Flying to Zurich

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Pat dropped the intrepid travelers (Cindy, Kate and Reg) at the London airport in plenty of time for them to check in, to get Reg on a wait list for the proper Toronto to London return flight (by mistake our perfect travel agent Roger had booked Kate and Cindy to return from Toronto at 4:45pm and Reg to return on a later flight at 7:00pm ... does Roger ihave feet of clay? Or is he after Kate?), and try to get our Air Canada frequent flyer forms. The idea is that because the trip is so many miles, we'd be fools not to sign up — that's Scott's good advice.

We found out the "Air Ontario" turbo prop commuter plane (see photo at left) leaving London for Toronto was going to be late so we cracked open the miniatures that Kate had brought and had some sandwiches that she had packed. We arrived in Toronto at about 7:11pm to board for an overnight Air Canada flight to Zurich at 7:45pm. After walking literally about a half a mile (maybe a slight exaggeration) we hit the Duty-Free store and bought some Double Vodka, Grand Marnier, and the Singleton. That should last quite a while on our travels and does.

A highlight of the Toronto Airport: as we were walking by one of the lounges we noticed a guy playing the piano very professionally, not a "lounge lizard". He wore ground crew apparel and probably was playing the piano for fun. 

In the boarding lounge in Toronto we met up with colleagues from the Toronto office who are attending the same conference and boarded a very large, mostly full, Air Canada plane for our overnight flight to Zurich. When walking through first class section we enviously decided that was the only way to go until Norm, a colleague, told us that seats are about $3,000! Ah, that's a bit steep.

Kate and Reg are in a two-seater on one side of the airplane, Cindy is on the aisle of a three-seater in the middle but fortunately no one is in the middle and a quiet gentleman is on the other side of her. The strange part is that although their seats A, B, and C are all on row 25, Cindy's seat is a row behind and therein lies a tale.

In the two-seater beside Cindy and behind Kate and Reg there were two older women who we assumed were together. The one on the aisle was older, with quite thin hair, and very religious: she prayed with her rosary beads as the plane was taking off. It was obvious that the breeze from the air supply was bothering her and couldn't be controlled. Cindy suggested through sign language (the woman did not speak English) that they might want to change seats with Kate and Reg. The idea was that if she liked Kate's seat they could exchange with them and they would then be sitting across from Cindy. The woman tried, and liked, Kate's seat and we were all smiles until the other women who we thought was with her made it clear that they were not together and she refused to move. Not very charitable behaviour — are all European's like this?

During the switch, when it became evident that the older woman did not speak English, that her seat mate would not move, and, while Kate was trying to get her to move back, the woman in front became involved. She spoke German and hoped to translate; but, it turned out, our older woman didn't speak German either — she was Hungarian! Anyways, we finally got the older woman to move back and Cindy, Kate and the friendly volunteer translator stood around chatting and giving the other lady dirty looks, like "What's it to her?", "Why wouldn't she help the older lady?", "Is this what the Swiss are like?", etc.

It turned out that the translator and her husband had been traveling since 3:00am this morning. They drove to Winnipeg from Regina and then flew to Toronto before catching this flight. She was fairly chatty and within 5 minutes she was telling Cindy and Kate how these hot sweats came over her all of a sudden. She looked a bit old for menopause, but Kate suggested estrogen therapy half jokingly. She said she'd had a hysterectomy 20 years ago and this just happened recently. This is a common conversation amongst middle-aged women — instead of saying, "How about those Blue Jays?", they say, "How about those hot flashes?". The topic is universal and cross cultural.

Kate went back to talk to the steward and he found a different seat for the older woman that didn't have a breeze. The translator, Cindy and Kate all agreed that they'd be happy to suffer with the breeze on them as they're all boiling with hot flashes. The older woman seemed to settle into her new seat quite happily while the other woman, who had refused to move, continued her snit.

Dinner was served at 10:00pm as Kate predicted. The menu consisted of an entrée of chicken or beef, served with a salad, rice, steamed vegetables, a roll with butter, cheese and crackers. The dessert was a mélange of fruits. The wine was a choice of red or white French  Plonk — Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC) mind you. And of course coffee and tea were served. Quite a nice dinner service.

After dinner Reg asked for a Scotch and the stewardess brought back an old fashioned glass filled to the brim — Kate thinks it was about 8 oz. of whiskey;  Reg says thank God he didn't ask for a double! Or perhaps he ought to have asked, "Can I have another just like this?"

The next few hours of our flight were uneventful as we watched a movie: Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington in "The Pelican Brief" (1993). Halfway into the movie the tape went wonky so they played some cartoons for a bit and then started the movie over again! The movie was still playing as they served breakfast before our landing in Zurich.

We tried unsuccessfully to sleep, but did catch a few Z's as we felt our eyes dry up. Overnight flights are not much fun but we made it safely to Zurich with pretty good service along the way. Many thanks to Air Canada and our travel agent Roger who organized this trip for us.

Slides scanned and notes composed during the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, March 2022 — as if living through the OMIGOD! COVID variant wasn't bad enough! The diary entries were made by Cindy, Kate and Reg at the time.