Tuomo writes: So I’ve been back to Canada for almost two weeks now. The weather has sucked ever since though it’s supposed to be super nice this coming weekend (long one too – Victoria Day - woohoo) with temperatures in the low 20s C (low 70s). On the day I left Helsinki (May 2), it was quite warm and dry in Helsinki – 18C (65F) – whereas in Vancouver it has been rainy and only 12C (54F), so go figure… As always when traveling westwards, jetlag was easy to overcome so that by the fifth night Dave was in bed before me!
Packing my things was a bit of a challenge because not only was I bringing back some of mom’s birthday presents with me (the clothes were too small) and other purchases (books and CDs) but also a boatload of stuff that mom had decided that it was time for me to take with me. I was sure I would be penalized at the airport for excess luggage; it turned out that I had only 33 kg (72 lbs), or one kilo (2 lbs) too much. I had to stuff that excess kilo in my carry-on there-and-then, which was also certainly over limits! I wanted to pay a penalty, but the friendly check-in person told that if my luggage weighs too much, the loaders may decide not to move it at all, so carrying that extra kilo on my back wasn’t that much of a hassle, I guess! As a result, my Roots backpack resembled more a pregnant squirrel (!) than a backpack.
Keep in mind that it was warm on that day, and Finns don’t believe in A/C, at least not that early in May! On top of that, I was wearing my leather jacket because who knows how much my luggage would have weighed if I had packed it in my it. A week earlier the jacket had been appropriate, but now with the weather being warmer, it was too much. Needless to say, I was sweating bullets, so so much for traveling looking fresh and fabulous. Fortunately, while I had to lug my Pregnant Squirrel around for the rest of the day, I wouldn’t have to deal with my luggage until YVR…
While I was waiting for my flight to London-Heathrow (LHR) to board, I talked to Tytti for the last time. On my way to the airport, she had texted me telling that she had purchased her plane ticket to come see us in Canada for two weeks in June. This was great news because her stay would overlap with Pexu’s and Timo’s stay in early July – yayyy! Poor Langley has no idea…! She sounded very excited about her trip to Känädä, especially when her itinerary will pretty much trace mine, except that she’ll have more than two hours to transfer terminals at LHR. Smart move if I may say so!
My flight to LHR was on flight BA 6079, operated by a Finnair (AY839 ) Airbus A320 (OH-LXG; picture not mine). I have to say I love flying on Airbus 320s because not only are they an inch or two wider than 737s, giving them an air of more space, but Finnair also keeps the display screens down while taxing so that you can have a view forward. We pulled back exactly on scheduled time of departure 2:05 PM, and approximately ten minutes later we were taking off towards the northeast over Tuusula, “The Langley of Helsinki.” After a sharp veer to the left, we headed towards the west, flying north of Hanko, Stockholm, and Ålborg towards the North Sea. Lunch was served practically within the first 30 minutes of flight. This time I have to say I was more pleased with the meal, spinach and ricotta lasagna, probably because it was still fresh and had not been heated for too long unlike on my way to HEL. I purchased two Finnair Embraer 170 models, one for Tuukka and one for myself, and I would have bought a Moomin umbrella too if they hadn’t run out of them. Boo, hiss…
Having a window seat has its disadvantages, like when you gotta go, you have to bother your fellow passengers. On this flight I was lucky because I had seat 10A and no one occupying the B and C seats. Queen of Sheeba, as the Champagne Lady battle cry goes! At any rate, over the North Sea, I noticed a plane approaching ours, and for the first time ever (I think) I was able to identify not only the model (Boeing 767) but also to which airline it belonged to (American Airlines). It passed us above and behind us, so it must have just taken off from Amsterdam because it was picking up altitude and coming from the south or southwest. Pretty cool and creepy at the same time – thank goodness Dave wasn’t there :-)
On approach to LHR, since we were a bit ahead of our schedule, we had to circle once (?) somewhere over northeast London. After that, the Captain turned off the IFE making it impossible to determine whether we were circling or just flying around the heavily congested airspace around and over London. Besides, flying in the clouds made it impossible to determine visually based on the sun what we were doing. At any rate, we approached LHR from the east approximately 10 minutes ahead of schedule. Considering that I had exactly two hours to make the up-and-down transition from Terminal One to terminal Five, I thought this was a good omen. However, the gate where we were supposed to park was occupied so we ended waiting for more than 15 minutes on the tarmac. Fortunately the Captain had left the IFE display screens down so that I had the pleasure of observing taxiing aircrafts from multiple vantage points. Gotta love LHR for that!
