Day 8 was all about waiting (for Chris) and MORE traveling (for Danielle)
Chris
Today I decided to preform some recon and better understand the CBD. Once Danielle arrives tonight she will only have one night in “The Holiday Inn Express – Vaughan”. While I have really enjoyed this place tomorrow its on the the Hilton for my birthday.
Rather than trying to navigate the CBD and parking etc on my own I drove to the nearest subway station and parked the car. As its Saturday the parking rates were fairly reasonable.
A vending machine dispensed me a transit card for $6 and I was away!
The subway cars are very open they look to be optimised for lots of standing.
I spent some time waking around the CBD and exploring the PATH system. I won’t go into much detail on that yet. Danielle and I will explore it properly over the next couple of days and report back!
After some exploring it was the reverse to return with the exception of I road a street car, under the street back to union station.
Once back at the hotel in Vaughan I continued the long wait. Checking on Danielle flights every step of the way.
Danielle
24 hours exactly and I arrived in Toronto. No issues leaving Kerikeri and a four hour wait in Auckland. Thank goodness for the lounge.
A last minute upgrade to Premium Economy and I was off. My long haul flight was all you could expect; long, with very little sleep and complete with a crying baby on and off. Even a medical emergency at one point (don’t worry it wasn’t me). But we finally landed in Houston around 4.30pm local time.
Getting through Houston was a breeze, the hardest part was finding the right area to start customs. My discussion with the customs officer was brief (about 20 seconds total) then off to find my bag. Drop said bag on a different conveyor belt and back through security. The dog search was interesting, everyone had to walk (more like march) two by two side by side (“STAY TOGETHER AND KEEP WALKING”) so the dog could run around you. We even had to wait for 1 minute so the dog could play with its bouncy ball. Found the sky train easy enough and then found my gate with about 10 minutes before boarding.
My last flight up to Toronto was very quick, and very empty. There were those who had paid for the first class seats, then me (see photo of my seat in the middle of the isle) then everyone else at the back of the plane. Pretty uneventful until we got to Toronto when my bag didn’t show. I thought I must be bad luck, last time we flew to Canada we lost our bags too. But it was there, just on a different convey belt. Dinner around midnight (finally got my Root Beer again) then proper sleep at last!
Together at last
After a long day which was delayed by another hour due to bag drama we are back together!!!! We had hoped for a nice airport photo to emphasise the point but the bag drama killed that.
This time driving back from the airport was much less scary even in the dark Danielle was very impressed!