Tuesday was the travel day. Michal was flying back to the Czech Republic and Nicole and Torsten traveled back to Niagara Falls for two more days.
Before traveling, we had to wake up of course. This is usually a straightforward procedure when you open your eyes, get up, and so on. Sometimes, however, the process of waking up is a result of a scientific approach of a group of people. This was the case for Michal on Tuesday as well.
Nicole already tried to wake Michal up a year ago on the holiday in the United Kingdom, but she failed because Michal was already awake. Nicole has been patiently waiting for an opportunity to try again - and she finally had a chance. She found an ally too, Dar, and they both decided to use pillows as the ultimate waking tool. The weapons were chosen because Nicole has a habit of hitting guild leaders with a pillow; she did that to Craig (Grimmish) on the holiday in the United Kingdom in 2007, and she was ready to do it again to Michal (Aeia). When Nicole and Dar started to talk about waking Michal, Nicole started to bounce like a bunny - she was looking forward to doing it that much! But I won't bother you with words any longer; you can check John's video yourself! Pay special attention to how much Nicole and Dar were smiling before opening the door.
They got me! Totally! I was only half asleep when Nicole and Dar came though; I didn't want to wake up, because Nicole has been talking about waking me up since the day we moved to Oshawa, and she also told me that she would have done it the first day had she known that I was sleeping in my sleeping suit and not naked. So I assured her that I was sleeping in clothes and every morning I was waiting a while before getting up, because I had to give them a chance. Nicole and Dar were sooo happy when they woke me!
After eating breakfast, Dar, John, Cassandra, Michal, Nicole, and Torsten all drove to Toronto to the Greyhound coach depot, where Nicole and Torsten waited for their coach to Niagara Falls; we will get back to them in the next chapter. Then the rest of us continued to the Toronto Pearson International Airport. I checked in (under the supervision of Queen Keeta), I even got a window seat - although it required a cooperation of two check-in agents to assign the seat to me.
After check-in, we all walked through the public area of the airport for a while - and then it was time for good-byes and for a last group photo.
I then proceeded to the private area of the airport where I waited for my flight. I also visited the toilette, but unfortunately there was a problem with the automatic flush system. Not that it didn't work... it did work and it did work even more that it was supposed to. The toilette flushed when I was still sitting on it - so I got wet again for the eighth and final time in Canada. Splish splash! I sent information about number eight to Dar in a text message; she must have been laughing hard for a long time!
I only took one picture on the airport before boarding. Boeing 777-240/LR of Pakistan International Airlines. I was able to take a second photo of the same aircraft when I boarded my airplane.
Unfortunately, some of the passengers of my flight were not able to follow the requests of the cabin crew and the flight crew. For safety reasons, passengers are always asked to turn off most electronic devices, especially cell phones, for takeoff and landing and some of them for the whole duration of the flight. Sitting behind me was a woman with a small child who seemed to have thought that rules do not apply to her, so she was happily using her cell phone when we were taxiing to the runway and holding short of it. I didn't know about it until she started to switch it off; I was not looking behind me, I only heard her faint voice during the taxiing. I didn't suspect anything until we were holding short of the runway when she said something like Hey honey, go check the closet in the kitchen, the item must be in there - which is a very unusual sentence to say in an airplane. It took me some seconds to realize what she was doing, then I finally turned back on her - and she was already turning the phone off while trying to hide it. She saw me and she got the message, but I later regretted I hadn't noticed her sooner, because I would have been very happy to explain to her what the radio waves generated by a cell phone can do to the receivers and signals emitted from the transmitters near the runway and to the avionics onboard a plane. Although cell phones can't crash a plane on their own, they can make the job for pilots more difficult, because they can theoretically interfere with navigation signals and avionics. Not to mention it's against the law to use a cell phone on a plane. The captain also has the authority to remove passengers using cell phones (or otherwise not following instructions of the crew) from the flight, which I would have been very happy to tell the woman as well. I really don't understand why some people must be so ignorant...
The airplane that took me home was Airbus A310-325/ET (OK-YAC). After taking off, we followed the north shore of Lake Ontario and then we headed east-north-east. We definitely passed over Oshawa, though I was not able to recognize it. This is how Canada looks from flight level 370 (37000 feet above mean sea level).
We then passed south of Ottawa, flew over Montreal, entered New Brunswick and left the Canadian territory above Newfoundland. It started to be cloudy below us, so we could no longer see the ground; all we saw was clouds - spectacular clouds!
When we were close to the east coast of Canada, we were passing through moderate turbulence. Clear air turbulence is erratic movement of air masses; it's caused when bodies of air moving at significantly different speeds meet. Contrary to popular belief, turbulence does not cause airliners to drop hundreds of meters; airliners are designed to fly well even in turbulence. However, as an airliner rapidly crosses the boundaries of air bodies moving vertically at different speeds, it experiences sudden and unexpected accelerations. Passengers or crew who are not strapped in their seat might fall and strain an ankle or even break an arm or leg. Thus, the captain turned on the seatbelts sign and the cabin crew asked everyone to return to their seats and fasten their seatbelts. However, quite a few people ignored these requests, and the cabin crew almost begged them to go back to their seats - until the flight attendants gave up, because there was nothing more they could do anyway. They even explained that it's for the people's safety, but it didn't help; some ignorant people just had to stand in the turbulence. Oh well...
We crossed the Atlantic Ocean via the 56th parallel. Shortly before sunset, when we were cruising south of Greenland, we entered a layer of clouds. Though the clouds were not very thick, it blocked the view of the sun, so I was thinking that I would not see the sunset. Fortunately we didn't stay in the cloud for long.
Sunset seen from an airliner is spectacular. The following photos will give you an idea, but because there was not much light, because they were taken through thick glass, and because my camera isn't the best piece of equipment in the world, the photos don't look as good as the sunset looked. The real version was much more beautiful than the pictures are. Nature indeed is beautiful.
When the sun disappeared below the horizon, there was still some light for about half an hour. Then it got completely dark. Like totally dark. No, even darker. Like TOTALLY dark, because there was no light coming from the cities and lamps on earth's surface. That's probably what darkness looks like, but I'm not sure, because it was too dark to see the darkness in there. The only things we were able to see outside the airplane were the flashing strobe light and the moon.
We continued the cruise south of Greenland and south of Iceland, over Belfast, Manchester, Amsterdam, over Münster, to the Czech Republic. Breakfast was served about two hours before scheduled arrival time.
We landed in Prague on the Ruzyně International Airport at 06:10am. I took the last picture of the airplane and continued home.
I got home at about 7:30am and went to bed shortly before noon. At 3pm, the boss of the company I used to work for - Mindware - called me (and woke me up), asking whether or not I would not want to leave my current job and start working for Mindware again. At first, I was very unhappy that someone called me at 9am Canadian time, but in retrospect I must say that I am very grateful that he did. Thanks to him, I was able to sleep during the next night and the jetlag didn't get to me in full force. Well not until the weekend anyway. I was able to sleep during the nights until Friday and I was able to be awake during the day until Friday, but the weekend was bad. No matter what I did, my body wanted to sleep according to Canadian schedule, which didn't work very well considering the fact that I was already in Europe, six hours ahead of Canada. But my body clock adjusted back after a few more days. However, when I plan my next Canadian/American holiday, I will have to account for the jetlag recovery after the return flight; I will have to include a few more days to recover. Going back to work the day after landing was not the best idea that I ever had, I have to admit that.
Thanks everyone - and especially Dar and John - for my best holiday so far!
Copyright notice: Text, images, and videos copyright by Michal Řeháček, Nicole, Torsten, John Philip, Darlene Sine.