Nicole and Torsten flew to Canada on Friday 15th August. They were both very much looking forward to the vacation... and to having to drag the baggage (or not?)
They travelled with a Boeing 757-200 of Thomas Cook Airlines. The flight departed on time and was supposed to take about 7 hours... or at least that was the plan. For some time, the view out of the window was typical for England: all grey.
After they got over the Atlantic Ocean, they were finally able to see the sun - their first sun in three months or so. And also another airliner heading in the same direction - it looks like Air Canada Boeing 767-333/ER (C-FMWY) flying from Europe.
Unfortunately, the Toronto Pearson International Airport was very busy, so their flight had to hold for more than an hour before finally being able to land. Holding is a procedure where the airliner circles over a specific point near the airport and the only purpose of holding is to waste time until the airport is able to receive the airplane.
John and Dar were waiting for them on the airport. When Nicole and Torsten arrived, Nicole and Dar started with a hug - of course!
Nicole and Torsten both received a present. Nicole got a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Of course there was a bunny included, because the present was from Keeta, the Queen of the Bunny Feeders Support Group!
Torsten got a pink bunny. And a dagger; I assume the dagger will be used to defend the poor little bunny, because the world has a lot of dangers and a cute and innocent bunny would not be able to defend himself.
While John went to pay for parking at the airport, Torsten, Nicole, and Dar waited in the van. Nicole could not believe how huge the van was; although Dar tried to explain that it was only an average family van in Canada, Nicole kept commenting about how huge it was. And then she looked around the parking lot and realized that all the vehicles in Canada were so jijantic. Yes, jijantic and not gigantic; ask Nicole, she will happily explain the proper pronunciation! To tease John and Dar, she also started to call North America just America (to be fair to Nicole, a lot of Europeans do that, even though it's not correct). And to tease Nicole, John and Dar kept correcting her that they're not in America, but in Canada. And that's how the term American-sized was born. It means the same thing as jijantic!
After they left the airport, Dar reached for instructions about how to get to the bed and breakfast that Torsten and Nicole had booked. But the most important instruction page was missing; the heap of papers only included the route from the B&B to the airport, not the other way around. And following the journey backwards didn't work that well. Dar unfortunately missed one important turn, even though John asked whether or not she was sure about the way and she said yes, so the Seaton Street was evading for a long time. They must have been saying We need to turn right here, oh we can't. Ok, we will turn right here, oh we can't do it here either. Ah, we need to go through this street, ah, it's a one way street so we need to find a different one. Oh, this place looks familiar, weren't we on this same place a while ago?! Anyway, after one hour of circling later (positively thinking people call it a tour of Toronto), they finally reached the bed and breakfast.
It was already late, and when the six hour jet lag added to it, Torsten and Nicole settled to their room and went to sleep immediately. John and Dar drove back to Oshawa while they realized that most of the annoying signs prohibiting left or right turns had a small text below them: Mon-Fri 6am-6pm. I can understand why John's stress level always goes up when he has to drive in Toronto.
Saturday was a beautiful day. The sky was blue, so unlike in England; temperatures were above 25 degrees Centigrade, the weather was excellent for the whole holiday.
John and Dar spent a good part of Saturday buying a Tom-tom. Nicole and Torsten went for a walk through Toronto. They visited the city centre and the Lake Ontario shoreline.
There are a lot of parks, fountains, and flowers in Toronto.
And a lot of squirrels and raccoons live there! Nicole was feeding cookie crumbs to the squirrel on the following picture and then she was busy taking the picture while Torsten was trying to tell her an important thing. It went like this: Nicole, I think we should go now. Nicole, there is an invasion of pigeons incoming. I'm serious. Nicole, please hurry with that picture. There are now 50 pigeons getting close and more are coming. You know the movie The Birds. Well Nicole, we really should go now. Nicole finally started to listen to Torsten, so in the end none of them were eaten by the birds. And neither was the squirrel.
Copyright notice: Text, images, and videos copyright by Michal Řeháček, Nicole, Torsten, John Philip, Darlene Sine.