter as long as it would get us to the Days Inn (hotel) where we were staying, and an upgrade sounded good.

Well she wasn't joking about the upgrade. We were going to be driving a Chrysler 200 that had only done 1000km. Very nice, but the first problem was that although we managed to get into the car we had no idea of how to start it, or how to turn the lights on, or how to get the park brake off or how to get Mrs Garmin to realise that we had left Ontario.

OK so we overcome in turn, the non starting car, and the park brake, and the lights (they were automatic) and when we made it out of the underground car park there was massive RECALCULATING and finally we were underway. Unfortunately the "light' fog was as thick as the morning fog along the Eurobodalla Road on a winter morning "bee move". We had no choice but to continue to listen to Mrs Garmin and hope that she wasn't still working off the Toronto satellite and that the message was making it through the fog.

The driver did an unbelievable job given the circumstances and at 2am we finally walked through the darkened entrance of Days Inn. When we walked in we found that the reason for the darkness wasn't because they hadn't paid their bill but because there was a blackout which was not only affecting our Hotel but a wide area around it.

Bed was certainly welcome that night, even though it was found by the light of a torch.

Tomorrow we might actually see some of Halifax and Nova Scotia!!!!!