Flying to Toronto

So my journey into Canada was a bit of a weird one. It was only 1hr 45mins on the flight from NY but somehow, by the end of it, I was absolutely knackered.

The oddities started the night before. While trying to check in online, the AirCanada website was telling me that the airport I was flying out from (and had planned the route for) was now changed. Instead of JFK I was now flying out of LaGuardia! I remembered receiving an updated itinerary from AirCanada a while back but it had contained the same information as when I had first booked the flight and back then I had thought it was an erroneous email. I dug the email out and I was right, the original and updated itineraries were the same.

So I called AirCanada to confirm and I found that the updated email contained the wrong itinerary! When will people learn the importance of having a good QA! Tut. So anyways, after confirming the airport, I checked in online and received a confirmation text with the barcode. I checked the route to La Guardia and it was closer than JFK so the next afternoon I just got a taxi and reached the airport in under 15mins. The barcode in the text message wasn’t working and I found out that I wasn’t actually checked in. Weird, given that I had received the text as a confirmation. But no big deal, I checked in again.

The flight itself was smooth until my ears started hurting horribly due to the air pressure difference. There were times when I felt like my ear drums would surely split. I was also hoping that nobody would talk to me coz I could barely hear anything except my own breathing. The air stewardess then came around with drinks (thank god I could hear her), I got myself a coffee and just as I was about to start drinking we experienced some scary turbulence.  My coffee was splashing about in my cup and I was worried it will spill everywhere so I tried taking a quick sip in between the plane shuddering. Bad idea. Damn coffee went down the wrong pipe! For a few seconds there was a tug of war between my reflexes trying to spit the coffee out and me trying to gulp it down. Somehow (god knows how) I managed to gulp it down and I then starting coughing like a maniac! Finally, I stopped coughing and sometime during the fit the turbulence had stopped as well. I then drank my coffee (through the right pipe this time).

A while later I realized that I really needed to pee and just as I decided to get up it was announced that the flight was preparing to land and we should get back to our seats. Damn. So by the time I got off the flight my bladder was full to bursting and my ears were still blocked from the air pressure. It was quite a painful walk before I found a loo and then…relieeef!

I went through customs next and luckily there was no queue. But the 3 or 4 officers behind the counters were least interested and no body looked up when I reached the desks. I went to a random counter not knowing if I should wait to be called or not. After a few minutes of standing there the male officer looked up and put his hands out without saying a word. I gave him my passport and the landing card and he started looking behind my shoulder as if looking for something and then he asked me, with a quizzical frown, “where did you come from?”. I was so tired by this point that I didn’t quite grasp the question so I turned around, pointed to a door, and said “I came through that door there!”. While walking to collect my bag I was still thinking about the really odd question I was asked and then it hit me! HA!! I guess “New York” would have been the right answer! LOL. I could not believe my silliness and was surprised the officer didn’t say anything!

It was all smooth after that, my cousins came to pick me up and we drove home. In the back seat of the car, in between the small chat, I was opening and closing my jaw, trying to pretend yawn, or swallowing my own spit (yikes!) to get my ears to unblock. It didn’t work. Finally, after an amazing home cooked meal, while having my green tea, my ears suddenly cleared up. Phew.