Once we were parked, it was a mad rush for everyone off the place; imagine the Pamplona run of the bulls but in the aisle of an A320! First it was an endless hike along the winding corridors of Terminal One. Remember that I was wearing my leather jacket AND carrying a Pregnant Squirrel on my back. Oh and a bag of goodies that I had bought in Helsinki tax free and on Finnair… All of this made the trek to the Terminal Five shuttle bus comparable to the Bataan Death March. To add insult to injury, there were no windows to catch a glimpse or two of airplanes. Fortunately once on the shuttle bus, which didn’t leave immediately but almost ten minutes later, I was able to rearrange my belongings, and dab a drop of sweat or two off my brow – a traveler comme moi does have to keep up that air of fresh and fabulous at all times!
At Terminal Five, it was up a flight of escalators (or was it two, I can’t recall) and another trek along an endless corridor until I got to a place that seemed to function like a place of triage (“You? Bangkok.. over there. You? Rio… This way please. You? Nairobi… Turn around and go to another terminal.”). A valuable word of advice for anyone traveling through LHR (wink wink, nudge nudge): keep your passport and boarding pass at hand AT ALL TIMES. At my “triage” path I had to show not only my travel documents but also ask questions about my address and my immigrant status in Canada (!?). However, unlike when entering the States by air, the lady who punched in my info in the computer was all smiles and friendly, and actually responded to my knee-jerk “Have a nice day”! I almost wish she really was as delighted by this standard North American form of bidding farewell asI thought she was… :-)
Up another flight of escalators, and I found myself at a place that I have to admit was the worst episode at LHR: the security check line. The line seemed endless, but in the end went surprisingly smoothly. Once again, I did not have to take out my laptop, but I did have to take off my shoes and belt – and still something beeped! It must have been my wrist band that normally doesn’t set off any alarms. And guess what – I was sweating bullets again!
Let me tell you something. Terminal Five is not just huge – it is huh-YOUGE! After the security check point and rearranging my belongings, I got the first true look at the new and infamous terminal. From where I stood, I could see shops till the horizon – and this was just the uppr level. Downstairs was the waiting area for flights leaving from Terminal 5A and even more shopping. It was like a hair under an hour to the scheduled departure time for my flight to YVR, so the departure gate hadn’t been posted on the monitors yet, similar to what they had done at Terminal One on my way to HEL.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have the luxury to peruse the numerous stores because moments later the departure gate in terminal 5C was announced. This meant that I had to go down a flight of escalators and get on a shuttle train. I still find this part a little confusing because I am still under the impression that the trains run to virtually anywhere and that if you don’t pay attention, you’ll end up in Sussex or something and consequently miss your flight. Somehow I made it to the right platform (and not for high tea in Sussex) meaning that I had to go up another flight of escalators. (Hmmm… I feel a song coming up) to the main level where all departure gates are.
I love British Airways (BA), and I know that LHR, which BA has virtually no control over, is run by BAA. I had asked the check-in lady in HEL if it were possible to be upgraded to Economy Plus, but she told me that I’d have to do that in LHR. Since there were still a good 20 minutes till boarding, I went to the BA service desk to see if I could still be upgraded. This is the conversation that followed with the BA (or possibly BAA) agent (more or less verbatim):
ME: Hi, I’m on the flight to Vancouver, and I…
STAFF: Yes, your flight is Gate **, but they haven’t started boarding yet.
ME: Ah yes, I’m aware of this. What I wanted to know is if it were still possible to be upgraded.
STAFF: Oh I’m terribly sorry, sir, but we don’t deal with money or booking issues. You’ll have to go back to the main terminal to that, but I'm afraid you won't have time for that [turns on her lip gloss at full glare].
