Ah, Friday. Our final morning in Toronto. We kept it simple, having breakfast at the hotel buffet – not too bad.

We then headed back to the room to finalise the last of the packing, before checking out and heading to the airport – the hotel organised the transfer and for a hotel-organised thing, it was a pretty good price. So we were all organised and ready for the fun and games of New York.

Then the email came through.

Oh, poop.

Since it was nearly time for us to head off we decided to keep heading off and go to the airport anyway – to give us the best chance of getting ourselves on any flight that may be available.

In the car on the way to the airport, bing goes the phone, another email comes in, from American Airlines. Our flights have been rebooked. (Yay!) …For Saturday.

Oh, poop.

It turns out going to the airport was a good idea – at least we were closer to the action and hopefully get better info about what’s going on, We spoke to the lovely staff at American Airlines, and even though they had no other flights available, they were able to get us on to one of Westjet’s flights instead. They even still let us into the American Airlines Lounge so we could wait out the next 5 hours til our new flight was ready.

The lounge was pretty nice – not a ton of food, but great choc chip cookies 🙂 We settled in to while away the hours. After an hour or so, Perry did a check on how the Westjet flight was going. And he found…our Westjet flight had also been cancelled.

Oh, poop.

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We queue to speak to the Westjet people. Hundreds queue to speak to the Westjet people. The Westjet people walk the queue and say – don’t queue to talk to the WestJet people. There are no flights. Phone the westjet people to re-book. For some other day. No flights today.

Oh, poop.

Plans are falling apart all around us. Holidays are collapsing. Homecomings are not-coming-home. Weddings are probably in peril. People are falling apart around us, too. Some are shouting, maybe hoping that yelling can fix the weather. No. No flights today.

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We’d checked in our baggage about two hours ago. At least now we know what happens in this (suit)case. It gets regurgitated out at arrivals … eventually. In hindsight it’s lucky we were just able to walk in and get it – once it finally arrived. As always happens with luggage that goes in at the same time … one bag will always take forever before turning up.

While we were waiting we checked our options. No flights of course. There’s a train – but only one a day and it leaves just before 9am. We really need to get to New York. We have shows booked up the wazoo and don’t want miss a single one. Especially the two we’re seeing Saturday. Which we won’t see if we get a flight (afternoon only) or the train (which would arrive Saturday night)

So we’re getting a Greyhound. Ridin’ the bus. Why take a 100 minute flight when you can take a 12.5 hour road trip, right? Still, when ya gotta get somewhere, ya gotta get somewhere.

Did I mention it’s also a long weekend here in Canada?

Anyway we’re kinda lucky. There’s a bus stop st the airport. We just had to find our way over to the other terminal but st least the train was free. And, being Canada, the people were helpful.

We’re on the first bus now – we have to transfer at Toronto for another one which should then take us, eventually, to New York City.

Ah well, this is not ideal by any means. But hey, let’s drink a toast to new experiences! Fetch the … wait, they don’t serve champagne on this bus?

Oh, poop. 🙂