Canada, finally, we meet
It feels like I’m traveling less as I get older. But what certainly happens, is that my journeys get more orchestrated. Travel, now, typically involves work commitments, which means having to be in certain places on specific dates. So, if I want to keep the costs down, I have no choice but to book well in advance, both accommodation and travel. Either way, longer distance travel, in Europe at least, can only be had at decent prices when booking well in advance, and as I can’t justify spending full price, work expenses still typically come out of my own pocket, my itineraries are now defined months before I fly out.
As an example, for this trip, we booked a one way from Paris to Rotterdam, on the high speed train, for 35 euros. Months in advance. As I write this, buying a ticket for tomorrow is not even possible. And, for the day after tomorrow, it’s 135 euros for a one-way ticket.
My Lisbon to Palermo flight was less than 80 euros. If I would buy that flight today, for tomorrow, it would be around 270 euros.
So, my longer journeys are now quite a bit more planned.
That said, on this five week European trip, I really had to check a certain number of quite specific boxes. I was to join my wife, Natalia, at a conference in Athens, we had to attend my mom’s 80th birthday in Holland, I had to attend a week-long conference in Lisbon, as well as a three-day meeting in Belgium. And, in between, Natalia and I wanted to spend some free time in Paris and somewhere in Southern Europe, which, for practical reasons, ended up being Sicily.
In Athens, Natalia was one of the invited speakers. And though this was a conference on international journalism, the organisers actually had money, and flew her out on business class.
As I had to pay my own way, and because since COVID flights between Latin America and Europe have not seen nearly the low prices they were regularly sold at before, I had to become a virtual contortionist to be get myself to Europe at a reasonable expense.
So, I flew via Canada.
Roughly doubling my travel time in both directions, it also allowed me to stop in different Canadian cities in each direction, which in turn gave me an opportunity to implement a project I’m currently working on which involves occupation of the public space.
This project involves enriching benches, with commemorative plaques. Not more than one per municipality.
The plaques are typically screwed into wooden benches, and, sometimes, the wood is tough. Sometimes very tough.
So, to ease my workload, I had gotten a portable electrical screwdriver. But, arriving at the security check for hand luggage at Guarulhos international airport, in São Paulo, I was off to a bad start. Both the electrical screwdriver, and the ‘stubby’ screwdriver, a very short manual screwdriver that has no long pointy bits, were both flagged and barred from going through security.
Once, shortly after 9/11, I had flown with a pocket knife, which I also was not allowed to take on board. Staff, then, was so kind to put my lone pocket knife in a little cardboard box, and check it in, allowing me to pick it up at destination.
Not so now, but I was told to talk to my airline.
Most airlines these days, thanks capitalism, charge for check-in luggage, meaning that I now only travel with hand luggage. I figured it a long shot that, perhaps, my airline would have one of those cardboard boxes lying around, but not so. I did learn that I could have checked in my hand luggage, and fly with only a personal item as my hand luggage, but besides that I didn’t have an extra bag on me to make this happen, I needed the screwdrivers, at least one, for during my stopover in Montreal.
I gave up the electric screwdriver, gifting it to an airline assistant, and tried my luck again with the stubby.
And, on the second pass through airport security, no one threw a fit. I have lost a few screwdrivers at luggage checks over the past year, but never a stubby, and also not always even a regular-sized screwdriver.
In Montreal, I headed into town to enjoy my 12-hour layover. I found a pleasant green city, with squirrels everywhere.
The bench I had scouted on Apple Maps before leaving, was made of very tough wood. But, I managed. Rewarding myself with a snack break from that Canadian institution, Tim Horton’s. The experience was somewhat ok. But, annoyingly, prices, at least in Quebec, are listed without tax. I had been under the impression that Canadians were not Americans.
A plus, and a way in which these Canucks set themselves apart from their southern neighbours, biking is common, with lots of street parking available for bicycles. However, bike parking also appears to be paid.
I heard Portuguese being spoken everywhere in Montreal, and the most advertised bakery product were pastel de nata.
And the city has huge murals of Leonard Cohen all over the place. Cohen was born in what is now Montreal, and is buried in one of the city’s cemeteries.
Another of my plans for my lightning visit to Montreal, was buying the new iPhone. But, it wasn’t in stock. Instead, I did manage to get a VisionPro demo. But, because I need custom lenses for the device, as I wear glasses, I didn’t feel it a good idea to pick one up and take it with me. Let alone that that meant I would have to carry it around Europe for 5 weeks.