Now that was helpful, wasn't it?! I don’t know what to think of this episode other than what a dimwitted twat she came across as, I mean in the way she approached my inquiry. So not only no upgrade, but I was also made to feel stupid for not having realized that of course to get an upgrade I should have acted earlier in the main terminal …
So now we’re a full 747-400 worth of passengers waiting to board a 9 hour plus flight in what I think was a ridiculously small area. The best part was that I knew that we’d have to go down one more flight of escalators (what’s up with this?!) because we were too high in the terminal just to sashay onboard our aircraft (G-BNLL; picture not mine). And sure enough, though the boarding began from the back of the aircraft, the way the gates were organized and how the passengers were lined up, it was not a very speedy process. Fortunately I had been assigned a window seat (37K in front of a bulkhead) next to a lovely couple, who had just flown in from Barcelona and their two week Mediterranean cruise. Scheduled departure time at 5:10PM came and went, and there were still passengers boarding. All things considered, we pulled back 35 minutes behind schedule, which also meant that we had to wait some extra time to actually get the permission to pull back and start taxiing towards the runway; interestingly we passed by OH-LXG that had not left LHR yet, so I got one last glimpse at the aircraft that had brought me so far. In the end, we took off 55 minutes behind schedule towards the west.
Our nine hour flight began quite low first to the west, the sharply turned towards the northeast (I guess to avoid the airspace above Luton), and before picking up altitude and heading then to the northwest over western parts of Scotland and Vattnajökull in Iceland (unfortunately covered by a thick layer of clouds) off to central Greenland and easternmost parts of Canada over Baffin Island. It probably says something about the size of Canada when it took a bit over half of the nine hour flight to reach Canada’s shorline and then the rest of the flight was over… Canada! Despite the clouds over Iceland and parts of Greenland, the weather conditions during most of the remaining flight time were excellent so that I could see some dramatic geographic landscapes over Western Greenland and real icebergs – not just ice floats but icebergs! – floating in the Davis Strait. Lemme tell ya: there ain’t nothing up in the northernmost parts of Canada – just flat and covered in snow! It wasn’t until we had reached northern Alberta or thereabouts that the landscape started changing. We finally reached the Rockies, and I think this was the best view I’ve ever had of this majestic mountain range. Sometimes I wonder if I would have been happy as a geologist… Too bad by the time we started our descent that clouds appeared and covered pretty much rest of the flight over the Lower Mainland all the way to YVR.
Despite my disappointment thanks to the dimwitted agent in Terminal 5C, I still have to say I lurve British Airways very much. After a round of drinks (gin and tonic pour moi thankyouverymuch!) and a bag of pretzels, served Economy Class promptly, we were served dinner, which for me was pesto chicken; this time none of it dripped on my shirt. A bit over an hour before arrival, we were served a snack. This consisted of delicious triangle sandwiches and a stick of juicy pineapple - but much to my disappointment: NO CLOTTED CREAM. Clotted cream, served on my previous flights to the US with the pre-arrival snack, had been one of the selling points for me when I booked my flight to Finland. So what am I going to do now if I can’t rely on BA to get my does of clotted cream every once in a while?!? I’m forced to wonder what Virgin Airways or BMI serve on their flights, if they do serve clotted cream, and most importantly when will they start serving YVR? Only kidding: my love for British Airways (except for their ground agents perhaps) remains as strong as ever… :-)
I have to admit that with a thought given to healthy meals by airlines, I find it strange that this time and age both Finnair and British Airways did not offer an artificial sweetener in addition to sugar with any of their meals; fortunately I was prepared and had brought my own stash of Splenda. Another thing that I thought was seriously strange was the fact that immigration forms were not distributed until after the snack. My experience on previous crossings of the Atlantic has been that these forms have been distributed quite early in the flight and oftentimes even before the first meal. I guess the fact that Canadian customs and immigration forms are nowhere as intimating and nerve-wrecking (let alone the actual process at the airport) as the corresponding US forms might have something to do with this…
We broke through the clouds over Surrey, so that I was actually able to identify Dave’s work place and the huge flag pole near I, meaning that we were approaching YVR from the eastt. Thanks to the heavy clouds, I couldn’t see any of the Rockies that rise to the north of Vancouver, but I got to see Route One (Trans-Canada Highway) from the air. After some 10 minutes it was touchdown time, and a couple of minutes later we were docked and ready to get up and stretch our stiff legs. Ironically, I saw that there was an Air New Zealand 767 at YVR; now Auckland would be a killer destination – in more ways than one!
Immigration was a breeze despite the long lines. After a short wait at the luggage carrousel, I was able to pick up my prized luggage, and I passed customs without a hitch. All this within an hour after touchdown! I was expecting just Tuukka to be there to pick me up, but Mika was there too – and so was Dave!!! By this time, I had been up for over 22 hours, but I was still going strong – until we got in the car… that’s when the ocular screen savers began to feel heavy. Although I had initially expressed a desire to grab something to eat before hitting the hay, but by the time we got to Langley and I had done some unpacking, I was way too tired to do anything else than getting some shut-eye (none of that for me during the flight – I was too busy cross stitching!) and in a horizontal position around 9PM, 24 hours after I had woken up in Helsinki. Curled up to Dave...
