We arrived home safely in the wee early hours of Friday morning after a very, very long day of travel on Thursday from Albi, France to Tillsonburg, Ontario.
From our wakeup time at 7:00AM (France) (1:00AM in Canada) to our final arrival home at 7:45AM (France) 1:45AM Canada Friday morning, so over 24 hours from start to finish.
We travelled by our rental car, a very fuel efficient Citroën 3 from Albi to Toulouse-Blagnac airport ... even with a small "bouchon" (traffic jam) on the motorway we arrived with plenty of time to fill up the gas tank, return the car and easily check in, and then pass thru security with no issues.
I love these smaller airports!
Now let's relax for awhile or as Monsieur would say ... "Let the waiting begin".
Ah, one last "Petit dejeuner" ... Jus d' orange, cafés, a croissant for Monsieur Honey and I finally had a "pain au raisin" ... delicious!
Everything went smoothly for our first flight from Toulouse to Montreal arriving early at 2:45PM and we expected to have a lot of free time at the airport until our connecting flight at 6:25PM ... but that was just wishful thinking on my part. By the time we walked for miles through the airport, first Customs, then to retrieve our luggage only to drop it off at our next flight's baggage drop off, and once again through security ... this time the "cattle lines" we're winding around ten times with 1000's of people all trying to get to their boarding gates. Finally thru and cleared ... we only had an half hour to spare before our boarding call.
It was now our normal apero hour ... one last toast to "La Belle France", no more "Rosé". a delcious "verre de vin blanc s'il vous plaît"!
Boarded on time, pulled out of the gate ... Then the Captain announces that Toronto Airport is closed, he called it a "Ground Stop" and any planes that hadn't taken off were not cleared and had to stay put until further notice. No immediate details why the airport was closed, just that it would probably be an hour before we could take off.
Finally, we were cleared for takeoff ... delay due a bird strike, and closure required to clear the debris from the runway.
Takeoff ... 57 minutes flying time to Toronto, then a few circles before landing.
We will catch up on our sleep, get settled back into our home life and things should be just like it was before our travels within a few days.
I have many photos and postcards to post yet ... stay tuned for the rest of this year's "French" adventure.
