Great flight from Melbourne to LAX. I always dread the trip through LA airport, but oh my goodness, it is now so civilised. No queues at all. Straight to a very organised set of booths, where you enter the U.S. in self directed mode. A machine where you finger print yourself, smile at the camera and print out your ticket of entry, complete with photo. The fact that you look like a bedraggled, chain smoker, with terrible bags under your eyes doesn’t seem to worry the U.S. border control. A few steps to the smiling man who takes your ticket and wishes you a fine stay in the U.S. of A. It makes one wonder whether they have sacked all of the usual grumpy border control people to improve tourist spending. Of course, as we arrive, Obama is smiling at us from the wall, as we walk beneath the star spangled banner, with the same warm welcome underneath.
The trip across the U.S. on the ‘flying bus’ was bearable, I guess. I really hate the last bit. You have just staggered off an international flight and then you have the lovely AA flight that just goes on forever. Packed in like sardines, with the feeling of being on a rather tired bus.
Our arrival into Toronto was easy. A welcome to Canada this time, and a shortish cab ride to Simcoe Street, right in the center of the city. Virginia’s choice of the Toronto Furnished Apartments was fabulous. A great two-bedroom apartment, two bathrooms, laundry, full kitchen and outside balcony.
We needed to work all weekend so took our weekend on Thursday and Friday. After the usual first night, ‘I am in a different country’ terrible sleep we headed towards Toronto Zoo in search of mother and father pandas and panda twins. The ride on the train and bus went on forever, and we really thought we would end up back in LA, it took so damn long, but finally arrived and the bears were totally gorgeous.
We arrived back into Toronto and it was not bears but bluejays causing total pandemonium. Seems like it was the first Canadian baseball team to be in the finals since goodness knows when. We wandered in a jet lagged haze as exceptionally excited Canadians high fived us on every street corner, and the noise from packed bars told us every time a home run was scored. We didn’t understand one thing that was happening but the people watching was highly entertaining.
Sleeping under the stars 