Ahh home sweet home indeed :-)
Packing my things was a bit of a challenge because not only was I bringing back some of mom’s birthday presents with me (the clothes were too small) and other purchases (books and CDs) but also a boatload of stuff that mom had decided that it was time for me to take with me. I was sure I would be penalized at the airport for excess luggage; it turned out that I had only 33 kg (72 lbs), or one kilo (2 lbs) too much. I had to stuff that excess kilo in my carry-on there-and-then, which was also certainly over limits! I wanted to pay a penalty, but the friendly check-in person told that if my luggage weighs too much, the loaders may decide not to move it at all, so carrying that extra kilo on my back wasn’t that much of a hassle, I guess! As a result, my Roots backpack resembled more a pregnant squirrel (!) than a backpack.
Keep in mind that it was warm on that day, and Finns don’t believe in A/C, at least not that early in May! On top of that, I was wearing my leather jacket because who knows how much my luggage would have weighed if I had packed it in my it. A week earlier the jacket had been appropriate, but now with the weather being warmer, it was too much. Needless to say, I was sweating bullets, so so much for traveling looking fresh and fabulous. Fortunately, while I had to lug my Pregnant Squirrel around for the rest of the day, I wouldn’t have to deal with my luggage until YVR…
While I was waiting for my flight to London-Heathrow (LHR) to board, I talked to Tytti for the last time. On my way to the airport, she had texted me telling that she had purchased her plane ticket to come see us in Canada for two weeks in June. This was great news because her stay would overlap with Pexu’s and Timo’s stay in early July – yayyy! Poor Langley has no idea…! She sounded very excited about her trip to Känädä, especially when her itinerary will pretty much trace mine, except that she’ll have more than two hours to transfer terminals at LHR. Smart move if I may say so!
My flight to LHR was on flight BA 6079, operated by a Finnair (AY839 ) Airbus A320 (OH-LXG; picture not mine). I have to say I love flying on Airbus 320s because not only are they an inch or two wider than 737s, giving them an air of more space, but Finnair also keeps the display screens down while taxing so that you can have a view forward. We pulled back exactly on scheduled time of departure 2:05 PM, and approximately ten minutes later we were taking off towards the northeast over Tuusula, “The Langley of Helsinki.” After a sharp veer to the left, we headed towards the west, flying north of Hanko, Stockholm, and Ålborg towards the North Sea. Lunch was served practically within the first 30 minutes of flight. This time I have to say I was more pleased with the meal, spinach and ricotta lasagna, probably because it was still fresh and had not been heated for too long unlike on my way to HEL. I purchased two Finnair Embraer 170 models, one for Tuukka and one for myself, and I would have bought a Moomin umbrella too if they hadn’t run out of them. Boo, hiss…Having a window seat has its disadvantages, like when you gotta go, you have to bother your fellow passengers. On this flight I was lucky because I had seat 10A and no one occupying the B and C seats. Queen of Sheeba, as the Champagne Lady battle cry goes! At any rate, over the North Sea, I noticed a plane approaching ours, and for the first time ever (I think) I was able to identify not only the model (Boeing 767) but also to which airline it belonged to (American Airlines). It passed us above and behind us, so it must have just taken off from Amsterdam because it was picking up altitude and coming from the south or southwest. Pretty cool and creepy at the same time – thank goodness Dave wasn’t there :-)
On approach to LHR, since we were a bit ahead of our schedule, we had to circle once (?) somewhere over northeast London. After that, the Captain turned off the IFE making it impossible to determine whether we were circling or just flying around the heavily congested airspace around and over London. Besides, flying in the clouds made it impossible to determine visually based on the sun what we were doing. At any rate, we approached LHR from the east approximately 10 minutes ahead of schedule. Considering that I had exactly two hours to make the up-and-down transition from Terminal One to terminal Five, I thought this was a good omen. However, the gate where we were supposed to park was occupied so we ended waiting for more than 15 minutes on the tarmac. Fortunately the Captain had left the IFE display screens down so that I had the pleasure of observing taxiing aircrafts from multiple vantage points. Gotta love LHR for that!
