Un long jour

Gare du Nord

We were up at 6am to begin our journey to Ottawa.  It was still snowing lightly when we stepped out into the cold.  I was tempted to take some more photos as the scene outside our door was pristine with only some footprints in the snow.  We were able to get to Gare du Nord fairly quickly, the only hiccup was that Bev’s ticket did not work on the initial gate but she was able to get her bag through and then hurdled the gate. It worked on all the other gates we had to go through.  Check-in (enregistrement ) for the Eurostar worked after the first attempt and a change to another kiosk (nothing in France that is electronic seems to work reliably such as gates, EFTPOS machines or in this case the check-in kiosk).  Once we had gone through French immigration then English immigration we were almost there.  The English immigration woman was very friendly and was not at all optimistic about our chances of getting to Canada saying that if it was snowing in Paris then it was likely to be just as bad in London and that nothing was currently flying out. 

We ignored that but it was nice to have a friendly person checking our passports.  We were in premier class so had slightly larger seats and a bit more room.  Not only that they even provided us with breakfast which we were relieved to have as we were very hungry.  The trip to London was slower than usual, and I was surprised to find that we were going through Lille nearly an hour and a half after leaving rather than an hour.  Then we got an announcement to say that we would be more than an hour late at London.  For some reason the speed picked up once we had gone through the Chunnel and were in England despite conditions appearing very similar. 

We had our eyes glued to the windows from the time we left Gare du Nord as the scene outside was one of blacks and whites.  Everything was covered in  a layer of fresh snow and as we were going through the very north of France I could imagine how cold and miserable it must have been for the troops in the First World War who were in trenches.  It must have been ghastly.  They were very tough men.  It also seemed supernaturally quiet not that we would have heard anything.  But there was very little traffic about and in the villages we went past you could see that it was pristine with no tyre tracks.  It  was at that moment I was sad to be leaving France.   

More Gare du Nord

In London we decided, given the shortage of time that we would take the Heathrow Express, as that would be quicker than the Piccadilly line.  However, by the time we got to Paddington we found that one train was broken and another was at a platform that we should have gone to if I had listened to Bev (another person told us different story). We were running very late.  So at great expense I rang Air Canada to confirm that we were coming.  I am not sure that did much good but at least it was noted on the booking.   As I said earlier we had discovered that our flight on Air France had been cancelled from the Internet. I had emailed Air New Zealand to organise some refund and they said they had found out half an hour after my email that the flight had been cancelled and that we had been booked on a flight at 1800 hours (much use that would have been to us).   I was a little worried once I got that message that from AirNZ that our London-Ottawa flight had been shifted but that had clearly not been thought of.  At check-in we found that they had closed the flight but they handled us really well and had us with boarding passes and baggage checked in fairly quickly.  Then it was through security screening where compared to the US they were almost relaxed.  We had to go to the gate immediately for boarding and sure enough by the time we had walked another kilometre (time indication was 20 minutes for the walk) they were boarding the flight. 

Once on the plane we found it to be half full if that, so there was a lot of room and although there was not much space between the seats it was not too bad as no one reclined into my face. 

We were really hungry and the wait was very long as it took them an hour to de-ice the plane.  The food on Air Canada is certainly not as nice as Air New Zealand but hunger overcame the blandness of it.  As I write this we are flying over sea ice which looks amazing!!

Later

We arrived into Ottawa Airport around half an hour late.  It took us a while to get through immigration as a couple of planes had arrived  at the same time bringing  back people from Florida or the Caribbean.  What struck us immediately was the difference in body shape.  After three weeks or so of relatively slim men and women we noticed that the girth of people, even relatively young people had changed considerably with many noticeably over-weight. 

Bev’s brother and sister-in-law (Graeme and Hedy) were waiting for us.  We then hit the even more frigid air of Ottawa which made Paris seem to be almost like a sauna in comparison.  Fortunately they had a very warm van and took us to their lovely warm house where they treated us to some really nice food, the standout in terms of taste and difference was Tourtiere.  It was like a pie with minced pork and some wonderful spice such as cloves, cinnamon etc.  It is a traditional French Canadian dish which I will have to find a recipe for and cook for Lisa when she returns from France.  

By about 8;30pm my eyes were closing involuntarily, not surprising as it was 2am Paris time.