Canada Trip

I just recently enjoyed a nice, long overdue trip to Canada.  I had not been over since Jan 2009 or so and I was ready to enjoy all that the great white north had to offer.  A nice topic to begin this revitalization of my blogging effort is to share the trip experience. 

As usual, my trip began by making my way to Stuttgart airport.  Claudia and the kids had already left for their own little adventure, so it was the glorious bahn that took me there.  In  all truth, I don’t mind riding on the train at all.  German trains are clean, on time and get you where you need to go with the efficiency that one would expect.  From my house, I have to walk about 10 min to the local station, then take three different trains to the airport.  All in all it takes a little over an hour if your connections are well timed. Everything was smooth and good and I found myself in the departure area of Flughafen Stuttgart.

No matter how often I go there, I still enjoy the architecture of the airport.  The roof supports made to look like trees is just something that never gets old.

As I mentioned, it has been quite a few years since I was on a plane, and I noticed that the check in process is quite different now.  I flew with KLM (on an Air France flight) and at the check in area, it is all self service now.  I had to take this image from the Air France website since I forgot to take a picture when I was there;

They have successfully further removed the human element from air travel .  I just had to approach the machine, press a few buttons and let the machine scan my passport and it would poop out my boarding pass.  Then I took my bag up to the remaining human employee and dropped off my suitcase.

So having arrived at the airport a couple hours before my flight, as my many many emails advised, I killed off the next hours reading until boarding time.  I got on the plane without issue and was off on the first leg of my trip, Stuttgart-Paris. 

 

I changed planes at Paris CDG airport.  The last time I was there I thought it was grey, grubby and under a lot of construction.   I have to say, the construction was worth it.  I thought the terminal was pretty nice looking and I did not mind wandering around while I waited for the connection.  Like most things in the western world, the entire place is permeated with stores and various other stalls trying to sell you things while you wait.  I would not be surprised if all airlines had side deals with airports ensuring a minimum time for flight connections to ensure every traveller had enough exposure to fabulous retail offers.  I did manage to resist temptation though, all I purchased was a delicious Orangina.

The flight was long but smooth and uneventful.  Surprisingly, the food was really excellent.  I have since described it to people as being food that I would not send back if it showed up in a restaurant, which is about the highest praise an airline should ever expect for their meal service in economy. 

I brought along my own inflight entertainment, I had the entire series two of the fantastic BBC One show Sherlock.  I was a big fan of the first series and I had been saving the second one for the trip.  If you think watching 270 minutes of Sherlock in a row may be too much, you would be wrong.  I am already looking forward to a third series.  Without any spoilers, there is of course a twist at the end of the final episode that I think most people have not yet figured out (me included.)  The creators of the show have said that the show contains a clue to the answer that everyone seems to have missed.  I think I’m a pretty clever guy and I’ve gone back to look for this clue and found nothing.  I hope the explanation is satisfying.

Anyway, after all that travel, Shona picked my up at the airport and we drove up the road to glorious Bradford, where I would spend the next couple of weeks.

The next (many) posts are not going to follow any narrative of chronology, I am just planning to post things that I feel like as time and motivation allow.  I am sure there will be some interesting stuff for the lover of southern Ontario though.

Cheers.