Once we were parked, it was a mad rush for everyone off the place; imagine the Pamplona run of the bulls but in the aisle of an A320! First it was an endless hike along the winding corridors of Terminal One. Remember that I was wearing my leather jacket AND carrying a Pregnant Squirrel on my back. Oh and a bag of goodies that I had bought in Helsinki tax free and on Finnair… All of this made the trek to the Terminal Five shuttle bus comparable to the Bataan Death March. To add insult to injury, there were no windows to catch a glimpse or two of airplanes. Fortunately once on the shuttle bus, which didn’t leave immediately but almost ten minutes later, I was able to rearrange my belongings, and dab a drop of sweat or two off my brow – a traveler comme moi does have to keep up that air of fresh and fabulous at all times!
At Terminal Five, it was up a flight of escalators (or was it two, I can’t recall) and another trek along an endless corridor until I got to a place that seemed to function like a place of triage (“You? Bangkok.. over there. You? Rio… This way please. You? Nairobi… Turn around and go to another terminal.”). A valuable word of advice for anyone traveling through LHR (wink wink, nudge nudge): keep your passport and boarding pass at hand AT ALL TIMES. At my “triage” path I had to show not only my travel documents but also ask questions about my address and my immigrant status in Canada (!?). However, unlike when entering the States by air, the lady who punched in my info in the computer was all smiles and friendly, and actually responded to my knee-jerk “Have a nice day”! I almost wish she really was as delighted by this standard North American form of bidding farewell asI thought she was… :-)
Up another flight of escalators, and I found myself at a place that I have to admit was the worst episode at LHR: the security check line. The line seemed endless, but in the end went surprisingly smoothly. Once again, I did not have to take out my laptop, but I did have to take off my shoes and belt – and still something beeped! It must have been my wrist band that normally doesn’t set off any alarms. And guess what – I was sweating bullets again!
Let me tell you something. Terminal Five is not just huge – it is huh-YOUGE! After the security check point and rearranging my belongings, I got the first true look at the new and infamous terminal. From where I stood, I could see shops till the horizon – and this was just the uppr level. Downstairs was the waiting area for flights leaving from Terminal 5A and even more shopping. It was like a hair under an hour to the scheduled departure time for my flight to YVR, so the departure gate hadn’t been posted on the monitors yet, similar to what they had done at Terminal One on my way to HEL.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have the luxury to peruse the numerous stores because moments later the departure gate in terminal 5C was announced. This meant that I had to go down a flight of escalators and get on a shuttle train. I still find this part a little confusing because I am still under the impression that the trains run to virtually anywhere and that if you don’t pay attention, you’ll end up in Sussex or something and consequently miss your flight. Somehow I made it to the right platform (and not for high tea in Sussex) meaning that I had to go up another flight of escalators. (Hmmm… I feel a song coming up) to the main level where all departure gates are.
I love British Airways (BA), and I know that LHR, which BA has virtually no control over, is run by BAA. I had asked the check-in lady in HEL if it were possible to be upgraded to Economy Plus, but she told me that I’d have to do that in LHR. Since there were still a good 20 minutes till boarding, I went to the BA service desk to see if I could still be upgraded. This is the conversation that followed with the BA (or possibly BAA) agent (more or less verbatim):
ME: Hi, I’m on the flight to Vancouver, and I…
STAFF: Yes, your flight is Gate **, but they haven’t started boarding yet.
ME: Ah yes, I’m aware of this. What I wanted to know is if it were still possible to be upgraded.
STAFF: Oh I’m terribly sorry, sir, but we don’t deal with money or booking issues. You’ll have to go back to the main terminal to that, but I'm afraid you won't have time for that [turns on her lip gloss at full glare].
