Weblog Canada trip

The Terminal

maandag, 13 juni 2011 01:21

The night before i left to Canada I went to family in Amersfoort so that i would be closer to Schiphol the next day. It turned out to be a smart choise since my car sort of broke down on the way to Amersfoort. So i took my sisters car instead and still managed to get there albeit with a delay..

The next morning i waved my cousin and uncle goodbye as they left to France for the 24h of Le Mans. When the exhaust fumes of their rented Peugeot RCZ cleared up, it was time for me to head off to Schiphol. My mother and my aunt brought me to the trainstation in Amersfoort and there i got my second delay as the train had a delay of 10 minutes. Offcourse that wasn't as bad as the 2 hour delay i got with my flights due to strikes in Brussel.

Getting to schiphol. On the 3rd pic you see the woman who kindly guided me.

In the train to Schiphol i met a nice lady who was heading for Spain. We had a good conversation and when we arrived at schiphol she showed me around abit wich was nice because I've never flown on my own before and the last time i flew was in 2002 at the age of 14. I allready had my boarding pass so i only had to check-in my luggage wich only took a couple of minutes. Then i went through customs but that didn't go as well as they wanted to check my camera bag. I had to open up the bag and they took out all the contents. Since i was way on time and didn't have anything to hide I wasn't really worried but still it felt abit bad. At 4 in the afternoon I got onboard of my first flight of the day heading to Keflavik, Iceland.

Next to me in the plane sat a dutch girl and her dad who were going to Rekjavik. They had been to Toronto in Februari so they had some tips for me and showed some pictures of Niagara Falls in the winter which looked neat. We all got a free bag of crisps because of the delay and the drinks were complementary. At that moment i didn't think the bag of crisps was a big deal but later on, when i couldn't find proper food in the icelandic terminal, i appreciated it alot more.

Because of the delay we were arriving about 2,5 hours later in Iceland. Normally there are no flights coming in and going at that time of the day so the "restaurants" allready stopped cooking food and the shops were closing. This meant there wasn't much food around and that made the 3 hours wait pretty long. At a point i was the last traveller in the Terminal and i felt like Tom Hanks in the movie "The Terminal". After sitting and walking around for the most part i started a conversation with a girl who works at the restaurant and that made the waiting alot better. She looked up some things and gave me some information about Iceland which might come in handy when i will return there at the end of my trip. At first i got pretty bored at the waiting but when i had the conversation i actually found it a pity i had to go to customs to get aboard my 2nd flight.

The Terminal in Keflavik, Iceland

The plane in the 2nd flight was alot newer and more luxurious then the previous plane. I watched a swedish movie and on the chair next to me i put up a display were you could see how far we were, what speed and altitude we flew and how many miles we still had to go before reaching our final destination; Halifax. Unfortunatly there was fog when we finally arrived and therefor we couldn't see anything. Getting past the customs wasn't a big problem but i also had to go to immigrations and the woman behind the desk asked me questions for about 15 minutes. I even had to start up my laptop to show the adress of Bruce, who was waiting for me in the terminal. So after this last delay i got my suitcase and then i met up with Bruce. Finally, i was in Canada!

We drove home and after a trip which took 18 hours, with quite a few delays, but also meeting alot of new people and seeing new things, i finally arrived at my final destination. Time for a good sleep!