Time travelling to Toronto (two)

(all the T's in the world. post title dedicated to ABD who earlier made me form a sentence with all the words starting in M)

I got this alert from google mail about a suspicious sign-in attempt to my google account:

Someone recently tried to use an application to sign in to your Google Account, "insertheremyemail"@gmail.com". We prevented the sign-in attempt in case this was a hijacker trying to access your account. Please review the details of the sign-in attempt:

Thursday, June 14, 2012 7:06:47 AM GMT
IP Address: 173.243.46.194
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada 

Reminding me that yes, it's been two days and i am still jet lagged.

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Not everyone in our group made it to the domestic flight to Toronto. A couple from our group whom PAL failed to issue transfer pass (for the connecting flight) had to stay behind and wait for the next flight. The whole flying thing started to feel like Survivor. I wonder how many survivors we'd have by the 30th. 

This is how the rest of our side of the Vancouver airport runway looked at 6:30 pm. The in-flight temperature in PAL was freezing and I readily grabbed the time to sunbathe at the warm early evening sun (feels like 3pm on my skin) before the plane took off. 

That wing belongs to our plane and the tail with the maple leaf is by another plane. Then there's pine trees and way way way back there, where the horizon and the clouds are, is the ocean (or was it a lake).
It says June 14, 9:23 am -- i haven't yet figured out how to set the date. 

I don't know what this is but i think it would have looked great shot on film.

Then it's about 4.5 more hours to Toronto. Plane finally took off few minutes before 7pm and about 15 minutes into the flight i took this shot:

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There was an even more beautiful scene of snow-capped mountains before this but the seat-belt sign was still on and we were not yet allowed to use electronic devices. 

The plane for our domestic flight is just the same as the one we had for domestic flights in the Philippines. Cebu Pac's newer planes are even much cleaner compared to this but there's like free-flowing liquid stuffs though. We're not served free "lunch" anymore (technically it's dinner in Vancouver time) but the juices and the water were provided all through out the flight. The attendants seem to be going around every 15 minutes to ask who wants water or juice or anything to drink. sometimes they go around showing off the food for purchase menu. I was still too bloated to want something Canadian to eat and this time, I already begged of the tempting offer for apple juice. And because i didn't have any CAD with me. Poor that i was, i know that if i got separated from the group i'd starve to death. 

"Just water," I told the attendant with red hair. 

The amazing thing though, oneof our group members just right after when we the seat belt sign was turned off stood up to go through on of her bags in the overhead bin and produced her amazing packed meal of native chicken adobo and boiled rice. Did i already say she was amazing? There were just the two of us in our row and sharing her meal, i suddenly want to head home. I wasn't really prepared for this trip. I've been too busy with office for the last 2 months and was really unable to attend to the things domestic. 

The Indian lady who tried stealing my seat (mentioned in the previous post) was seated at the aisle seat of the row across us. Just as we were allowed to eat she started tearing her chapatti in little pieces and doused them in yellow-colored dahl (i think). She would stare at us--at me-- the rest of the time in the flight that she was awake. She's probably mistaking me for an Indian-indian. To her left was a black girl in long braided hair (like Bo Derek's) eating chinese take out dinner. 

Meanwhile, the attendants routinely checked on us, so tall and skinny in their dark blue, almost black, uniform and highlighted, very dry hair. One of them looked like the present-day Cyndi Lauper. I chatted with her on my way back from the toilet, waiting for the aisle to be passable from the trolley traffic. It was when i had the chance for a quick glance at the pantry area and although the ladies were super nice and attentive, their pantry was halfway to being a disaster. 

I slept some more on the plane. my knees were numb from hours of sitting and my butt feels like I've walked on them for days--hard and sore. 

I woke up 30 minutes to landing time. It was already dark. I can tell inhabited areas below by the clustered bright city lights disconnected from each other by the wide, dark and empty patches of uninhabited lands. We've past another time zone again. 

We were not provided free headset (it's 3 dollars a piece) so my group/seat mate watched Smurf in mute. Just before i dozed off I saw large expanse of brown, seemingly dry mountains and farm lands. They must be the desert/arid area of midwest. I didn't take any pictures of them. Maybe on our way back i could start rabidly taking pictures of everything. 

I've finally learned how to adjust the time settings of my borrowed camera.

We made it to Toronto about 1:30 in the morning. The airport was so huge and clean, because maybe it's 1am and most stores are already closed. At the carousel, waiting for our luggage, one of us tried to get a cart but it costs 2 dollars, 1 cart to use. Eh?

At the arrival, there was a large Indian guy from the limo service waiting for us. When we finally went out in the waiting area, we were met with the 15 degrees Toronto early morning summer chill. So I thought I'd really freeze to death by the time we get to Nova Scotia having been warned earlier by our project coordinator that it's much colder there, with temperatures going as low as 10 degrees. Shet. i'd really freeze to death here.

Then out came from the arrival area, a group of college kids, the girls in hot pants and flimsy tank tops, spaghetti strapped shirt. the boys were equally dressed for the beach. holy shit. they were fetched by a long limousine, driven by some white guy. We were fetched by a two 6-seater dodge SUVs, all driven by Indians. Or punjabs. or maybe sri lankas. you know the type. Our driver was probably sikh indian because he had an orange turban wrapped on his head.

Our hotel is located near the financial district of Toronto. Everything's a little expensive near the area but there are few stores that sell affordable meals, and it's also near a Tim Horton's. It's also about 4 blocks away from the CN Tower (which we visited yesterday but I won't be talking of here). We went out at 3 am to grab some coffee and late dinner to find out that everything's closed. Tim Horton's closes at 11 pm everyday. We ended up eating at a McDonald's branch staffed by a couple of Filipinos, one i mistook for Chinese until she greeted us with: "Ano po sa inyo?" and smiled warmly. whoa. We're really everywhere.

This part of McDonald's, since it's near the university belt, is frequented by drunk college kids in early mornings coming home from night of clubbing. So while lining up, a drunk college boy, thinking I was a teenybopper, greeted me and told me I was really very pretty. Creep. The girls were also dressed flimsily. Their tolerance for cold, it's amazing. Also in our line were two hobos, one with a guitar (or maybe he's a street singer) and the other with a wild spiky gray dreadlocks.

I tried bringing back to the hotel the water i got from the store (kasi sayang) because i wasn't so sure how tap would taste. I had to leave it by the newsstand though because it started getting so cold i had to hide my hands somewhere (and because i'm already shivering from the cold).

I was able to sleep at 430 am and will try to recover from jet lag for the next coming days. We were given three days to adjust. But mine might take longer.





FIN.