Now that was helpful, wasn't it?! I don’t know what to think of this episode other than what a dimwitted twat she came across as, I mean in the way she approached my inquiry. So not only no upgrade, but I was also made to feel stupid for not having realized that of course to get an upgrade I should have acted earlier in the main terminal …
So now we’re a full 747-400 worth of passengers waiting to board a 9 hour plus flight in what I think was a ridiculously small area. The best part was that I knew that we’d have to go down one more flight of escalators (what’s up with this?!) because we were too high in the terminal just to sashay onboard our aircraft (G-BNLL; picture not mine). And sure enough, though the boarding began from the back of the aircraft, the way the gates were organized and how the passengers were lined up, it was not a very speedy process. Fortunately I had been assigned a window seat (37K in front of a bulkhead) next to a lovely couple, who had just flown in from Barcelona and their two week Mediterranean cruise. Scheduled departure time at 5:10PM came and went, and there were still passengers boarding. All things considered, we pulled back 35 minutes behind schedule, which also meant that we had to wait some extra time to actually get the permission to pull back and start taxiing towards the runway; interestingly we passed by OH-LXG that had not left LHR yet, so I got one last glimpse at the aircraft that had brought me so far. In the end, we took off 55 minutes behind schedule towards the west.Our nine hour flight began quite low first to the west, the sharply turned towards the northeast (I guess to avoid the airspace above Luton), and before picking up altitude and heading then to the northwest over western parts of Scotland and Vattnajökull in Iceland (unfortunately covered by a thick layer of clouds) off to central Greenland and easternmost parts of Canada over Baffin Island. It probably says something about the size of Canada when it took a bit over half of the nine hour flight to reach Canada’s shorline and then the rest of the flight was over… Canada! Despite the clouds over Iceland and parts of Greenland, the weather conditions during most of the remaining flight time were excellent so that I could see some dramatic geographic landscapes over Western Greenland and real icebergs – not just ice floats but icebergs! – floating in the Davis Strait. Lemme tell ya: there ain’t nothing up in the northernmost parts of Canada – just flat and covered in snow! It wasn’t until we had reached northern Alberta or thereabouts that the landscape started changing. We finally reached the Rockies, and I think this was the best view I’ve ever had of this majestic mountain range. Sometimes I wonder if I would have been happy as a geologist… Too bad by the time we started our descent that clouds appeared and covered pretty much rest of the flight over the Lower Mainland all the way to YVR.
Despite my disappointment thanks to the dimwitted agent in Terminal 5C, I still have to say I lurve British Airways very much. After a round of drinks (gin and tonic pour moi thankyouverymuch!) and a bag of pretzels, served Economy Class promptly, we were served dinner, which for me was pesto chicken; this time none of it dripped on my shirt. A bit over an hour before arrival, we were served a snack. This consisted of delicious triangle sandwiches and a stick of juicy pineapple - but much to my disappointment: NO CLOTTED CREAM. Clotted cream, served on my previous flights to the US with the pre-arrival snack, had been one of the selling points for me when I booked my flight to Finland. So what am I going to do now if I can’t rely on BA to get my does of clotted cream every once in a while?!? I’m forced to wonder what Virgin Airways or BMI serve on their flights, if they do serve clotted cream, and most importantly when will they start serving YVR? Only kidding: my love for British Airways (except for their ground agents perhaps) remains as strong as ever… :-)
I have to admit that with a thought given to healthy meals by airlines, I find it strange that this time and age both Finnair and British Airways did not offer an artificial sweetener in addition to sugar with any of their meals; fortunately I was prepared and had brought my own stash of Splenda. Another thing that I thought was seriously strange was the fact that immigration forms were not distributed until after the snack. My experience on previous crossings of the Atlantic has been that these forms have been distributed quite early in the flight and oftentimes even before the first meal. I guess the fact that Canadian customs and immigration forms are nowhere as intimating and nerve-wrecking (let alone the actual process at the airport) as the corresponding US forms might have something to do with this…
We broke through the clouds over Surrey, so that I was actually able to identify Dave’s work place and the huge flag pole near I, meaning that we were approaching YVR from the eastt. Thanks to the heavy clouds, I couldn’t see any of the Rockies that rise to the north of Vancouver, but I got to see Route One (Trans-Canada Highway) from the air. After some 10 minutes it was touchdown time, and a couple of minutes later we were docked and ready to get up and stretch our stiff legs. Ironically, I saw that there was an Air New Zealand 767 at YVR; now Auckland would be a killer destination – in more ways than one!
Immigration was a breeze despite the long lines. After a short wait at the luggage carrousel, I was able to pick up my prized luggage, and I passed customs without a hitch. All this within an hour after touchdown! I was expecting just Tuukka to be there to pick me up, but Mika was there too – and so was Dave!!! By this time, I had been up for over 22 hours, but I was still going strong – until we got in the car… that’s when the ocular screen savers began to feel heavy. Although I had initially expressed a desire to grab something to eat before hitting the hay, but by the time we got to Langley and I had done some unpacking, I was way too tired to do anything else than getting some shut-eye (none of that for me during the flight – I was too busy cross stitching!) and in a horizontal position around 9PM, 24 hours after I had woken up in Helsinki. Curled up to Dave...
Ahh home sweet home indeed :-)
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