Travelling again - part one

Sitting, masked, in the busy departure lounge at Toronto’s airport I stare across the tarmac and try to take my mind off Covid. Ah! Never before have I noticed Mississauga’s ‘Marilyn Monroe Towers’ from the airport. This diverts my fretting for all of ten seconds.

Following the usual pre-flight announcements, an incredibly irritating series of ads is on the inescapable monitors. Thanks to Air Canada’s need for money, the sound can’t be silenced. So we all hear Edith Piaf’s ’Non, je ne regrette rien’ attached to a Canadian bank’s blurb. I love the song, but it seems like a premature, final farewell as we lumber down the runway. The man in the seat behind enthusiastically sneezes. I prepare myself, as best as a sinner can, for the afterlife. 

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Surprised to find myself alive, over British Columbia’s Pacific Coast Range what I initially think is romantic mist turns out to be wildfire smoke.

Arriving in Vancouver, the mountains can’t be seen from from the airport. Even in the terminal my eyes are irritated. (Later: CBC reports that - no surprise - the fires mean Vancouver’s air quality is very poor.)

For my onward flight I clear U.S. immigration in Vancouver.

Immigration officer: ‘You’re going to the States?’

Me: ‘Honolulu’.

Immigration officer: That is in the States’.

Aside from that unnecessary observation, I’m also irked that, having checked the appropriate  U.S. government website, the proof of Covid-19 vaccination form I diligently filled out in advance, is no longer necessary. 

On into a transpacific sunset …

… landing safely at my destination. And so you, dear reader, get a tasteful, first  postcard.

I am staying, for happy reasons to be explained in the next post, in Waikiki. These pictures do not truly represent Waikiki, more the fantasy, but the compositions aren’t bad and will ease you into an account of my first trip since December 2019.

If, rather than read all the posts, you’d prefer just a quick flick through a compilation of what I regard as my better Hawaii pictures, go to:

http://trainsandboatsandplanesandtheoddbus.blogspot.com/2022/12/travelling-again-part-nine.html